this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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My guess for ferries would be that most ferry trips are very short. That means less total travel per trip, so for the same risk per trip it gets much higher risk per distance.
As someone who lives on an island, and regularly takes a sea ferry though unprotected waters, (ie not through a bay or harbor, waves have 100s of miles to build) that stat makes sense to me.
Id guess a lot of that could be attributed to people falling and injuring themselves.
As my dad would have said, "Landlubbers don't respect the Sea."
That floor may be shifting 6+' in one direction or another, and people without their sea legs will be getting up for the head, snack bar, or just to walk off the seasickness, then falling as the boat shifts.
And theres a lot of metal, and protruding metal (bulkheads, cleats, even just the metal floors and walls, etc). Even when the sea is calm as glass, the boat can still shudder or bounce randomly as it hits a random bit of turbulence. And its common for small kids to be running around or, say, an elderly person walking with a cane, not holding onto a railing to take a spill.
Finally, theres generally going to be a wait for advanced medical treatment, until you make it to port. Ive seen one person med evac-ed out, by helicopter, so its possible, but that was a crewman who's arm was amputed by machinery. For the average concussion/ broken bone, theres only so much the ships medic can do, and you're waiting til the ferry is docked for an ambulance.
The other risk is lost at sea incidents. Ferries tend to have pretty good fencing/ railings to prevent people falling overboard, but people do dumb shit. Like climbing or straddling those railings. And if its even 15 minutes before someone reports you, at 12mph, thats already 3 miles the boat's traveled, making a large (and constantly growing) search area to find you in, and you're a tiny speck spot in a vast sea. I know our ferries have only had one in my lifetime (and it was deemed a potential suicide- solo traveler who turned out to have no arrival plans like lodging arranged, went missing off anight ferry)