CYVIN

I was also thinking about the differences between driving a car and flying a plane.  Right now, we pretty much accept that there are hundreds of car crashes happening at any given time for many different reasons - drivers not paying attention, drinking, etc etc.  So, the government has mandated many safety features - airbags, anti-lock brakes, seatbelts, and on and on.  Cars are designed to absorb impact energy to protect the occupants in a crash, and many other fundamental changes have been made to keep people safe WHEN they crash.

Now, the air industry is completely different.  There are almost NO safety features.  You get a seatbelt, a flotation device and some oxygen.  There are no crumple zones, no airbags, and no real development in the safety of planes.  No, the focus in airline safety is EXCLUSIVELY on prevention.  How do we make sure pilots don't crash?  How do we make sure engines don't fail?  How do we make sure they don't run out of gas or fall into disrepair that leads to a crash?  How do we make sure that two planes don't collide?  Any all in all, we're pretty damn good at keeping planes safe.  If we could channel some of those lessons learned to the driving world, we would save many thousands of lives probably with a few simple changes.

Anyway, that's sure to be controversial because the entry requirements for getting behing a 2 ton car that can go 100+mph are very low and we feel that it's our right to drive.

There's definitely a "big brother" element to the prospect of treating car accidents more seriously by examining more closely the causes - through black boxes and the like.  I'm not crazy about the idea to be sure.  I'm sure if my TL had a flight recorder that someone checked I'd be serving life right now

I do think that a lot more focus needs to be put on preventive measures, though.  Active speed control that won't let you ram into the car in front would be nice.  Better driver instruction and testing would be nice too.  I hear that in Germany, you have to keep your car in good working order - and in fact, you will be fined for running out of gas.  Here in the US, people run out all the time and with the convience of AAA and roadside assistance from either their car manufacturer or the local highway patrol, it's little more than an inconvenient wait whilest someone fills you up on the side of the road.

One thing that I do think would help a lot, and I'm not a big fan of it, is banning talking on cell phones while driving.  I talk on mine all the time, but the built in hands-free deal in my car makes it pretty easy and safe, IMO.