The Safest Method Of Travel

A friend of mine is coming home from New Zealand in a couple of weeks and will be taking an excessively long flight to get here. I don’t know how he can do it, seeing as I have never stepped on a plane before in my life. I am terrified of flying. Sure, people will tell me about how safe it is, and about how many people fly each year, or day, or minute. I don’t really care. I am doing everything in my power to stay on the ground when I travel. Well maybe on water also, but only water that’s attached to the ground. My friends and family try to provide me with statistics on the benefits and safety of flying, but I have some comparison stats of my own. Well, maybe not concrete statistics, but some pretty good ideas. For example, people say that there are more car accidents in a year than plane crashes. Well, that’s obvious. Especially when you consider the sheer number of cars on the road at any given time as compared to planes in the air. You never really hear to much about nose to tail air traffic, or about planes smacking into each other on a daily basis while flying around. Also, while on the topic of car accidents, you don’t get much of a warning when you get into an accident. You’re driving, singing along with the hot new Britney Spears song on the radio and “BAM!!!!” accident city. In a plane, you get time to think about it. You start to descend……..and you start to scream…….and then you run out of air, so you take a deep breath…….then you scream again……..then you get up and go to the bathroom…….you order a drink and some nuts from the stewardess, maybe a pillow too………you get back to your seat in time to grab the oxygen mask that flops down from the ceiling……..you scream a bit more………then you finally crash. Hmmmm, I think I’ll take the car accident. Plus, the likelihood of surviving a car crash is much higher than your chances of surviving a plane crash. You may be horribly disfigured, but alive. However, the safety of flying makes me consider the salaries of pilots. They make over $100,000 a year due to “The hazards involved with the profession.” The hazards? But we just heard that flying is so ridiculously safe. Safer than driving a car. In my opinion if people are going to get a higher salary for job hazards then pilots are seriously overpaid. They get to travel in the safest method known to man, while us poor shmucks on the ground are driving around in death traps! The real money should be given to cab drivers, they get into these ticking time bombs every day of their life!!! Let the reward match the risk, I say. Now last but not least, let’s talk about the boats. I don’t have too many figures on boats, but if planes are the safest mode of travel then boats must be lower on the safety totem pole. I’m thinking that maybe boats sink at a much more alarming rate than planes crash, but once again think of the survival chances. On boats you can swim away, if you get far enough away before the suction pulls you below water when the boat goes under. Then you only need to worry about getting tired and drowning, getting attacked by a hungry shark, or worse yet, getting tired and drowning while being attacked by a hungry shark. Or you may be lucky and get in a lifeboat. Not everyone gets a chance to ride in one, but your chances are not too bad. Especially if you a woman or a child apparently. Lucky for me, I am my mother’s child. Save me a seat on the boat.

Anyways, I’m out of here. Take it easy, and I’ll see you next time.