Comment by glenra | Hacker News Reader

Comment by glenra | Hacker News Reader

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Airport security makes flying much more expensive (both in time and in money) and inconvenient and generally unpleasant than it would otherwise be. So many people who otherwise would take a plane on a short trip choose to drive instead. Some of those people die needlessly in traffic accidents, since driving is orders of magnitude more dangerous than flying. That's the primary mechanism of harm.

A common estimate I've seen is that roughly 500 extra people a year die due just to the added security costs post-9/11.

A little googling finds a few relevant popular-press articles including these:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-...

http://www.wired.com/2012/04/is-airport-security-killing-500...

One of the relevant academic papers is by Cornell University researchers Garrick Blalock, Vrinda Kadiyali, and Daniel H. Simon, “The Impact of Post-9/11 Airport Security Measures on the Demand for Air Travel,” published in The Journal of Law and Economics in November 2007. (pdf here: http://dyson.cornell.edu/faculty_sites/gb78/wp/JLE_6301.pdf )

This comment is correct. People do avoid flying in particular because it is so annoying and humiliating. I know this anecdotally from talking to both frequent and infrequent flyers, and I believe several statistics and studies bear it out, though I haven't carefully analyzed the methodology.

Additionally, the economic costs of slowing and discouraging plane flight are staggering. The loss of people's time spent waiting in the airport is a tangible economic price. Thousands of human hours wasted daily. The security procedures make what should be very short trips (for example, New York to DC) inconvenient enough that it becomes a toss up between plane, train, and car. In my opinion, this is a significant step backwards for our effective infrastructure.

I seriously doubt that a $5.60 fee has a significant effect on demand for $200-$500 plane tickets.

If that were the case, one could argue that the overpriced food at the airport also kills people.

As for your sources: The paper linked by Business Week doesn't say anything about the price of airport security deterring people, rather it is about the aggregate group that substituted driving for flying after 9/11, which has a myriad of causes. It does not support the assertion that the price of the TSA kills people.

The second link asserts that the time spent due to TSA procedures puts more people on the road, but I doubt this for two reasons: 1. security has been quick and efficient in my 2x-4x flights per year experience and 2. the rule of getting to the airport 1 hour before domestic and 2 hours before international flights existed before 9/11 too. So if somebody spends 30 minutes in a security line or 5 minutes, that affects their time twiddling their thumbs at the gate and not their travel time (and therefore doesn't really impact the decision to fly or drive).

Personally, I don't fly if I don't have to. The cost of flights has nothing to do with it.

The way things are now, I feel threatened in an airport. Especially a US airport, though Canadian ones aren't much better. I feel a heightened possibility that my valuables be stolen from me. That it's done under the color of law makes it even worse than being in a rough neighborhood.

Some may say this is unreasonable, but I know two people who've been stolen from by TSA.

I'd rather drive 8 hours than be subjected to a warrantless search.

Do you know they were stolen from by the TSA, or by baggage handlers? Getting rid of the TSA wouldn't solve the latter problem.

On case is someone I know directly, the other is a friend of a friend who I haven't met personally.

Both alledged thefts were of jewelry in carry on, so if the allegations are true then it was TSA.

We are forced to divest ourselves of metalic objects and then put them through an xray, out of our sight, operated by a low class, unaccountable workforce.

Going through there gives me this mix of feelings: anxiety from being on my guard, fear that I may lose costly property, anger towards whose who designed this awful system and the liars who enable it, pity for the poor losers who work in it, and despair that Americans allow themselves to be treated this way - like chattel.

TSA theft happens all the time. They have the ability to take stuff from passengers basically with impunity. What are you doing to do, start a row in the security line?

http://rt.com/usa/tsa-stealing-from-travelers-358/

As a matter of TSA policy. They're directed & empowered to take things which are harmless (save for absurdly extraordinary efforts with minute operational payoff), under the threat of "give this up or lose your paid ticket".

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