walking between subway cars still safer than riding in a taxi

On a year by year basis, a lot more people are injured or killed riding in taxis than walking between subway cars. In 2006, an extremely conservative estimate is that three people died while walking between cars (but it actually could be as few as zero), and that’s out of 1.499 billion riders. During the same time period, 29 people died in taxi accidents, out of about “400 million rides”. If we use a vehicle occupancy factor of 1.1 persons/per vehicle (or taxi ride), that would be 440 million taxi riders.

Now for the real math:

RIDING IN A TAXI = 29 / 440 million = 0.066 deaths per million riders

WALKING BETWEEN SUBWAY CARS = 3 / 1499 million = .002 death per million riders

So once again we find that the December 5, 2005 rule prohibiting walking between subway cars is completely asinine from a safety perspective.

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2 Responses to walking between subway cars still safer than riding in a taxi

  1. Shawn says:

    You are assuming that every rider walks between cars? I would have guessed much, much lower.

  2. brian says:

    You’re right. So my calculations are ridiculously conservative. I’d say even bordering on the ludicrous.

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