From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.individualism
Subject: Re: "Helpful" government (was Re: Private Discrimination)
Date: 20 Aug 92 14:35:50 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL

In article <1992Aug20.132002.4962@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@isis.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>lp> Loren I. Petrich
>gs> Gary Strand
>js> Jim Stiver

	[Regulation: little kids on planes have to be in special seats
that take up one airline seat each]

$lp> But where would the little kids go if not in a special seat?

>  Their parent's laps.

$lp> If the plane starts hitting some turbulence or has a rough landing, the
$lp> poor tyke can get quite a bounce. Now is _that_ very safe?

>  As I recall, the number of kids' deaths that could have been avoided if the
>  kid was in a child seat on the plane was <10 over a decade. Obviously, the
>  FAA failed to do a life/life analysis of their new rule.

	Does that mean that they are _supposed_ to be careless about
safety in the supposed interest of economics? How many families would
be driven into cars, anyway?

	And let us not forget the possibility of injury. If you've
ever had any experience with a little kid, you know how they like to
wiggle and squirm around. A little kid isn't likely to heed warnings
of turbulence or rough landings, and wouldn't even recognize either
thing if it happened. And there isn't enough room between each seat and
the one up front in the typical airliner. So it's VERY easy for a kid
on a parent' lap to get a bad bump on the head.

	That's the same reason for putting little kids into special
seats in cars, also.

	And how much extra cost is it for a vacationing family to put
a little kid in his/her own seat? For a family of 4 with one kid very
small, it would be 1/3 extra; for a family of 3, about 50% extra. Some
airlines may offer discounts for such travelers; ask about family fares.

$lp> There is a third option: going by train. Although a train will be in motion
$lp> longer than an airplane will over the same route, trains are generally
$lp> cheaper, and often more conveniently accessible. And if they are fast
$lp> enough, trains can successfully compete with airplanes on relatively short
$lp> routes. Airline travel has actually declined on some routes served by
$lp> high-speed trains like the French TGV.

>  All fine and good. However, trains just aren't in the American mindset as
>  an acceptable form of travel for significant distances. Parents, having
>  decided that buying an extra plane seat for Junior's child seat is too
>  expensive, are much more likely to decide to drive the car than take the
>  train. That's probably what I would decide if I was going from here (ie,
>  Denver) to Chicago, LA, New York, or whatever. Common use of trains to
>  get from A to B is much more prevalent on the Northeast corrider than it
>  is anywhere else.

	I can agree that trains are out of the picture for a trip
across the continent unless one has a lot of time on one's hands and
one wants to see the scenery close-up.

	Is driving across the continent a worthwhile option? One would
have to be a serious masochist to want to do that. Let's see how much
it costs. Driving 3000 miles at 60 mi/hr takes 50 hours of driving.
With 8 hours/day on the road, that turns out to be over 6 days. This
means at least 5 nights in motels. At $30/night, it turns out to be
$150. $60/night is twice that. If one has a 30 mpg car (necessarily a
rather small one) one would need $120 of gasoline. For less fuel
efficiency, one would have to pay more. The total: _at least_ $270 for
a one-way trip.

	One would also have to buy food along the way; at
$10-15/day/person (typical fast food), it amounts to $60-90. Feeding 4
people, two big and two small, thus costs about $300. Adding to the
fuel and sleeping-place cost, I get $570 for a one-way trip and $1140
for a round trip.

	A cross-country car trip starts approaching a comparable
airline trip in expense!

	Where's the great economy?

$lp> But I doubt that Gary Strand would have a very high opinion of Amtrak...

>  When it starts running in the black on a continuous basis, I'd say sell it
>  and start saving us taxpayers money. Heck, sell it now, and save us money
>  now. Why should *I* subsidize it, when a private company can run it just
>  as well, or better, than the Feds?

	And also do that with roads and airports. If travel subsidies
are to be a big no-no, they must be a big no-no for _everything_.

	I suspect that, when all the numbers are counted up, trains
and buses will beat out cars except for thinly populated areas and
airplanes except for _very_ thinly populated areas like Alaska and
very long distances.