Bruce Schneier, a security expert, policy analyst and essayist stated that “Unless you’re a skydiver or someone who feeds sharks, getting in a car is the single most dangerous thing you do. The same number of people who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks die every month in car crashes, but it’s just so normalized, we don’t talk about it or think about it. But it’s crazy how dangerous it is.”

How dangerous? In the US, there were 33,561 traffic fatalities in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, approximately 11.3 deaths per one billion vehicle miles traveled, according to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. By comparison, only three people died in commercial aircrafts on American soil over the past three years. Air travelers die at a rate of 0.07 per billion passenger miles flown, according to a study from Northwestern University.