Question of the week 28: Omnipresent

Hi and welcome to this week’s question of the week! For this week, the word ‘omnipresent’ will be covered in the following question:

Which mode of transportation carries the lowest omnipresent risk of fatality?

The term omnipresent stands for a danger or problem that is present at all times, such as a disaster that can occur at any time, a prison where criminals fighting each other is omnipresent, or the noise pollution from living close to an airport.

The modes of transportation are air, land, and water. For simplicity purposes, air transport will cover airplane travel, land transport will cover travel via cars and trains, and water transport will cover boat travel. The following list shows the number of fatalities per billion km, journeys, or hours traveled for each of the 4 forms of transportation mentioned:

	Fatalities per billion KM	Fatalities per billion journeys	Fatalities per billion hours
Airplanes	0.05	117	30.8
Cars	3.1	40	130
Boats	2.6	90	50
Trains	0.6	20	30

(source: http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/risks_of_travel.htm, originally from an article by Roger Ford)

Depending on how one looks at the statistics, airplane travel can carry the lowest omnipresent risk of injury. 0.05 people are killed due to an airplane accident over a span of one billion kilometers. However, when looking at it from the number of journeys and number of hours perspective, trains carry the lowest omnipresent risk.

It must be noted that whilst the media portrays the fact that airplane travel is the safest mode of transportation, it is really difficult to find factual and statistical information on this as it is not public knowledge. As such, the data used in this article represents what was attainable at the time of writing this article.

In short: Omnipresent stands for a danger or problem that is present at all times. Examples include the risk of a flat tyre, or the risk of a natural disaster, as both could happen anytime. Depending on how one interprets data, airplanes and trains can be seen as having the least omnipresent risk of fatality.

If you have any other thoughts or ideas, then please do not hesitate to leave a comment!