Better drivers?

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

If pilots made for better drivers, then average pilots should have fewer
accidents in airplanes, relatively speaking, than average drivers do in
autos.

You can't make that conclusion or assumption.

Sure I can. I just did.

ok. sure, you can. But it isn't valid.


The only valid test of pilots making better drivers is to look at some
means
of putting pilots through drivings tests vs non-pilots. Looking at the
statistics of drivers involved in auto accidents to see if there is a
statistical diffence between pilots/non-pilots would be relevant but not
conclusive.

Even your proposed driving test would not be conclusive. Tests have biases
and inaccuracies too.

Well, of course a flawed test would be useless. But not all tests have
meaningful biases or inaccuracies.


That said, statisticians make a pretty good living discovering interesting
facts about the world through nothing more than simple study of the existing
numbers. If you really care, you might want to read the book
"Freakanomics", which has lot of interesting case studies in statistical
conjecture.

Discovering a correlation doesn't prove cause and effect, a mistake
way too many people make. Absent proof of cause and effect, these statistical
"facts" are generally just (potentially) interesting trivia.


Sure, it's technically conjecture, but there's very little in the world that
can actually be *proven* -- there is always a non-zero chance that the
attempt at the "proof" is flawed -- and statistics, when applied in a
careful manner, can reveal all sorts of interesting truths.

None of which supports your orginal thesis or even validates your approach.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

My sister says she'd rather ride with me in an airplane than a car.
Don't know what that means.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.



cpw wrote:
I apologize if this topic has been beaten to death in the past. I am
wondering if there are any statistics on whether pilots are safer
(automobile) drivers than the general public. It has seemed to me that
my pilot training has improved my driving skills in several ways:
situational awareness, planning ahead, general safe driving practices,
etc. Anybody have any opinions (HAH!) in the group?

In article .com,
"Gene Seibel" wrote:

My sister says she'd rather ride with me in an airplane than a car.
Don't know what that means.

Airplane rides are always more fun than mere car rides. :-)

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

"Nathan Young" wrote in message
...
This article presents results from a study that indicates that pilots
are less likely to have an accident than most other occupations.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...car/P63952.asp

Interesting data point, but it's addressing a different question. It's
looking at the accident rate per elapsed time (per year), rather than per
time spent driving. So it could be that the ones with lower accident rates
simply do less driving, rather than that they're safer when they drive.

--Gary

"soxinbox" wrote in message
...
When you get used to talking on the radio, tracking maps, scanning gauges,
pulling out approach plates, and tracking navigational aids, you get very
good at multitasking. When you get back in the car, you think you can read
a map, talk on the phone, and adjust the radio in heavy traffic, and it
doesn't work so well.

One of the most important skills when flying is maintaining situational
awareness. Keeping track of whether you're in a car or else a plane (and the
implications as to what tasks you can safely perform) is a pretty basic
element of situational awareness.

--Gary

"Jose" wrote in message ...
I think this is faulty reasoning. Unless you hide behind "relatively
speaking", it may be simply that flying is more dangerous than driving.

Jose
--
Do you really believe that flying is more dangerous than driving?
When was the last time you drove in any major city?
And how many times did you have to modify your speed, direction
or stopping distance because of another drivers mistake?

I find that I'm much safer in a plane than in a car.

The statistics show the 50,000 drivers die per year.
I believe the number for airplane accidents is around 900 per year
worldwide.
And if I'm not mistaken, the 50k is in the U.S. alone.

Can anyone back up the stats, I know I have seen them printed somewhere
before.

David

Nathan Young wrote:
On 9 Jun 2006 14:49:47 -0700, "cpw" wrote:


I apologize if this topic has been beaten to death in the past. I am
wondering if there are any statistics on whether pilots are safer
(automobile) drivers than the general public. It has seemed to me that
my pilot training has improved my driving skills in several ways:
situational awareness, planning ahead, general safe driving practices,
etc. Anybody have any opinions (HAH!) in the group?


This article presents results from a study that indicates that pilots
are less likely to have an accident than most other occupations.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...car/P63952.asp



Interesting. I'm an engineer and a pilot, but not a pilot
professionally. I wonder what that means? :-)


Matt

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
None of which supports your orginal thesis or even validates your
approach.

What approach?

You and Jose seem to be under the misimpression that I'm trying to prove
something here. You attack my statements on that basis, when in fact you
are completely wrong about my intent. Your argumentative replies are
irrelevant.

Peter Duniho wrote:

Given that I've seen no evidence that pilots on the whole are better at
avoiding crashes in airplanes than they otherwise would statistically be
expected to be, I see no reason to think they would be better drivers. That
is, if they can't even be better-than-average in flying than they'd be
expected to be, why would one expect them to be better-than-average in
anything else?

How on earth could the average person preform better than average? By
definition that is impossible.

--
Chris W
KE5GIX

Gift Giving Made Easy
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give the gifts they want
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from anywhere, for any occasion!
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"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
. ..
Interesting data point, but it's addressing a different question. It's
looking at the accident rate per elapsed time (per year), rather than per
time spent driving. So it could be that the ones with lower accident rates
simply do less driving, rather than that they're safer when they drive.

Indeed, and it only looks at professional pilots (possibly even only airline
pilots, given the all-too-common bias against other professional pilots
among people outside the aviation industry). If it's only airline pilots,
there's a clear bias there, given that the daily routine of an airline pilot
is often VERY different from that of most of professionals, with a lot of
time spent actually in an airplane or at an airport, at least when on duty.

Of course, the article also doesn't tell us what the sample size of each
population (professional) group is. It's not hard to imagine the
possibility that they didn't even have 1000 pilots in the study, making the
statistical error of that group (and similarly under-represented groups)
much higher than for other groups.

Note also that the study was done by starting with a database of 1 million
accidents, and then cross-referencing that with a database of insurance
policy owners. This is exactly the kind of statistical analysis that others
have complained about in this thread. Personally, I think it's useful to
the extent that one recognizes its limitations, but it's not going to
"prove" anything, especially to someone insistent on ignoring the data.

Beyond that, I think it's telling that while there appear to be genuine
statistical differences, even if one assumes that they are due entirely to
individual behavior rather than circumstantial conditions, there's really
not that much difference across the various professions, especially for the
"accident" category. For an insurance company, I suppose the difference
between 80 accidents in a year for 1000 people and 100 accidents in a year
could be useful information (insurance companies live and die on aggregating
huge numbers of experiences in order to get predictable outcomes), but what
that really says is that there's a lot of overlap in individual performance.

Even if one assumes that study is completely applicable, if anything what it
suggests is that *most* pilots are probably about the same sort of driver as
*most* other individuals, at least when it comes to having accidents.

Pete