Every year, the same debate comes in mind of numerous people. Which way of transportation should we use to move around? Most would agree that the simplest way to move in the US is probably the car, but it also takes a lot of time to cross the country. Some could be tempted to take a plane, which is fast, and supposedly safer. But is it really?

Here are some statistics from 2015 which relate about safety while traveling. Drivers have a 1 in 114 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash. The risk is almost 6 times smaller if you are just a car occupant. Most accidents that are train related are the results of trespassing which makes that way of transportation relatively safe. Traveling by boat also have very small risk since 90 percent of the accidents were caused by recreational boating. According to the DOT, you have a 1 in 9,821 chance of dying from an air and space transport incident.

The result of these statistics shows that public transportation is the safest way to travel, but there are numerous reasons that can explain why public transportation and particularly airplanes are so safe nowadays. The first main reason is all the testing an airplane goes through: wing flexibility testing, ingestion testing, temperature and altitude testing, velocity minimum unstick testing, etc. A second reason is that when a crash does occur, there are a whole community of experts to understand why it happened. If a problem is present on the model of the airplane, every model is called back and tested again, which costs them a lot of money.

Now aware of these statistics, don’t be afraid to take off anymore because that pilot if going to fly safely.