People fly despite knowing that a certain percentage of airplanes crash every year. They “know” that fact yet find ways to qualify, and therefore soften, the knowledge. The most common qualification is the fact that it is statistically more dangerous to travel in a car than in an airplane. In absolute numbers, there are more than five million car accidents compared to twenty aeronautic accidents per year, so, in fact, flying is safer. People are also helped by etiquette; because commercial air travel is public, a kind of group confidence comes into play. People take comfort in one another’s
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