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Your car won't fall out of the sky in the event of a malfunction so I guess cars are safer "when something goes wrong"? Then again cars travel with less margin of error to other cars and objects than airplanes.

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An airplane falling out the sky is something like the equivalent of the wheels falling off of a car traveling at speed. It's not that it can't happen, but it's hardly the only possible result of a malfunction.

There's also a giant speed difference plus the fact that a car will decelerate even if uncontrollably for basically any mechanical failure. Even at speed vehicle accidents are quite safe comparatively to a plane that has lost its ability to fly. A plane tends to have all or nothing incidents while vehicles have lots of accidents with a wide variety of severity.

Naturally that tends to push aviation towards avoidance of mechanical issues and on cars we are much more tolerant. I've seen people driving cars with their door duck taped on!

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