More people are hitting the roads, railways, and air this summer. But is it safe? Are these modes of transportation going to get you safely from point A to point B? Let’s look at the worst ways to travel in America. Then you can decide what your plans will be. Let’s dive in!
Although airplane crashes and train derailments may be catastrophic, they don’t occur often. More people die in passenger vehicle crashes than in any other mode of transportation. In 2020, automobile accidents caused almost 39,000 deaths, according to the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Bus travel, although safer than passenger vehicle travel, isn’t safer than plane travel. There were 0.02 deaths per 100,000,000 passenger miles due to bus accidents in 2020 compared to 0.002 deaths per 100,000,000 passenger miles in airline accidents.
In 2020, there were 0.03 deaths per 100,000,000 passenger miles as a result of passenger train crashes. This amount is only slightly worse than bus travel. If we were to rank the worst ways to travel, first would be passenger vehicles, followed by trains, then buses, and then airplanes. However, there’s a massive gap between passenger vehicle deaths and train-related deaths.