From
Disease?
Famine?
War?
Accidents?
Violence?
Suicide?
Old Age?
I know plane crashes are deemed newsworthy, but it seems like it would be a very small percentage of all deaths. For example, I’ve heard that 400,000 Americans die per year from smoking related illnesses (maybe it is higher) which equates to 1,096 people per day, or ten times the number in a Concorde crash.
Who keeps these stats, and why is a crash such big news?
It is precisely because many people die of smoking related causes that each death is not newsworthy. There has never been a crash in the 30 years the Concorde has been flying so that makes it newsworthy.
In the US in 1995 the number of people who died each day of various causes:
heart disease: 2010
cancer: 1470
stroke 430
chronic lung disease 280
motor vehicle accident 110
other accident 130
pneumonia & influenza 230
diabetes 160
AIDS 120
Suicide 80
chronic liver disease 70
In the same year the average number of deaths from airplane accidents was less than one per day.
These numbers are somewhat surprising to me.
Only 80 people per day out of 300 million commit suicide?
There are less than 365 airplane-related deaths in one year? It seems even one major accident would account for half of that number.
> There are less than 365 airplane-related deaths in one year? It seems even one major accident would account for half of that number.
It would, but there aren’t that many major accidents.
The reason airplane crashes are spectacular news is because generally a plane crash causes sudden, unexpected, and spectacular death for those it occurs to. Cancer and heart disease causes slow, decidely unspectacular decrepitude to people whose friends have all died, and who have reached such an age that they are expected to die anyways.
The perception in our society is that death by mechanical means is preventable, death by disease is unpreventable. A plane or automobile crash thus leads to investigattions, while a cancer death leads to little more than a funeral. The 100 or so people that died on the Concorde crash are thus a tragedy. The 10,000 people that die daily of a heart attack worldwide are a statistic. Which makes better press: The Hindenburg Disaster, or a 97 year old woman dying alone after living 8 years on a heart-lung machine whose only personal contact is with the nurse who brings her gruel every 4 hours. Which do YOU think the networks would rather bring you press of.
I posted some fatal accident statistics for aircraft here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=26248
Anyone have worldwide statistics?
It’s even more basic than that.
Back in undergrad, I took a course on dealing with non-technical people. One topic was how people perceive risks. In general, people are much more willing to accept chronic risks, like smoking, than they are to accept catastrophic risks, like a plane crash. Also, people are much more willing to accept familiar risks than they are exotic or unfamiliar risks.
Driving a car is a chronic, familiar activity, so most people just accept the risks as a normal part of life. OTOH, most people don’t fly very often, so air travel is unfamiliar to them. Plus, aircraft crashes are catastrophic events, killing dozens or hundreds of people in one fell swoop. Add up these two factors, and it’s no suprise that so many people are afraid to fly, and that plane crashes are considered such a noteworthy event, whereas car crashes aren’t. It’s also no suprise that all of the people killed by smoking isn’t considered a terribly shocking outcome, whereas one person hurt by an absurdly improbable medical mistake is a sensational story. It’s just the way that we humans think about ‘danger.’
Dice, there was a book review in Skeptical Inquirer an issue or two back dealing with that topic. The name of the book escapes me, but it dealt with the way people overestimate certain risks and underestimate others. One example noted was that more people are killed each year, on average, from falling aircraft parts than from shark attacks, but we all know which one people are more afraid of and which they would estimate is more likely to happen.
People have this idea that thousands, or at least several hundred, people die in airline crashes every year, but it just isn’t so.
Biblio- Nice list, but there’s one missing; old age.
I suspect the medical profession no longer admits people “just stop breathing”, and assigns some disease as the cause of death. I also suspect that most of them are lumped under “ischemic heart disease”, ie, pulmonary blockage, which accounts for about 2/3 of all the heart disease deaths. You got any links on that?
The figure I gave for airplane accidents is incorrect. Looking over Johnny L.A.'s figures in the other thread, I realized my number must be low. Sure enough, I looked it up again, and the “less than one a day” figure refers only to commercial airline accidents, and excludes general aviation accidents. Two a day is a good approximation. I apologize for the error.
I definitely agree that risk is misunderstood. People tend to worry more about low-risk things (like airplanes) than high risk things (driving, smoking). To your point, I would add that “control” may be a big factor too. In a plane crash, you are a helpless victim. Smokers, drivers, thrill seekers, etc. feel more in control over their fate (whether or not it’s perceived or real control). I think that the feeling of helplessness is a big part of the fear.
TNTruth:
I know what you’re saying, but it’s fair to want more precision than just “old age.” No matter how old the decedent, no matter how many of his systems are played out, there’s going to be a proximate cause of death, whether heart failure or stroke or respiratory collapse.
Sure, if you’re a coroner and you’re faced with a dead centenarian face-up in his bed, you probably won’t bother ordering an autopsy. But if the proximate cause of death can be established, I think it’s better than just writing “old age” on the death certificate.