The biggest news story today is this. A plane has crashed in the French alps, killing all 150 people aboard.
I want to offer a bit of perspective, helpfully turned into a pretty picture by the Grauniad.
The figures for the whole of Europe will be even higher. 150 people on a
plane is news, but should it be the top story? I bet that many people
die every day in some hospitals.
Accidental
hanging or strangulation is far more common than air accidents. And as
for deliberate hanging or strangulation, or all forms of suicide...
these are 100 times more common, but still only 1% of deaths.
Or
go to Eurostat and find 8154 transport deaths in 2011, or 22 every day.
Alternatively, an air accident of this size every day would be 55000
deaths a year in Europe. That's the same order of magnitude as
'ill-defined or unknown causes' 9i.e people who've slipped through the
cracks), and still fewer than the 83,449 who died in 2011 from dementia,
for example.
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