Comment by MostlyStable
2 days ago
The decision to not require seats is one of the best regulatory decisions I have ever heard of, and I wish this kind of thought process was more present in all kinds of places. The funny thing is that, I bet if it were used more broadly, given the absolutely enormous safety advantage that flying has over basically any other mode of transportation, there would be a non trivial number of other flight safety regulations that would get reconsidered.
Going back to pre-9/11 security screening would probably save lives. The extra time & hassle required to get through security (and the fact that only passengers can go through) means that some people drive instead of fly. Driving is less safe than flying, so some of those people die in car wrecks.
> The extra time & hassle required to get through security (and the fact that only passengers can go through) means that some people drive instead of fly.
I suspect it leads to more people not travelling at all (or much shorter distances) and net saves lives in both the relatively immediate travel sense and even moreso in the broader analysis including net carbon emissions and their effect in climate change.
(It is still a mix of corrupt corporatism and authoritarian conditioning that should be ended for that reason.)
I'm not sure I disagree. I don't have numbers but, anecdotally, you sure hear a lot of "But flying is such a hassle" which is sorta true but not sure how much more than it's ever been especially if you're willing to pay a bit more. I'm not sure how many people translate that into "So I'll just drive 1,000 miles instead."
In Europe (and the US Northeast Corridor), I do favor trains to avoid going to and dealing with airports, but they're no panacea either. And I say this as someone with the various passes that make flying easier.
6 replies →
I suspect it doesn't.
While I don't disagree and I think a lot of it is just nonsense security theater, it is probably worth noting that incidents of airline terrorism have fallen completely off the map in this new regime.
Not sure how old you are but bombings and hijackings of airplanes were just kind of a common fact of life when I was a kid and I was there on 9/11 as well.
There's at least some element of Chesterton's fence that could come into play here.
4 replies →
I would argue that high speed regional rail would address this as well. How many flights from regional airports to major hubs could be eliminated with a decent train?
Regular rail is already this, and for much of the Northeast is already roughly at or near time parity with flying, all things considered. If you have to arrive at the airport 2 hours early, and it takes 30 minutes-1 hour to leave by whatever means (renting a car, waiting for a bus or Uber, etc. + baggage return and simply walking through the airport), and then another 30 minutes-hour to actually arrive at your destination, arriving at your local station 10 minutes before departure and arriving in the city center/local destination station starts to look really attractive for flights of <2 hours/train rides of <6 hours.
High speed rail is only cost-effective between major cities that are within a few hundred miles or so. Otherwise you don't have enough passengers to recoup the cost of building & maintaining the rail system.
For example: Spokane to Seattle is about 230 miles in a straight line, or 280 miles driving. A flight takes less than an hour (not even 40 minutes of which is spent in the air) and costs $80-130 one way. A train traveling 200mph nonstop would take 1 hour 24 minutes. Building high speed rail costs $20-$200 million per mile (the upper end of that is California HSR). If we optimistically assume $20m/mile, constructing the line will cost $5.6b. If all SEA-GEG passengers (677k per year) choose to take rail instead of flying, and we want the project to pay for itself after 50 years, then each ticket will need to cost $165. This also assumes no cost to maintain or operate the rail line.
1 reply →
If you're comparing HSR to air travel with post 9/11 security then there's a a moderate number. However, once you have HSR that moves a significant amount of people, you WILL get post 9/11 security there as well, taking the number to approximately zero.
2 replies →
Do you have any evidence on this? As a personal anecdote, driving is as much a hassle if not more than flying, depending on the distance. I care more about cost first and time second. Even if you buffer in getting to the airport 2 hours early, flying is almost certainly the fastest (compared to driving and train, if available) unless you're flying from like, bos -> nyc. Security at airports hasnt felt like a hassle for me in years (at least the past six years).
I had two recent trips to the same destination. I drove once because it was so much cheaper (during the world cup when air fare was jacked up) compared to the train or flying. I flew the other time, because it was only a little more expensive and flying is faster and less of a hassle, actually.
Additionally, given the article talks about families, the cost comes down a lot with multiple people in one car vs multiple plane tickets. If we want to make travel safer by putting fewer cars on the road, make alternatives cheaper. They're already more convenient to me...
[flagged]
What happens when you factor in the downstream effects of carbon emissions (based on whatever the best projects are right now)?
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead.
Is this really why the rule was made? Did they really have safety of driving in mind or is this just in the interest of the profits of airlines?
It seems like if they really had safety in mind there are better solutions:
* Subsidize the 2nd seat for parents with children from tax dollars
* Criminalize many intentional driving violations
* Build high speed rail
> Is this really why the rule was made? Did they really have safety of driving in mind or is this just in the interest of the profits of airlines?
Yes. There are multiple public documents showing this, ex:
> The FAA has determined it is not appropriate to mandate the use of CRSs in aircraft now. We remain concerned that if we require children under 2 years old to be in an approved restraint system (which requires a passenger seat), affected operators might find it necessary to charge a fare for transporting these children. (Currently most, if not all, operators do not charge a fare for children under 2 years old who are held in an adult's lap.) In turn, for economic reasons some adults might decide to drive in automobiles to their destinations rather than fly. The FAA is concerned because automobile injury and fatality rates are higher than aircraft injury and fatality rates. As a result, there would be a net increase in transportation injuries and fatalities as families opt, for economic reasons, to drive rather than fly to their destinations.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2005/08/26/05-1678...
> * Subsidize the 2nd seat for parents with children from tax dollars
That's not something the FAA or DOT can do.
> * Criminalize many intentional driving violations
That's not something the FAA or DOT can do.
> * Build high speed rail
That's not something the FAA or DOT (unilaterally) can do.
> That's not something the FAA or DOT can do.
I mean, the head of the FAA and the head of the DOT can have a coffee chat with the president and get an executive order then? Anything is possible to do, apparently.