Other than disease, the most lethal risk to life and limb is accidents, which kill about five million people a year (out of 56 million deaths in all), about a quarter of them in traffic accidents.16 But except when they take the life of a photogenic celebrity, car crashes seldom make the news, and people are insouciant about the carnage. Plane crashes, in contrast, get lavish coverage, but they kill only about 250 people a year worldwide, making planes about a thousand times safer per passenger mile than cars.
