Admittedly it is the kind of argument that needs some justification. Roughly what I mean is, a car in the middle of the desert will just roll until it stops because there is a lot of friction between the tires and the ground. By contrast a plane flying above the desert left to its own will crash and burn, because the dissipation of energy occurs at the end of its trajectory.
> a car in the middle of the desert will just roll until it stops
And an airplane will glide pretty far until it stops.
Every single pilot has practical first-hand experience with unpowered landings- they're on the curriculum when you're getting your license. It's a remarkably survivable thing to do, especially in a desert with a road like your example.
> Every single pilot has practical first-hand experience with unpowered landing
Considering many people can barely handle driving normal cars correctly, the number of average flying-car consumers that will have airplane pilot-level training, knowledge, skill, and maintain sanity in emergency situations like unpowered landings is minuscule.
I thought we were speaking generally, about today's planes, with today's pilots. However, you might be interested to learn about gyrocopters, which have the interesting property that, if the engine dies, or the pilot is incapacitated and releases the throttles, it will land automatically, by pure aerodynamics.
