70 times more lethal than your commute.

[carvetia]

I wanted to quantify, just how dangerous is Formula one racing? I did this quickly so the figures are very rough... The methodology is somewhat flawed, and some statistics are also hard to get a hold of so there is some very nasty interpolation thrown into the mix too! Nevertheless, I think it is a reasonable conclusion I have come to that on average in the period from 1979 to 2008, you are 70 times more likely to die driving a F1 car than driving to the shops in Great Britain. Cheers, and happy commuting!

You can see the spreadsheet here. I made it so that anyone can edit the page if you wish to improve it . The areas where i cut corners are quite evident. For example, arbitrarily altering the number of cars depending on what i thought each season's attrition rate was like, as well as assuming all circuits are 190miles in total (though that actually isn't so far removed for reality ).

[PlatinumZealot]

Good food for thought. Also good that F1 is pretty safe nowadays.. I wonder if there is correspondence between the probability of death in F1 as compared to daily driving as the years go on?
Is road car safety and careful driving improving more than F1 safety as the years go on?

[Ciro Pabón]

Nice comparison. However, since 1995 it's infinitely (division by zero) more safe to drive an F1 car than to drive in England to a shop.

Conclusion: before going to the shop, get a superlicense and an F1 car. You'll go slower (at least, slower than a lot of young drivers in their VW Gols) but safer.

[mx_tifoso]

Conclusion: before going to the shop, get a superlicense and an F1 car.

Isn't that only part of the equation? As you also need other F1 cars, drivers, and circuits to be safe in an F1 car.

Without the rest you won't be that safe around buildings and humoungous SUV's and trucks, and cars in general.

[xpensive]

From the starting grid of Ronnie Peterson's first F1 race, Monaco 1970, 5 drivers or 25%, were later killed on the track.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Monaco_Grand_Prix

[Giblet]

I would be curious as to the number of injuries in a sanctioned race car at 100+mph vs the number of injuries over 100+mph in a passenger car.

[firbanks]

It is worth noting that the fatal accidents involving Villeneuve and Ratzenberger occured during qualifying, so to include those incidents in the analysis, the distance calculation should also include some estimate of qualifying milage.

[theblackangus]

Nice comparison. However, since 1995 it's infinitely (division by zero) more safe to drive an F1 car than to drive in England to a shop.

Conclusion: before going to the shop, get a superlicense and an F1 car. You'll go slower (at least, slower than a lot of young drivers in their VW Gols) but safer.

Brilliant!