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Comment by mindslight | Hacker News Reader

According to https://www.transtats.bts.gov/, there were 719 million airline passengers last year. The average human lifespan is 79 years.

Assuming each passenger wastes an hour being molested and arriving overearly due to uncertainty about how long the molestation could take, this means the TSA effectively kills over one thousand people every year.

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It's actually worse than that. Since 9/11 and the birth of the TSA, a number of people who need to travel a moderate distance (say, a drive of a few hours) have chosen to drive when they might have chosen to fly before. Air travel is statistically safer per mile travelled than driving. I don't have the link handy, but it has been calculated that this change in travel habits has resulted in an increase of driving fatalities of over a thousand a year. More people have actually died in traffic fatalities due to the TSA than died on 9/11.

How do you know they chose to not fly _because of the TSA_? What if it's the opposite and they chose not to fly out of (statistically ridiculous) fear of terrorism?

I don't fly because of the TSA. I have zero fear of terrorism on my flight.

Obviously you/we don't represent the majority. GP is a valid point, in that without polling the people who are choosing to drive [0], we don't know their actual motivation.

[0] Don't give the thugs any ideas

If the increase in driving happened at the same time as an increase in TSA, then you don't need polling.

Correlation is not causation. For example (as was said), an alternative mechanism is that someone actually believes the scaremongering narrative broadcast on TV, and is choosing driving to avoid the bogeyman^Wterrorists.

I've been on Amtrak long distance routes a few times over the past five years. Every single time, I have met someone at one of my meals who has said they choose train travel specifically to avoid all the security hassle. And then are always on the older end of the age spectrum. Sure, this is anecdotal, but I think it hints at an unease by older folks about the whole screening process and so they completely avoid it when they have the travel time to spare.

IMHO the dining car skews towards older people, as they're more likely to have booked rooms. My sample size is 2 (trips and meals).

I live in Seattle and have family in Sacramento, so I travel back and forth a couple of times a year, 750 miles each way. Driving takes three times longer than flying, door-to-door: but I still choose to drive whenever I can afford the time, which I generally can if it's more than just an overnight trip, because I don't want to deal with the hassle of air travel anymore. Flying was already inconvenient and uncomfortable; with the TSA involved, it's also become insulting.

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