Fair and excellent points.

Assuming 20,000 miles traveled per year, it would take 50 years to reach 1,000,000 miles. So let's lay out the % odds of fatality over 50 years, at 20,000 miles per year, if using each of these means exclusively:

• Motorcycle: 21.3%
• Car: 7.3%
• Ferry 3.2%
• Amtrak: 0.43%
• Airplane: 0.07%

You're also getting at another important point: it is difficult for people to really comprehend very large or very small numbers. With that in mind, if we divide each of those percentages by 50, we should come up with the odds of dying in a given vehicle per year, again, given a 20,000 mile per year usage and exclusive use of one vehicle type:

• Motorcycle: 0.426%
• Car: 0.146%
• Ferry: 0.064%
• Amtrak: 0.0086%
• Airplane: 0.0014%

Of these, only motorcycle and car are anywhere near significant, and they're still really unlikely. The remaining three still are small enough to be essentially incomprehenisble. (And who travels 20,000 miles a year on a ferry, anyway?)

Another bit I would like to note is that the comparison posed was between car and train, based on safety. Why was airplane not mentioned? It's far and away the least likely to kill you.

Of course airplane wasn't mentioned. Airplanes are not appropriate solutions to many kinds of necessary travel, and airplanes in general have a worse reputation for their environmental effects. Trains are not solutions to many kinds of necessary travel, either, at least not in the current landscape of travel options available to very many people in the United States.

Again, I know exactly where I'm commenting. I definitely think that there should be way more public transportation options available. I think the number of individual-operated vehicle miles can and should be reduced. I think the kinds of individual-operated vehicles should be addressed more sensibly (we don't get to have the small pickups of the 80s and 90s because of unintended consequences of CAFE standards driving manufacturers to create larger and larger "light" trucks, for example).

Pointing out that "cars are 17 times more likely to kill you than trains!" does not serve the purpose of making a better world through transportation reform.

i think this community sees that as one of the negative consequences of a high car dependent place.

Precisely the issue of car dependent infrastructure

Or falling into the tracks from the station... Pretty gruesome

Abolishing airplanes altogether is one of the least thought out takes I've ever heard.

yea, not altogether. i commented on this before https://lemm.ee/comment/2119584 : air travel should be limited only to transcontinental travel or cross country in Asia's case (since its a bunch of isles at that point) efficient? ofc, moneywise and timewise. environemently friendly? dont think so. thoses tons of burned kerosene would translate into tons of co2 released, in a single flight. no wonder our globe feels like a microwaved cookware. fast and affordable have a cost.

i drew the analogy from the game warcraft: u only need to pay for a zeppelin when u want to reach somewhere that couldn't be accessed by land, in a map. we just live in a bigger map.

Very unlikely to happen in this area

You live in an area where that’s possible