Average speed 80kmh? (50mph) I wish!
I drive about 12000 miles a year and much of it is
70-80mph motorway, but when you look at the overall
average mph (my car computer tells me) it's about 35mph.
It's the bits around home (trips to the shops, the
office etc) that kill the average speed and, statistically,
are most likely to kill the driver too.
I live in a village 30 miles outside London, BTW
The average speed against distance suggests I spend
about an hour a day in the car - sounds about right
and probably typical for a highish mileage driver.

At 09:36 02 September 2003, Bruce Hoult wrote:
In article ,
(Martin Hellman) wrote:

When I got back into soaring in 1994 I had a similar
concern and
concluded that, within about a factor of two, soaring
and driving had
about the same risk of dying on an annual basis. That
estimate is
consistent with the UK poster who came up with 6000:1
for driving and
2000:1 for soaring in the UK, since my estimate was
rough. (It's hard
to know how many glider pilots are active.) Also,
it could be that the
crowded skies in Europe produce a higher fatality
rate.

On an hourly basis, that makes soaring much more dangerous
for the
typical pilot who flies about 100 hours a year, vs
drives about 500.

Who the heck (other than a professional driver) drives
500 hours a year??

The average car here in New Zealand does around 15,000
km/year, and we
drive a *lot*. If you assume an average speed of 80
km/h (which is
probably a bit low) then you're talking about something
like 200 hours.

I suppose there may be a lot of people in other parts
of the world who
spend a lot of time waiting at traffic lights, or in
traffic jams. But
that's not *driving*, and it's surely less likely to
kill you than is
driving at 100+ km/h. If you're going to count that
time towards
'driving' then I think to be fair you've got to also
count the whole day
I spend at the glider field, not just the hour of that
I spend flying.

-- Bruce