All things considered, flying is only 0.4 to 5 times safer than driving. Plus: two low-hanging fruit public policies to reduce the risks of flying and driving.
So much good stuff here! Some random questions/musings:
1. Could the truck driver lung cancer thing be more about second-hand cigarette smoke or something?
2. A lot of the deaths you're talking about disproportionately affect the elderly (and other vulnerable groups). I wish it were standard to talk about QUALYs saved instead of lives saved.
3. Your estimated 5-25% probability of getting sick from a 2000-mile flight sounds quite high to me. But in any case, I'm curious if you have an estimate of how much it helps to wear a mask on planes and in airports yourself.
1. Perhaps. Or petroleum vapors at gas stations too. Outdoor secondhand smoke is probably at least 1 oom less important than car exhaust but that’s just a guess. Living near a highway is a huge risk factor for asthma and lung cancer.
2. Yes, but this makes it a lot harder to do the math
3. The common disposable surgical mask as commonly used probably reduces your chance of infecting others by 60% and your chance of being infected by 30% according to gpt4
Petroleum vapors at gas stations would totally count as part of driving risk. And agreed on outdoor second-hand smoke. I guess I was imagining smoke-filled truck stops or something, but I suppose it's been decades since any such indoor smoking. A simpler, more generic theory is that the study tried to control for confounders (truck drivers themselves smoking more is an obvious one) but inevitably failed to fully do so.
So much good stuff here! Some random questions/musings:
1. Could the truck driver lung cancer thing be more about second-hand cigarette smoke or something?
2. A lot of the deaths you're talking about disproportionately affect the elderly (and other vulnerable groups). I wish it were standard to talk about QUALYs saved instead of lives saved.
3. Your estimated 5-25% probability of getting sick from a 2000-mile flight sounds quite high to me. But in any case, I'm curious if you have an estimate of how much it helps to wear a mask on planes and in airports yourself.
1. Perhaps. Or petroleum vapors at gas stations too. Outdoor secondhand smoke is probably at least 1 oom less important than car exhaust but that’s just a guess. Living near a highway is a huge risk factor for asthma and lung cancer.
2. Yes, but this makes it a lot harder to do the math
3. The common disposable surgical mask as commonly used probably reduces your chance of infecting others by 60% and your chance of being infected by 30% according to gpt4
Petroleum vapors at gas stations would totally count as part of driving risk. And agreed on outdoor second-hand smoke. I guess I was imagining smoke-filled truck stops or something, but I suppose it's been decades since any such indoor smoking. A simpler, more generic theory is that the study tried to control for confounders (truck drivers themselves smoking more is an obvious one) but inevitably failed to fully do so.