We could also compare the risk of other activities of which we have some intuitive "risk perception". What's the risk of dying per million hours of exposure to a wide range of activities? According to Failure Associates, a professional risk assessment firm, the numbers look like this:

    Skydiving     128.71
    General Flying      15.58
    Motorcycling       8.80
    Scuba Diving       1.98
    Living           1.53
    Swimming      1.07
    Snowmobiling        .88
    Motoring        .47
    Water skiing        .28
    Bicycling        .26
    Airline Flying        .15
    Hunting        .08

It seems a little odd that cycling should be safer than living! But all this means is that if you were magically immune to every other kind of risk, and you did nothing but ride a bicycle 24 hours a day, you would live far longer than the average person. In reality, some other higher risk (or inevitable old age) will eventually catch up with you. It's pretty intuitive that skydiving should be a hazardous activity, but most people would be surprised to find that cycling rates as safer than swimming! And most people would hotly deny that cycling is safer than driving (motoring).

BTW, I wonder why the strong difference between "Airline flying" and "general flying". Plus, I know riding trains is way below the minimum on that list.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}