xkcd #2940: Modes of Transportation
xkcd #2940: Modes of Transportation
Title Text:
My bold criticism might anger the hot air balloon people, which would be a real concern if any of them lived along a very narrow line directly upwind of me.
This is wildly dependent on infrastructure. Both for the convenience and danger axis.
motorcycles should 100% be in the zone of practicality, especially with modern sleek electric ones.
skateboards should be the bridge between practical and recreational, provided you have sensible infrastructure and short distances they have distinct benefits.
skis and sleds just need snow to make sense
I think the existence of car drivers increases their danger level massively
I'm here to say that if there's snow, skis win on practicality. Almost every winter, there's at least one day when you will have some people skiing to work in Oslo, a city of 700 000 inhabitants, with a metro system. Because when there's 10 cm of snow in the streets, skis are the quickest and easiest way to get anywhere.
You can be a skilled rider and still and a fall. More likely is that an unsafe car driver will do something that causes an accident.
But hardly for hot air balloons
Yeah, the joke and alt text are delivered quite nicely.
The placement of „Skis“ in this will trigger every Scandinavian I know. Should definitely be in the top left.
Trust you on that but will ski across the pond to check and be sure
Even us close to Scandinavia get triggered. There aren't that many practical ways to get around at winter. Skis work when feet don't.
I'm from the Scandinavian country WITHOUT mountains and with less snow and am as such not triggered.
You don't know me, though, so I guess your statement might still hold true 😁
Scandinavia is their zone of specialty
In Canada too. It's not that common, but also not out of place to see people doing their regular commute on skis.
Unicycles are clearly more dangerous than skis.
Cross country ski vs downhill ski
Technicalities:
Planes are safer per mile but not per trip. One could argue that if people spent the same amount of time in both then it would be far more fatalities on aircrafts.
Cars are technically the major source of danger for bikes and scooters.
also a fun fact, while commercial aviation is very safe, private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car (and you get a lot more miles per hour of travel)
That already fits with the chart - "commercial aviation" is "airlines" and "private planes" are "light aircraft".
private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car
that is because they are operated by semi-competent people who often have less practice then they have in car.
imagine how competent driver you are when you have your fresh license. it is the same with piloting license. and now imagine you are a hobby pilot and can afford to spend in the cockpit 3 hours per month. your skill is not really going to get significantly better. you are probably flying airplane that is at the end of its life, because that is only one you can afford, and there may be no one keeping an eye on you telling you "this is not how we do it, it is risky, dangerous, and you will get someone killed".
Someone else put it this way.
Sometimes I walk to work; sometimes I drive my car; other times i ride a bicycle. Whichever option I pick, I hate anyone who isn't doing the same thing.
Are hot air balloon not like super safe, last accident I think was a guy that made his own DIY hot air balloon but before that it has been relatively safe. I think America has only seen like less than 800 deaths total.
If the comic put in zeppelins...
You'd need to normalize the number to deaths per balloon ride.
Only three people died last year playing Russian Roulette, must be pretty safe! /s
Not sure I'd put unicycles as being safer than bicycles.
It’s probably there because you don’t reach as high speeds on a unicycle
There are basically no unsafe ways to get off of a unicycle. You can fall in any direction and just end up standing next to your unicycle. Compare that to a bicycle "over the handle bars"-accident.
Randall is offically carpilled
Hot air balloons are a very useful mode of transportation if your goal is to take aerial photographs from them (although admittedly nowadays you could also use drones). It's always a question of what you want to achieve.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aerial_photographs_from_hot_air_balloons
Interesting, that's the closest thing I've seen to a personal photo album on Wikipedia.
It is Wikimedia Commons, not Wikipedia. That is where most of the images used on Wikipedia and other WMF projects are stored. It has categories for nearly everything under the sun.
Bicycles more dangerous than cars? I guess I must have missed all the stories about people being run over by bikes.
I think it means more dangerous to use, not more dangerous to be around.
Unless you have pepper infrastructure.
Edit: sorry that's not true, see this from the Netherlands:
Voor het vierde jaar op rij kwamen meer fietsers (270; 39%) dan inzittenden van personenauto's (194; 28%) om in het verkeer. De meeste doden in het verkeer vallen onder ouderen: in 2023 waren 375 (55%) verkeersdoden 60 jaar of ouder. Kinderen (0-14 jaar) komen juist relatief weinig om in het verkeer; in 2023 waren dat er 20 (3%). Het risico om te overlijden in het verkeer, het aantal verkeersdoden per afgelegde kilometer, is het ho ogst voor gemotoriseerde tweewielers. Het risico voor brom- en snorfietsers en motorrijders is ongeveer dertig keer zo hoog als het risico voor inzittenden van een personenauto. Voor fietsers en voetgangers is het overlijdensrisico respectievelijk acht en zes keer zo hoog als voor auto-inzittenden, in de periode 2012-2021.
Translation:
For the fourth year in a row, more cyclists (270; 39%) than passenger car occupants (194; 28%) were killed in traffic. Most traffic fatalities occur among the elderly: in 2023, 375 (55%) traffic fatalities were 60 years or older. Children (0-14 years) are relatively rarely killed in traffic; in 2023 there were 20 (3%). The risk of dying in traffic, the number of traffic fatalities per kilometer travelled, is highest for motorized two-wheelers. The risk for moped and light-moped riders and motorcyclists is approximately thirty times higher than the risk for passenger car occupants. For cyclists and pedestrians, the risk of death is eight and six times higher, respectively, than for car occupants, in the period 2012-2021.
Bike on pedestrian violence is an epidemic!
I see what you mean about net safety and not just thinking about the operator of the mode of transport. Will look into this later.
and i suppose blimps and dirigibles are further to the right and lower than the graph displays u_u
where to put my 3 favorites? hovercraft, monorail and blimp
Those first two are incredibly fit for some niche that is so small that nobody even remembers it exists.
The last one is still more practical than hot air balloons.
I watched a documentary once about the dangers of monorails. The conductor had possums in the wiring. He called the big one Bitey.
Even with heavier propulsion, blimps and rigid airships are completely beholden to the weather as a light breeze can completely prevent landing or cause crashes.
I'm not sure I agree that unicycles are safer than roller blades. But that's probably because I am comfortable on roller blades and don't know how to unicycle, so for me, the opposite is true.
As both an extreme unicyclist & rollerblader, unicycles are actually incredibly safe. More safe than a bicycle. The top speed is very slow comparatively, and if you fall... You fall on your feet. Forwards? Feet. Backwards? Feet. Sideways? Feet. If your feet were strapped into the pedals (like rollerblades...) it would be a deathtrap.
I suspect that roller blades have much higher top speed, as well as being much more susceptible to small rocks
Trains and planes and others are a bit wonky for this chart. If I needed to take get to work, train and plane immediately resort to walking the entire way (unless get in a car, on a bike, fall just after). So while traveling across the country for a trip may be convenient on a train... Wait, unless I only have the weekend or a short work trip/vacation, because then it would take to much time and be inconvenient. Tried to find an example. Travel to Las Vegas from Nashville. Plane, ~3 hour flight plus let's say 2 hour travel and airport bs. So 5 hours there, 5 back. Driving: 26 hours (each way). Walking: Death by dehydration in desert. Train: not even listed as there was no routes.
What about pogo sticks?
Less convient but also less dangerous then hot air ballons
It took me too fucking long to figure out what an "airuner" was...
The Dyke Delta doesn't fit anywhere on this graph.
an American homebuilt aircraft designed in the United States in the 1960s and marketed for amateur construction.
Doesn’t get safer than that
Hmmm, Boeing vs me being paranoid about my own safety.
Where would horses go?
Motorcycles should be replaced with EUCs.
With helicopters it's more that they're expensive than unsave.
They are also significantly more dangerous than an airplane though. The skill and speed needed to cope with an engine failure is a lot less forgiving and helicopters nearly always spend more time at lower altitude. Also the number of mechanical failures that result in everybody aboard essentially guaranteed dying is higher in a helicopter. Especially vs a small airplane with a parachute (parachute systems on helicopters are extremely rare especially due to altitude requirements)
I really wish the x axis was average distance traveled and the y axis was danger.
I get that the way this graph was designed was for humor and to highlight hot air balloons, but if you’re looking for a safe vehicle for a specific distance, it really doesn’t help out in any way. It probably wouldn’t be safe to drive my car across the Atlantic Ocean.
Airliners should be below boats for convenience 😂 just because of airport security and bag collection...
Airplane least convenient for travel from bedroom to kitchen
Walking least convenient for travel to Antarctica
Iduno, travelling to Antarctica might be more difficult with skis than walking 😂
Oh, and because you have to get to the airport first with some other means of travel and then get to the terminal...
why are scooters practical and motorcycles not? I only ride a motorcycle. any distance too long for bycicle or inconvenient with public transit, I take my motorcycle.
The graph does say its practical, its just also more dangerous than a scooter
Edit: oh you meant in the zone of practicality, not the y axis convenient for travel. The zoning i feel is pretty subjective
Looks like only because they're presented as dangerous. Convenience - wise they're still the same. Practicality seems to be defined here as a balance between danger and convenience.
Now I wish I has a hot air balloon for my transportation optimization algorithm.
The fact that airplane travel is safer than cars is a myth invented to promote airplane travel. Well, it is not fully a myth, but to get to that result they measure per mile, and that greatly favor airplane travel. If you instead measure how likely you are to die on your next trip, then the dangers of airplane travel will significantly exceed car travel and other means of transportation.
This is complete horseshit.
Are you aware how many flights take place every day?
Vs
How many fatal accidents pr flight?
The fact is that almost every time a fatal accident happens in a (commercial) plane anywhere in the world, you hear about it. Because if a plane crashes a lot of people die in one dramatic (and rare) event.
Fatal car accidents litteraly happen every minute of every day. Almost none of them go on the news. (Cause reporting them all would be impossible).
Let me also post some sources, since you did not:
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-overview/odds-of-dying/
https://www.icao.int/safety/iStars/Pages/Accident-Statistics.aspx/ Air traffic: (3187 fatalities over 10 years)
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries (1.19 million people every year die on the road)
I think you underestimate the number of trips per car per day. Most people will take more trips by car per month than they will fly for their lifetime. In Sweden , a country of 10 million, we have about 150 people killed per year from car accidents, yet most adults travel by car daily. That is millions of trips per day, and only half a death.
Trains, scooters and/ motorcycles are convenient for travel? I mean sure, if you never carry anything anywhere and/or you love how every other person in the world smells after they finish their 12 hour shift of breaking big rocks with smaller rocks.
I cant believe bicycles and scooters are perceived as more dangerous than cars. They're slower, offer better visibility, and kill way less people.
Less dangerous to others, but more dangerous to the users themselves, I suppose.
Because of cars
I just saw a pedestrian get hit by a person on a bike and end up with a concussion. Bicyclists don’t give a fuck about others
Driving a car makes it more likely for your species to go extinct. Infinitely more dangerous than a bicycle.
Hit a pothole going 25mph in your car. Hit the same pothole going 25mph on your scooter. I'll come visit you in the hospital after the scooter one and we can talk about how cars are obviously safer.
I ride an electric scooter, all it takes is one crack in the road that I'm less than prepared for and I'm going down hard.
I wonder what kind of scooter most people pictured when reading the comic
The roads are shit here. So badly cracked that I vibrate violently when I try to ride my scooter over them at like 10km/h. And that's while dodging potholes.
They are more dangerous exactly because of the existence of cars. Cars are a small fortress that makes others less safe while keeping its contents safer. Unless they hit another fortress.
Even if there were no cars, I imagine biking is still less safe than walking. Just like running is less safe than walking.
That only makes sense if you cycle among cars, but that makes cars dangerous, not bikes. If you remove cars out of equation by cycling on pavement or cycle route, the danger is gone.
Pedestrians get hit by cars all the time yet walking is rated the safest.
Heeeeell no. I had I minor fall on a scooter last week. I slipped at medium speed because of an uneven wet floor. I'm still fucked up and can't walk properly
A mere fender bender on a car might be a life or death situation if you're riding a motorcycle.
Hmm. It seems that Sync posted my draft comment 😔
Well try getting hit by a car while walking. According to this xkcd you'll be the safest.
I believe the danger axis is about danger to the passengers, not others
Tell you what, you drive your bike into a car and maybe the concussion will change your thinking enough to make it believable that bikes are more dangerous.
We're not rating danger for the damn planet here. It's obviously danger for the user - that's the one who's buying the product. Why would anyone care about the safety of others over their own safety?
As long as I can slice vegetables using my car door I don't give a damn about pedestrians.