I wonder what happens if you compare driving to other activities, by stretching them out to the 3-4 trillion miles - but in time and then compare death rates. E.g. taking swimming 2hrs per day (maybe equivalent to the 2-3 hrs spent in cars daily). Higher or lower death rates?
Do you know what 'residential fire' means? I'm imagining a scenario where my residence is on fire, which would seem to be high-risk (but is somehow the lowest risk).
It's a time-based rate based on (presumably) lifetime hours. Obviously if a residence is on fire, you're at high risk. But the rate of that happening is quite low.
That would make sense, except the unit is 'Fatalities per million hours'. Maybe they mean "fatalities from residential fire per million hours of living in a residence"?
The problem with the unqualified "per million hours of living" is that sky diving doesn't kill more people than passenger cars.
It must be "fatalities from X during Y", and that makes sense when X and Y are the same thing (e.g. sky diving), but it seems like X and Y diverge in some of these entries.
Though even skydiving has a very different time/risk profile than, say, mountain climbing (however you care to define). If skydiving time is measured only by time from leaving the plane to hitting the ground, you're measuring a fatality rate against a pretty short interval of time. (Same with scuba diving.)
Whereas other activities that may have similar risk profiles for typical "active participants" may have much different rates relative to the time spent actively participating in the activity.
There's no single metric that really represents a correct view.
For some, "fishing" means "getting drunk on a boat, with no real intent of seeing a fish." Alcohol is a very common factor in boating accidents, somewhere between 15-50% depending on which source you look at. (I think the higher end of that range is likely closest to the truth.)
This is true for commercial ships too. Drug use (both alcohol and various illegal drugs) is something humans turn to when they are bored, and life aboard a ship can be very boring. If it gets exciting again while you're impaired that is likely to go very badly wrong very quickly.
Airline pilots have sometimes been caught, most flights just aren't long enough for you to be sober at both ends yet drunk during the flight - but for the crew of a tramp freighter so long as they sleep it off before they come into port nobody will know - unless there's an accident and suddenly everything is happening with unseemly haste.
I think it shows the limit of time-based normalization. E.g. hunting and snowmobiling come out very safe per hour, but a typical participant might spend many more hours in those activities.
That the rate (not time based) for fishing is so high does seem a bit odd. I wonder a bit what all is being lumped in there. I assume it's because it's an activity that can involve water, boats, and sometimes alcohol.
Even if you're on the shore it's easy to slip and hit your head on a rock. Also, many other sports that are listed self-select for athleticism or physical ability.
