The history of transportation is full of deadly bus accidents; cases when everyone or almost everyone on board was killed.
A vehicle which has a larger mass decelerates more slowly. (Mass isn't the only factor, but how it's distributed and how the vehicle crumples.)
The mass helps you only if you are secured to it, so that you decelerate at the same rate. Whether the vehicle stops in 0.2 seconds or 0.05 seconds, if you're loose, you're flying and hitting something. Something that has stopped by the time you hit it. Or something outside of the vehicle entirely. When you hit something, the deceleration of your body or body part is all that is relevant.
A standing passenger can fall and get seriously injured just from hard braking.
cases when everyone or almost everyone on board was killed.
And:
A standing passenger can fall and get seriously injured just from hard braking.
I can point to Muni of the early 2000s. Their then-new trams experienced frequent emergency brake applications in the tunnel because reasons. It got so bad that the braking computer was changed to reduce the rate of deceleration during emergency braking. People were getting hurt, twisted ankles and whatnot. I can't remember anyone dying inside one of the trams. Ever.
The last fatal automobile collision I can think of was idk yesterday? Four dead. Six injured. But that was up in the north bay. The most recent fatal traffic collision I can think of in San Francisco was on the 19th (so about a couple weeks ago).
Here's a non-fatal wreck where the bus was hit hard enough to do a 180. No deaths and six injuries (some of the injured were pedestrians).
The probability of being in a collision in a transit bus may be low, and the word "safe" covers this idea; but that doesn't speak to the severity of the consequences of the collision.
Statistics about deaths mix the two together are hard to interpret: are there low deaths because the frequency of accidents is low, or because their severity is low? Or what mixture of the two?
In statistics about automobile accidents, I would expect there to be a high preventable component: deaths due to neglected use of seatbelts as well as operator negligence: distracted, drunk or reckless driving.
What is the deaths-per-100M miles figure for automobiles, if we count only the deaths of seatbelt wearers, where the driver wasn't drunk, distracted or otherwise reckless?
(That doesn't mean those people would have lived if they had used a seat belt; that can only be estimated. However, the same page cites a high rate of seat belt use for the same period: 90.3%. So 51% of the day-time fatalities are coming from the 9.7% unrestrained passengers/driver population.)
that doesn't speak to the severity of the consequences of the collision.
So speak to it instead of posting disingenuous hypotheticals. For instance in San Francisco it's not that hard to find examples of Muni or Caltrain colliding with other vehicles.
Here's a vintage streetcar colliding with a semi. Three injuries. None life threatening. One treated at the scene (so presumably more minor).
