There are reasonable measures those around you can take to ensure that falling objects don't crash into you from the sky, or that the bridge you're on does not collapse as you're driving over it. The risk is mitigated by reducing likelihood and impact.
There is nothing a pilot can do to avoid an air pocket. There is little mitigation possible.
But then it's not about safety. It's about your need to feel in control of the situation even if the control is an illusion. That is fair in a way but saying it's a safety thing or that people are crazy for not needing to feel in control all the time isn't fair. Or even calling them crazy for not doing the same ultimately meaningless actions as you to create an illusion of control for themselves
So let's say the media started a campaign promoting wearing a helmet all the time. The anti-helmet people would be painted as reckless, feckless, and generally deplorable. All the celebrities would endorse wearing a helmet at all times. There would be New York Times editorials about "those people".
Questions:
Is this still about risk mitigation? If yes, are you at risk now? Why don't you wear your bike helmet at work all day? (never know when a ceiling tile could fall down)
Would your opinion change following this hypothetical media blitz? Would you hop on the bandwagon and decry the irresponsibility of the anti-helmet folks?
If you think about this for a second before hitting that downwards pointing triangle, does this dumb example mean that it's actually more about what's socially acceptable than actual safety? Why would you feel dumb wearing a helmet all day now, and dumb for not wearing it in that world?
A smart, independently minded person, would do the following risk analysis:
- Planes fly through the atmosphere in varying conditions.
- The conditions that lead to uncomfortable or dangerous turbulence are not at all uncommon.
- These conditions are unpredictable and have little warning.
- Wearing a seatbelt is a very minor inconvenience, and will protect me from the worst of the harms that can come from common turbulence.
- I will wear a seatbelt.
This doesn't seem complex.
The argument about bike helmets, although nuanced, should have nothing to do with celebrities wearing them or not.
> - These conditions are unpredictable and have little warning
Not true at all. The vast vast majority of turbulence incidents are very well predictable. It's not 1930 anymore.
> - The conditions that lead to uncomfortable or dangerous turbulence are not at all uncommon.
Except your flawed logic in the previous point flows to this point. The question isn't turbulence but unpredictable severe turbulence which is much rarer. About 1 per million flights I think which is far from common.
> A smart, independently minded person, would do the following risk analysis:
Given the flaws in the risks analysis I find this sentence hilarious.
"The vast vast majority of turbulence incidents are very well predictable."
On the large scale, yes, on the scale that causes a plane to drop a meter at very short notice, no they aren't. If they were, I wouldn't have been in planes that dropped a meter without any warning. Your "1 per million flights" is probably based on statistics relating to reported injury (correct me if I'm wrong). Those statistics would be skewed by many factors, not least people wearing seatbelts.
I've flown probably around a few hundred times. I've experienced uncomfortable (spilt drinks, rollercoaster feelings) probably about ten times. I've had actual dangerous turbulence (both times, as you say, with warning) twice. Once into Frankfurt, once into Singapore.
On a couple of flights the turbulence warning from the flight crew has come through after the initial experience of turbulence.
I'm not saying we're not good at detecting it, and I'm not saying it's super common, but your one in a million number is wishful thinking.
By the way, I actually love flying, and I still regard it as an incredibly safe way to travel, but wearing a seatbelt is still a good idea.
They do. I've flown many (more than 100x in some years) and I can't count how many times that pilot / co-pilot has announced upcoming turbulence and turned on the seat beat light.
The chance of an airplane hitting major turbulence unexpectedly, while pretty small, are much higher than the chance of some random debris falling from a building while you are passing by. Ultimately it's all weighing the inconvenience against the possible safety improvement: when you are sitting in your seat in a plane, the seatbelt is a very minor inconvenience. Wearing a helmet all the time is a much bigger inconvenience, with a much smaller benefit.
We DO recommend that individuals with high risk of injuring themselves wear helmets. People have varying levels of risk tolerance before they take steps to mitigate them; I'm sure some people choose to wear helmets because they estimate the risk of falling to be too high. In your hypothetical, I would probably not care, because to I and to most people the risk of falling at any given moment isn't high enough to warrant mitigating it. On an airplane, your risk of encountering turbulence is markedly high, enough so that it is worth mitigating. If you disagree then feel free to take your belt off, but don't complain if you die a very avoidable death. (Not that you could at that point.)
Well, and in fact, helmet wearing at least in the US has become normalized in situations where no one other than competing athletes wore helmets for things like skiing or casual biking a few decades ago. Today you stand out by not doing so. Heck. Professional hockey players didn’t use to wear helmets.
yes, your example is still about risk mitigation, but it's also a not-so-effective slippery slope argument likely motivated by a contrarian anti-masking stance. the reason there is no social pressure to helmet at all times is that we generally agree as a society that the inconvenience is not worth the minimal risk reduction.
this risk calculation is messy of course, as we all have different tolerances for inconvenience and risk, and we also have different responses to individual vs. collective risks.
There are reasonable measures those around you can take to ensure that falling objects don't crash into you from the sky, or that the bridge you're on does not collapse as you're driving over it. The risk is mitigated by reducing likelihood and impact.
There is nothing a pilot can do to avoid an air pocket. There is little mitigation possible.