Andy Weir webcomic surprise

Holy fuck! I just learned that the author of the Martian is *also* the author of the webcomics Casey and Andy and Cheshire Crossing", which I'd enjoyed years ago.

Edit: Cheshire is pretty solid, if abortive. I remember enjoying re-reading Casey, but I think it must pick up somewhere further down the line; the early strips are hit-or-miss gags.

comparative transportation safety

British source. Nice because it looks at per trip, per hour, and per km. OTOH it doesn't separate intracity and intercity modes -- and a 10 mph city bus is a lot different from a 60 mph coach on the highway. http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/risks_of_travel.htm

An American source, press-releasing a couple of PDFs. This leads with personal safety: you, personally, have <10% the death risk if you take transit rather than a car. http://www.apta.com/mediacenter/pressreleases/2016/Pages/Hidden-Traffic-Safety-Solution.aspx
The linked fact sheet says cars at 6.5 deaths per billion passenger-miles, all buses (transit, intercity, school, charter) combined are 0.2


And another American one http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/jun/11/peter-pantuso/bus-association-head-says-buses-safest-mode-commer/
Gives 6.1 for cars, 0.5 for *commercial* buses. This implies that transit and/or school buses are below 0.2, for that to be the overall average. I'd have said "way below", but transit buses might be responsible for most of the bus mileage.

Cars kill close to 40,000 Americans a year; if we used buses for almost all local trips, that might be 4000. Or 1300. The price of car freedom is 36,000+ lives a year.