By your reasoning, it would be wrong to complain about cars which have a speed limit of 40 miles an hour, since "the nearest competitor" (bikes, horses?) would still be still worse.
Also, the driver can't use a laptop, but because of the driving activity itself, the driver is not so easily bored. Boredom is the main reason why I power on my laptop on a plane. Also, the other passengers can easily work on a laptop, watch a movie and so on. If you've got a 3G connection, the passengers can also go online - even I as the driven, I often find myself checking my emails while driving, plus I'm connected on Skype for the whole ride. The only problem here may be the comfort of your car, as you'll have problems having a laptop in your lap if the car is a small one. I also never get anything done on a plane when trying to work, especially because I don't have Internet connectivity, so I would rather listen to Podcasts or read a book and when driving Audio books are great btw.
So, related to comfort, I always prefer a couple of hours in my 10-year old Audi A6 over a plane ride. If the car ride is longer than some threshold, like the mentioned 6 hours, I do agree that a plane ride is better.
Why would you ever do that? If you don't care about your safety, at least make sure you're less likely to kill others, please...
Note: Number of lanes paints a much stronger picture, but I can't find a good map of that.
I'm quite fascinated by the interstate system; I think it's one of the more amazing things this country's managed to accomplish in the last century. I admit that I draw my sample set from just my experience -- I grew up in the SF Bay Area, go to school near Chicago, and spend summers in Seattle, so all my travel is huge E-W distances -- but I think even if you're right, you have a good argument for N-S rail systems and there's still enough E-W travel that air travel is still quite necessary.
1.6 billion hours per year
= 182648 person years per year
Divided by forty (perhaps the average number of years of life expectancy remaining for fliers)
= 4566 remaining lifetimes stolen
= equivalent of 4566 deaths
which is more deaths than caused by 9/11. Every year.
Nonetheless, flying could be an amazing experience. But fliers are some of the least happy people because they are treated either like criminas, children, or cattle. If the time isn't quite stolen, it is at least spoiled.
You can buy yourself out of this miserable experience by renting a plane. Of course, you might still get a security briefing by the pilot, as part of a checklist that he's already gone through hundreds of times while wasting precious time.
No, really. Especially iff
- you are leaving the country (...)
- you are a foreigner (that is: Everything but a citizen)
Everybody around me (including the airport) tells me to arrive ~2.5 (some say 2. Some 3) hours early. The procedure consists of
1. waiting in line forever, waiting for the luggage to be scanned
2. a passport check in that line, asking you questions about where you're from, where you stayed, what you did in Israel and if you happen to carry weapons or presents that might be bombs. If they are inclined to waste some time they are going to ask you for more: Do you know people in Israel? What are their names? Where do _those_ live? What's your connection ... it's something between a 3-4 questions interview and a nice interrogation
3. Your luggage was scanned. Someone is going to tell you to go to that place over there and unpack it. If it's your birthday or Fortuna is with you: Go to step 5.
4. Some guy/girl is ripping apart your luggage. Some are gentler, some really completely mess everything up.
5. The ticket counter! Get your ticket..
6. Wait in line before the security check of you and your carry-on stuff, metal detector, shoe removal station. If you don't have a laptop with you, go to 8
7. Your laptop is suspicious. You have to wake it up from suspend. Close it again. They x-ray it three times. They need to take it to another room, for a special treatment. After 30min they return, the laptop is not suspended anymore. It's off. You are supposed to prove (again) that it's a laptop and not a weapon of mass destruction. Powering it on, booting, logging in is not enough. 'Open a file!'. If you open a picture or a random text file in Notepad, you're good to go.
8. Proceed to the gate, please. You are late for your flight. Remember that for next time and get to the airport earlier, stupid.
Yes, it's that bad. Nothing is invented here, all experienced by yours truely. Not all steps are that bad all the time, but .. I wouldn't bet my ticket on having a lucky day..
- Taking off shoes
- Going through scanner-of-the-day
- Can't take any liquids on the plane.
And same procedure applies also to Israelis as well not only to visitors.
- I had to remove my shoes at the Ben Gurion airport. Granted, only once so far
- Agreed (scanner)
- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
And while Israelis have to do the same thing: If I travel with a coworker (we usually arrive separately) they pass all tests right away and have a couple of shortcuts (especially concerning passport control, inbound, for example). My experience with tourists, visitors and my own trips says that - well - foreigners start on the 'Might be a terrorist' scale at 3 out of 10, just because.
>- Braindead liquid rules still apply (maybe softened vs. the US? I cannot judge that)
I guess that it might apply more then usually when you fly to US. Flies to Europe/within Israel ok. You can buy whatever you want after security check and bring it with you.
Passport control shortcut, you probably mean electronic system. There is one like this in US for US citizens that I can't use :(
And yes, foreigners start with "Might be..." but usually it never goes beyond questions. "Luggage scan pass" Israeli might get only if they (scanners) are too loaded. In case line is short everybody goes through it. And Israelis can move to "might be" quickly in case they give "bad" answer. I once couldn't answer how old I am (I never know) and was questioned for 40minutes.
When I fly (as infrequently as possible), I have to budget at least 5.5 hours from my front door to boarding the plane. Here's my time budget based on 10 years of flying out of New York City from Newark (and occasionally JFK)
|-----------+----------------------------|
| Time (hr) | Activity |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 1 | Drive to airport |
| 0.5 | Find parking |
| 0.5 | Shuttle to Terminal |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 2 | ** Sub total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 1 | Check luggage |
| 1.5 | Security |
| 0.5 | To gate |
| 0.5 | Wait at Gate |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 3.5 | ** Sub total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
| 5.5 | ** Total ** |
|-----------+----------------------------|
The numbers are high enough that some people (not me) may be downvoting you because they think you're exaggerating.
Maybe I'm lucky not dealing with flying out of new york, but I usually leave about 2hr before boarding. I expect steps to take about:
to airport: 45min (subway, subway, shuttle)
check luggage: 15min (usually omitted)
security: 15min
to gate: 15min
wait: 30min
The camera angles and lighting are a bit surreal when watching it after having been up for 96 hours though.
(It's probably really hard to get the blood off the screen)
For ease of calculation we say that each person goes to the toilet twice during a workday.
And there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet.
That gives us 0.5 hour per person per day * 7 billion people = 3.5 billion wasted hours.
At a conservative estimate of $10 per hours, that's $35 billion per year. This does not include money wasted on water for flushing and washing hands!
It's clear from this that we have to stop people from going to the toilet during work hours...
</sarcasm>
Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year.
Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, ranging from backscatter scans to nail clipper seizures to water bottle appropriations. Once on the plane, they are again taxed by about 15-30 minutes on each end from the ban on use of laptops, including the emergency landing song-and-dance that the vast majority[1] of passengers have already seen.
So let's say conservatively about 2 hours in total. So 1.6 billion hours per year. At a conservative estimate of $10 per hour, that's $16 billion per year. This does not include the $8.1 billion wasted on the TSA itself.
[0] http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-03-29-airline-pa...
[1] In the unusual circumstance that a first time flyer is on board, a video could instead be played during check-in online, in the lounge, or on the seat back rather than slowing everyone down to look at the flight attendant. Would not be surprised if the percentage of first-time flyers on US domestic flights is less than 5%.