O O Ø O O O O
777
It’s Pint Day DCCLXXVII—777 in your more conventional, yet humourless Arabic numerals—and though “Pint Day of the Really Big Plane” is not nearly as catchy as our last themed date (666—Pint Day of the Beast), recent events have left me with little choice but to once again beat our favorite Tuesday horse to a bloody stain: airline travel.
If you’ve been living under a rock, you might not be aware of the “temporary” measures that have recently been enacted at the airports. At present, liquids, gels, and randomly chosen objects of slightly-less-than-solid consistency are not allowed on planes. This is presumably to protect us from “liquid-based bombs”—the latest evil terrorist plot to destroy Western civilization.
Sick of this relentless pursuit to make air travel the least comfortable means of travel imaginable, I decided to do a little research. Just how likely am I to be blown up on an airplane anyway?
According to a recent Boeing report, there have been 26,431 airline-related fatalities in the last 49 years, meaning an average of 519 worldwide are killed aboard aircraft each year. Now these statistics are a little unfair, since the refer to the entire world. Canadian and US-based carriers actually accounted for only 6,081 of those deaths, or around 124 fatalities a year. In other words, my chances of dying in an airline accident in a given year are about a third as likely as falling to my death from a ladder (417 deaths in 2003, according to the National Safety Council).
That doesn’t seem too likely.
But wait—those numbers are airline fatalities, not terrorist-related activities. Checking with the National Transportation and Safety Board, I see there were 582 incidents in the 20 years since 1986. At 29 deaths per year, this ranks somewhere between deaths by “contact with hot tap water” (26) and “bitten or struck by dog” (32).
In other words, not bloody likely.
So why have we gone off the deep end when it comes to airline security? If we’re trying to defend against suicide attacks, aren’t airlines just one of a multitude of targets? What about subways and train stations? Movie theatres? Shopping mall food fairs? Hospital emergency rooms? Are we going to implement invasive screening procedures everywhere that more than 50 people congregate?
Of course not. That would be ludicrous—yet we put up with it on airplanes.
If 9/11 taught us anything, it’s that the policy of “co-operate with hijackers” must never again be adopted. With that in mind, box cutters and butter knives are no longer usable weapons for would-be terrorists, yet we continue to hand-search bags for corkscrews and safety scissors. Since the idiot shoe bomber, we now have to take off our shoes and put them through an x-ray device (one that likely isn’t even capable of detecting explosives). Now we have to forgo all liquids and gels.
It’s time to get off this treadmill. The level of screening at airports is already grossly disproportionate to the threat it is aiming to combat, yet we continue to make it worse. We accept these measures because we are told they are “designed to make us safer.” Of course, they do not. They merely give the appearence of security, while letting 70% of knives, and 30% of guns through anyway. Rather than focusing on the 29 deaths a year caused by airline terrorism, we should instead focus our attentions where it matters:
Pedalcyclists. 762 deaths a year.
You heard it here first, folks.
Kjell Wooding
August 15, 2006
OOØOOOODCCLXXVII
August 16th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Kjell Wooding is right! I avoid air travel at all costs just to avoid the indignity of the pre-flight strip search. It seems that no matter how prepared I think I am for the security gate, there’s some new, higher level of stupidity waiting for me when I get there. Part of me thinks they’re actually doing this because airport employees LOVE freebies. I have a friend who bartends in the lounge at DIA, and when they banned cigarette lighters from flights, he came home with a shopping bag full of lighters. I’m a smoker, and I haven’t had to buy a lighter since because his stash is still going strong. I can’t wait to see if I can get a bunch of free shampoo and hair gel and such out of this.
August 16th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
If I can’t bring my laptop on my flight to Toronto in October, I’ll be mighty P.O.’d.
August 17th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Even worse, people showed up at the airport only to discover they’d have to put their laptops in their checked luggage.
I don’t know about you, but I’d guess the probability of a laptop surviving the trip in checked luggage is right around the probability that your flight gets hijacked.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
You are correct, sir. Real freedom means the freedom to choose how safe you WANT to be. And isn’t the mantra of all patriots that we should be willing to “die for our freedom”? I am willing to die at the hands of a terorist if it means I have my freedom, otherwise what is freedom for?
August 18th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
More to the point, I am willing to accept the ludicrously small probability that someone may try to blow up my plane.
Just as I’m willing to accept the slightly higher probability that pilot error will cause my plane to fall out of the sky regardless.
September 5th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
http://toothpastefordinner.com/090406/airline-travel-rules.gif