Why do so many people in the USA get upset about a plane crash..

[gerogie2]

when every day in the USA 44 people are murdered and about 90 are killed in car crashes?

[A HERETIC I AM]

1. Upset? Or curious? n/t

[gerogie2]

6. I think it is both.

But it is just interesting how the news will cover an airplane crash wall to wall meanwhile thousands starve to death in the third world without any story being written or broadcast.

[uppityperson]

7. Part of it is a lot of people fly and wonder if it could happen to them. Also "news" is a lot of

entertainment, designed to pull in people and sell ad time. Stay tuned! We havean update! Nothing new, but stay tuned we'll be back right after these ads!

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Because an airplane crash or similar disaster takes out a large number of people all at once.....

While people die in car crashes and starve to death one by one. It's the same reason a mass murder like the mass knifing in China the other day gets more coverage than an individual knifing.


For the life of me, I can't really believe anyone has to spell that out for you.

It's been that was since the beginning of news reporting.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

2. Why care about anything?

There's always something worse. If you don't understand why a huge airliner disappearing is a major topic of discussion, I don't know what to tell you.

[get the red out]

16. This

I was terribly sad about such a loss of life, I refuse to believe that is a "wrong" response to a the loss of an airliner.

[JI7]

3. why do you assume they get more upset ? as the first reply said, it's more about curiosity

[merrily]

4. Maybe because they think they have more control

over a car than over a passenger plane?

Also, I think more people have a generalized fear of heights than have a generalized fear of cars.

And, if a mechanical problem arises in a car, you can sometimes manage to leave it anyway. In a plane, you don't have that option.

Just guessing.

Fewer plane crashes than car crashes, but also far few planes moving in the air at any given time than cars moving on the ground.

[uppityperson]

5. I do not think it is just people in the USA.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Airplane flight seems like it should be impossible, at least on an instinctual level.

Part of our minds rebel at the thought of a vehicle weighing many tons and carrying hundreds of people that can fly. That's why so many people have such anxiety about flying. No matter how much we look at the statistics about how safe flying is, we still see it as a big gamble. When we see something about a plane crash, I think a part of our brain is saying, "see, I told you so!"

[Arkansas Granny]

10. I think much of it is because news is often presented as entertainment.

Very few networks and/or news readers stick to just the facts when reporting a story. They have to make it sensational and bring out the "human interest" in a story to appeal to the emotions of the audience. Why else would they shove cameras and microphones into the faces of survivors of disasters or the family members of victims to ask "how did you feel", "what went through your mind", etc. I rarely watch network news programs for that very reason. I just want access to as many facts as possible and I'll make up my own mind about how I feel about it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. It's a "surrendering control" issue.....

The idea of being helpless is a common nightmare, especially if someone is a control freak.

[DeSwiss]

12. Because people don't know that 44 people are murdered and about 90 killed in car crashes everyday.

Those deaths happen from 12:01 am until 11:59 pm all over America in distant towns, lonesome valleys, busy urban streets, congested highways -- over here and over there. And everywhere in-between.

But when a plane drops from the sky, it happens at once, in one place and one time and usually everybody dies.

- I think that's why people get upset. They're paying attention......

[mackerel]

13. A plane disappearance is a curious thing.

[MADem]

14. Because your examples are both common and individual....

and an air crash is communal and rare.

[Javaman]

15. because car crashes and murders are reported as single incidents.

1 here, 2 there...

while airplane crashes are rare and happen to a large group of people all at once.

just my opinion.

[Romulox]

17. Americans will watch the news to learn the fate of people halfway across the world...

but wouldn't cross the street to spit on people who live in the same town. It's just who we are.

[onenote]

21. Really?

Because I have been following the news about the fate of the missing aircraft and yet I also drove across town yesterday to volunteer at a homeless shelter and I am, and always have been, an American. From what I could tell, most of the other volunteers were Americans and also were following the news about the plane.

I guess I just don't know who I am.

[Glassunion]

31. I think what they are saying is Americans as a whole.

Sadly, folks who do care are in a very small minority. By and large the average American I fear really does not concern themselves.

I like to donate time as well, however there are usually a handful (about 10 of us), donating our time at some point or another. That is about .002% of the population of my town.

[JI7]

36. do people really think it's only the United States that is focused on this missing plane ?

[Lex]

18. Why care about people killed in car crashes when soldiers are dying in Iraq/Afghanistan?

When children are dying of starvation?
When people are dying of cancer?
When people are dying of gun violence?

Why care about anything because other bad stuff is happening too?

Oh, I don't know, because one bad thing is happening, it doesn't mean we should care about other bad things happening?

[ananda]

19. Why does a n y o n e get upset about a plane crash?

Why does a n y o n e get upset when fellow humans suffer
a disaster?

[Tsiyu]

20. There is the terrorism angle as well

When I first heard they had "lost" the plane, I had shades of 911 playing in my head. Would this jet resurface somewhere as it smashed into a building?

Remember, it was two planes that took out the World Trade Center, and that cost us thousands of lives.
So, yeah, Americans may be a little touchy about "lost planes."

[FarCenter]

22. "News" implies "novelty"

Actually, if you are in a small town or rural area, every fatal car crash or murder in the county will be front page on the local weekly. If a convenience store clerk is killed in a small town, it is sufficiently rare and novel that it is "news". If a convenience store clerk is killed in New York City, it is not news.

In the case of world news, a jetliner crash over open water with the plane disappearing is pretty unusual. There have been probably fewer than 10 instances.

Most of the roughly 200,000 people who die each day are unremarked by the world at large, even though a significant percentage die unnecessarily or in tragic circumstances.

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. Because I am human.

[gollygee]

24. Because I'm scared of flying

and I can't seem to keep myself from reading about the stuff that scares me.

[Iggo]

25. Walk.

Okay now chew gum.

Easy, right?

[Trajan]

26. Because people die in car crashes ....

We should not grieve the loss of other innocent human beings ? ..

Once you've seen one dead person, who gives a fuck about any other?

Because one person dies somewhere, then we stop caring about anybody else who might die on that same day?

Geez ... what a heartless fuck ... who says we don't care about the daily death toll? ... aren't you projecting your own disdain for human life onto the others you cynically demean by attributing your own misanthropy to them?

Yes, we DO care about all loss of life, unlike the careless image you project ...

[Mojo Electro]

27. It's curiosity.

A massive jetliner vanishes and still no trace of it has been found 3 days later, despite having a relatively good idea where it must have been. People want to understand what happened.

[liberal N proud]

28. Media - media - media

The media is making this a sensational thing, they don't do that for the murdered and crashes unless someone famous is murdered or there are 100 cars in the crash.

The media doesn't focus on things they can't sensationalize.


The media talks about plane crashes over car crashes because the plane is owned by a corporation and cars are owned by individuals.

And then the media sniffs something that sounds like terrorism and boom, they are all over it like steam off shit on a cold day.

They can't help themselves.

[onenote]

38. I think a plane disappearing with 239 aboard

and there being no sign of it anywhere, and evidence that a couple of passengers had stolen passports and that the tickets were bought by an Iranian man (at least that was the last report I saw), is inherently a sensational story. I don't think the media turned it into a sensational story.

[riverwalker]

29. If you don't care

about 260 innocent people being suddenly pulverized in an instant, then you certainly won't care about anything else.

[Nye Bevan]

30. Seriously? A jumbo jet loaded with passengers simply vanishes,

and you're wondering why this is a news story, given that lots of people die in automobile accidents?

This is not the smartest post of the day.

[onenote]

37. Best answer.

[okaawhatever]

32. Rarity. The chances of this happening are minute. There's also the, "this shouldn't happen" idea.

The same way we coo at pictures of dogs helping cats or some story about animals who are normally one another's prey becoming pals.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

33. What is Human Nature, Alex?

I mean, really.

[11 Bravo]

34. For me, it has something to do with elapsed time of the events in question.

Fatal car crashes are usually quick ... CRASH, BANG ... and you're dead.
But can you envision the visceral terror, lasting for perhaps several minutes, experienced by passengers in an aircraft that is in the process of falling from the sky?

[JI7]

35. why do people only care about other people hurting when they want to complain

about news focus on some other story ?

[IDemo]

39. I lost my father in a plane crash when I was 11

It kind of strikes home what a horrifying feeling it is to lose someone so suddenly and violently.