How does the fatal accident rate for, e.g., professional drivers compare with the average worker? I imagine crewing a ship is more dangerous, but humans are famously bad at evaluating risk.

So being crew on a merchant ship is more dangerous that cops (by far), and probably more dangerous on say a 10 year timeframe than being in the military (since you probably aren't at war that much over 10 years, unless you are unlucky).

For the British merchant fleet, 19.5 deaths per 100,000 seafarer-years [1].

For American loggers, 90 deaths per 100,000 worker-years [2] making it the most dangerous job.

For American taxi drivers, ~18 deaths (of which 8 are murders) per 100,000 full-time-worker-years [2]. Making taxi driver the most murdered profession - and it was worse around 2000, when the rate was an eye-watering 23.7 murders.

As you say, policing isn't the most dangerous profession; the rate there is 11 deaths of which 3.5 are murders.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/64/4/259/1464740 [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/28/chart...

Its probably including fishing which has I would imagine a much higher rate than crews on a cruise liner.