[SentraSE-R]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Once upon a time I mathed out the odds of becoming a highway fatality; found the data for fatalities/miles travelled, and whatnnot.

The odds of becoming a highway fatality are something like thus: you'd have to drive 24/7 for like 350,000 years before your number comes up.

This is what's causing a major national freak-out?

If someone wants to math it again to validate/correct, great. I ain't doing it again, felt like it was ignored/disbelieved the first time anyway.

I got your back, Frank

From wiki, 1.5 deaths/100 million miles traveled = 1 death/66.7 million miles.
60 mph X 24 hrs X 365.25 days = 525960 miles/yr driven @ 60 mph
66,666,667 miles/525960 = 126.75 yrs to drive 66.7 mlllion miles

You were only off by a factor of 3,000

So the odds of cashing in your chips via auto is less than once/lifetime. We knew that. Let's look at something more realistic - your chances of being injured in an auto accident.

There were 2.9 million auto accident injuries in 2005, and 42,643 deaths that year. That means your chances of an injury are 2,900,000/42,643 = 680 times greater than dying. If you're going to die in 126.75 years of driving, you're going to get injured in 68 days.

More realistically, with 300 million people in the country, 1 out of every hundred is going to be injured in an auto accident every year. If you drive 50 years, you've got a 50%-50% chance of being injured in an accident. Would you rather have it happen in an 80s tin can, or in the newest whiz-bang car with all the current safety features?