The United States is working itself into a lather - something Americans so enjoy doing - over this week's proposal by the National Transportation Safety Board to ban all mobile phone use by drivers of cars. Some of the nation's 50 states already ban handheld devices. But the proposal by the NTSB (www.ntsb.gov), a branch of the oft-reviled federal government, would ban hands-free devices, too.
It's America's Outrage du Jour.
This proposal will fail, for two reasons: First, it makes too much sense. Logic suggests that texting, talking or e-mailing from behind the wheel of a two-ton moving vehicle might be a tad dangerous. But logic has nothing to do with it, which brings us to the second reason for imminent failure: It would be seen as infringing on the individual rights of Americans, among the most individualistic people on earth. Some of my countrymen would rather be dead than allow Big Gov'mint to tell them what to do, even if it would serve the greater public good. And so, with the continuing explosion of smart-phone use by drivers, some soon will be.
But why sweat the small stuff? There is already push-back by phone-makers, states-righters, and don't tread on me types, and predictions are being made that any laws passed will be laws not enforced.
This is the time of year when travel-watchers predict what the coming holiday will be like. The American Automobile Association (www.aa.com) produces one of the most closely followed forecasts. This holiday season, encompassing Christmas and New Year's Eve and running from Dec. 23, 2011 to Jan. 3, 2012, will see 91.9 million Americans travel more than 50 miles, predicts the AAA. Some 83.3 million of them will drive, driven to their cars by rising air fares, crowded airports and airplanes, famously limited U.S. train service and slightly less expensive gasoline.
Think just how good it will be to have a teenage driver drinking and driving on New Year's Eve and texting something along the lines of "U cool? I had awesome cupcakes at grandma's'' while sharing the road with you.
Hold that thought, and Happy New Year.
Showing posts with label American Automobile Association. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Automobile Association. Show all posts
Friday, December 16, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Highway Blues
Thirty-nine million Americans were expected to drive 50 or more miles from home this Fourth of July holiday weekend, according to the American Automobile Association. Millions more were set to hit the road in Canada for the Canada Day holiday weekend.
So that there might be some measure of safety on the highway - achieved partly by holding down drunken driving - many state, provincial and local law enforcement agencies set up traffic roadblocks. Police check drivers' identities and see whether they have been drinking alcohol. This helps reduce the historically high number of traffic fatalities - nearly 34,000 in the United States in 2009, of which about one-third involved drunken drivers. So, this would seem to be a good thing, no?
So one might think. But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. A Wisconsin-based group called the National Motorists Association complains that the U.S. government pressured Apple and Research in Motion to ban apps showing where roadblocks are set up, bragging that their organization has forged boldly ahead and continues to list these locations on its Web site, so that drivers can avoid them.
The organization links its position to the whole idea of political independence, which its executive director explains thusly:
"This type of harassment seems ironic, given the onset of the Fourth of July holiday, a natonal celebration of our country's independence and enshrinement of individual freedoms. I don't think that being grilled by armed strangers, or having your personal effects scrutinized and searched by government personnel under the presumption of guilt rather than innocence is quite what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind in 1776.''
Doing 80 miles an hour in a motor vehicle may not have entered into the Founders' thinking either. And "armed strangers''? That's one way of describing law enforcement.
Personally, as a survivor of a traffic accident two years ago brought on by an intoxicated 20-year-old - who was speeding and driving drunk at 5 o'clock in the afternoon - I am grateful that law enforcement is on the job and trying to reduce highway mayhem. Fortunately, I survived this sudden and frightening crash, as did my wife, who was at the wheel and driving responsibly. The medics who promptly arrived on the scene put my wife on a gurney and into an ambulance and drove her to a hospital for observation. She emerged without serious injuries and was released that same night. The drunk driver was arrested - those darned armed strangers again! - and ended up paying us a small amount of money for damaging our car, which spun out after we were clipped from behind at speed.
When I read rants like the one I quoted above, I don't think of powdered wigs, quill pens and 1776. I think of my wife in an ambulance, an IV hooked to her arm and me on the phone to her grown daughter telling a shaken woman that her mother was hit by a drunk driver and is in the hospital. As for enjoying the "enshrinement of individual freedoms,'' you have to be alive for that. Ironic, isn't it?
So that there might be some measure of safety on the highway - achieved partly by holding down drunken driving - many state, provincial and local law enforcement agencies set up traffic roadblocks. Police check drivers' identities and see whether they have been drinking alcohol. This helps reduce the historically high number of traffic fatalities - nearly 34,000 in the United States in 2009, of which about one-third involved drunken drivers. So, this would seem to be a good thing, no?
So one might think. But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. A Wisconsin-based group called the National Motorists Association complains that the U.S. government pressured Apple and Research in Motion to ban apps showing where roadblocks are set up, bragging that their organization has forged boldly ahead and continues to list these locations on its Web site, so that drivers can avoid them.
The organization links its position to the whole idea of political independence, which its executive director explains thusly:
"This type of harassment seems ironic, given the onset of the Fourth of July holiday, a natonal celebration of our country's independence and enshrinement of individual freedoms. I don't think that being grilled by armed strangers, or having your personal effects scrutinized and searched by government personnel under the presumption of guilt rather than innocence is quite what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind in 1776.''
Doing 80 miles an hour in a motor vehicle may not have entered into the Founders' thinking either. And "armed strangers''? That's one way of describing law enforcement.
Personally, as a survivor of a traffic accident two years ago brought on by an intoxicated 20-year-old - who was speeding and driving drunk at 5 o'clock in the afternoon - I am grateful that law enforcement is on the job and trying to reduce highway mayhem. Fortunately, I survived this sudden and frightening crash, as did my wife, who was at the wheel and driving responsibly. The medics who promptly arrived on the scene put my wife on a gurney and into an ambulance and drove her to a hospital for observation. She emerged without serious injuries and was released that same night. The drunk driver was arrested - those darned armed strangers again! - and ended up paying us a small amount of money for damaging our car, which spun out after we were clipped from behind at speed.
When I read rants like the one I quoted above, I don't think of powdered wigs, quill pens and 1776. I think of my wife in an ambulance, an IV hooked to her arm and me on the phone to her grown daughter telling a shaken woman that her mother was hit by a drunk driver and is in the hospital. As for enjoying the "enshrinement of individual freedoms,'' you have to be alive for that. Ironic, isn't it?
Friday, July 2, 2010
That Herbert Hoover Feeling
The news comes these days in twos, with good news on one hand and bad news on the other - and major implications for travelers and the travel industry.
Consider:
The American Automobile Association predicts that 34.9 million Americans will take a car trip at least 50 miles from home over this U.S. Fourth of July holiday weekend. That's a leap of 17.1 percent from the 29.8 million who took car trips over the same holiday last year.
The International Air Transport Association, the airline trade group based in Geneva and Montreal, reports that passenger traffic on the world's airlines jumped 11.7 percent this May from May 2009, while air cargo shipments soared 34.3 percent over May 2009. IATA also forecasts a profit of $2.5 billion USD for global airlines this year, a big upgrade from the $9.9 billion USD loss the airlines suffered in 2009.
Just as this welcome news arrives, however, the larger economy in the U.S. and Europe seems to be grinding to a halt, if not sliding backward. A tepid U.S. jobs report yesterday depressed markets, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average back below 10,000 - down 5 percent for the week in the steepest drop since the near-depression in October 2008. Moreover, U.S. consumer confidence, as determined by New York research firm the Conference Board, plummeted to 52.9 percent in June from 62.7 percent in May, driven by concern over a lack of jobs and Congress cutting off benefits to the long-term unemployed.
"Economists pay close attention to measures of consumer confidence as a proxy for consumer spending, which drives the bulk of the U.S. economy,'' explained a June 29 report on CNNMoney.com.
There's more: The New York Times's Web site, nytimes.com, today stacked no fewer than six stories on the home page tracking economic slowdown and decline.
Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Noble Prize-winning economist, took it a big step further:
"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression,'' he wrote, referring to the Great Depression of the 1930s and a long depression in the U.S. after the Panic of 1873.
"And this third deprssion will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world ... governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending. ... Both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.''
Reading these signs and portents is enough to induce a sinking feeling - that Herbert Hoover feeling, to be exact.
Hoover, of course, was the U.S. President who presided over the Wall Street crash of 1929 and whose policies only made matters worse. Things improved under his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but then Roosevelt slowed stimulus spending in 1938, leading to relapse in an economy not yet recovered from the collapse of 1929-31. We all know what happened next: World War II. If that tragedy hadn't occurred, we might still be in the Great Depression, for it was only wartime spending that ended the depression - at huge human cost.
What does all this macro-economic stuff and political history mean for travel? Plenty.
For one thing, even the good travel news contains signs that not all is actually well.
Giovanni Bisignani, the outspoken IATA director-general, said of the rise in the civil aviation business, "This is good news, but it is only a 0.5 percent margin. We are still a long way from sustainable profitability.''
Even the seemingly buoyant AAA forecast is not as encouraging as it looks at first glance. More U.S. motorists will hit the road this holiday weekend, but they are expected to spend less: a median spend of $644 USD this year, down from a median of $693 last year. Motorists seem drawn to the highway partly by the lure of relatively cheap gasoline (a U.S. average of $2.70-$2.80 per gallon) and because they don't want to spend money for airfares, which are up 13 percent in the U.S. from last year. They are not in an expansive, let's-spend-it mood.
If international economies stop recovering or even contract, travel will be among the first to feel it. Fewer people will travel. Those who do will spend less. Already stressed hotels, cruise ship lines and airlines will cut capacity, have to cut their rates and lay off staff. By some measures, tourism is the world's leading industry by production of revenue, and most travel-industry employees are working-class people - many of them living in developing countries - who will quickly fall on hard times if we really are in a third depression.
Sorry for the gloomy, foreboding tone of this post. But the first step toard dealing effectively with crisis is to see it for what it is.
Consider:
The American Automobile Association predicts that 34.9 million Americans will take a car trip at least 50 miles from home over this U.S. Fourth of July holiday weekend. That's a leap of 17.1 percent from the 29.8 million who took car trips over the same holiday last year.
The International Air Transport Association, the airline trade group based in Geneva and Montreal, reports that passenger traffic on the world's airlines jumped 11.7 percent this May from May 2009, while air cargo shipments soared 34.3 percent over May 2009. IATA also forecasts a profit of $2.5 billion USD for global airlines this year, a big upgrade from the $9.9 billion USD loss the airlines suffered in 2009.
Just as this welcome news arrives, however, the larger economy in the U.S. and Europe seems to be grinding to a halt, if not sliding backward. A tepid U.S. jobs report yesterday depressed markets, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average back below 10,000 - down 5 percent for the week in the steepest drop since the near-depression in October 2008. Moreover, U.S. consumer confidence, as determined by New York research firm the Conference Board, plummeted to 52.9 percent in June from 62.7 percent in May, driven by concern over a lack of jobs and Congress cutting off benefits to the long-term unemployed.
"Economists pay close attention to measures of consumer confidence as a proxy for consumer spending, which drives the bulk of the U.S. economy,'' explained a June 29 report on CNNMoney.com.
There's more: The New York Times's Web site, nytimes.com, today stacked no fewer than six stories on the home page tracking economic slowdown and decline.
Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Noble Prize-winning economist, took it a big step further:
"We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression,'' he wrote, referring to the Great Depression of the 1930s and a long depression in the U.S. after the Panic of 1873.
"And this third deprssion will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world ... governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending. ... Both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.''
Reading these signs and portents is enough to induce a sinking feeling - that Herbert Hoover feeling, to be exact.
Hoover, of course, was the U.S. President who presided over the Wall Street crash of 1929 and whose policies only made matters worse. Things improved under his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but then Roosevelt slowed stimulus spending in 1938, leading to relapse in an economy not yet recovered from the collapse of 1929-31. We all know what happened next: World War II. If that tragedy hadn't occurred, we might still be in the Great Depression, for it was only wartime spending that ended the depression - at huge human cost.
What does all this macro-economic stuff and political history mean for travel? Plenty.
For one thing, even the good travel news contains signs that not all is actually well.
Giovanni Bisignani, the outspoken IATA director-general, said of the rise in the civil aviation business, "This is good news, but it is only a 0.5 percent margin. We are still a long way from sustainable profitability.''
Even the seemingly buoyant AAA forecast is not as encouraging as it looks at first glance. More U.S. motorists will hit the road this holiday weekend, but they are expected to spend less: a median spend of $644 USD this year, down from a median of $693 last year. Motorists seem drawn to the highway partly by the lure of relatively cheap gasoline (a U.S. average of $2.70-$2.80 per gallon) and because they don't want to spend money for airfares, which are up 13 percent in the U.S. from last year. They are not in an expansive, let's-spend-it mood.
If international economies stop recovering or even contract, travel will be among the first to feel it. Fewer people will travel. Those who do will spend less. Already stressed hotels, cruise ship lines and airlines will cut capacity, have to cut their rates and lay off staff. By some measures, tourism is the world's leading industry by production of revenue, and most travel-industry employees are working-class people - many of them living in developing countries - who will quickly fall on hard times if we really are in a third depression.
Sorry for the gloomy, foreboding tone of this post. But the first step toard dealing effectively with crisis is to see it for what it is.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Driven Crazy
With the summer driving season upon us, the American Automobile Association predicts motorists in the United States will jump-start high summer by taking to the highways by the millions on the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. In fact, the AAA (http://www.aaa.com)/ expects cheap gas and the desire to avoid the hassles and rising prices of modes of transport such as flying will prompt a whopping 17.1 percent increase in domestic driving over last year's Independence Day holiday.
All the more reason to drive carefully, yes? Speaking as one who feels lucky to have walked away from an accident two years ago when my wife and I were rear-ended by a drunk, speeding 20-year-old, this sounds abundantly obvious.
Yet, this morning's inbox contains a press release touting the results of a study commissioned by an organization called the National Motorists Association (http://www.motorists.org/), advising drivers which of the 50 U.S. states are most likely to ticket drivers. The assumption behind the release is that the tickets are unjust. Indeed, the release states the organization "has been helping drivers fight their traffic tickets for over 25 years.''
But as I can attest, not all traffic tickets are unjust; I'll bet you can verify that fact, too. The organization in question doesn't have any way of establishing whether its "fighting'' on behalf of innocents or scofflaws. Moreover, 'traffic ticket' is a broad term, covering a wide range of charges, such as DUI, speeding, running redlights and ignoring stop signs, as well as non-moving violations such as illegal parking. Are all traffic tickets created equal? I don't think so.
Intrigued if puzzled, I read on. Florida is the state most likely to ticket, I was informed, followed by Georgia and Nevada, which finished in a dead heat, so to speak, for second place. The state least likely to ticket? Montana. Wyoming and North and South Dakota are slow to hand out citations, too, according to the study.
All very interesting. But useful? What are motorists to do with this information? Not drive in the states that pull people over? Lead-foot it over to the states that don't?
"Nothing can ruin a vacation more quickly than an undeserved traffic ticket,'' the press release claims. Actually, something can: A traffic accident, whether it's your fault or not. A fatal traffic accident could end your vacation.
Maybe instead of keeping an eye peeled for cops, drivers should just slow down, look before changing lanes, use those ever-less-employed turn signals more often, exhale and enjoy the ride. The accident rate - not just the rate of ticketing - would go down.
It's summertime and the living is easy. Let's take it easy and live.
All the more reason to drive carefully, yes? Speaking as one who feels lucky to have walked away from an accident two years ago when my wife and I were rear-ended by a drunk, speeding 20-year-old, this sounds abundantly obvious.
Yet, this morning's inbox contains a press release touting the results of a study commissioned by an organization called the National Motorists Association (http://www.motorists.org/), advising drivers which of the 50 U.S. states are most likely to ticket drivers. The assumption behind the release is that the tickets are unjust. Indeed, the release states the organization "has been helping drivers fight their traffic tickets for over 25 years.''
But as I can attest, not all traffic tickets are unjust; I'll bet you can verify that fact, too. The organization in question doesn't have any way of establishing whether its "fighting'' on behalf of innocents or scofflaws. Moreover, 'traffic ticket' is a broad term, covering a wide range of charges, such as DUI, speeding, running redlights and ignoring stop signs, as well as non-moving violations such as illegal parking. Are all traffic tickets created equal? I don't think so.
Intrigued if puzzled, I read on. Florida is the state most likely to ticket, I was informed, followed by Georgia and Nevada, which finished in a dead heat, so to speak, for second place. The state least likely to ticket? Montana. Wyoming and North and South Dakota are slow to hand out citations, too, according to the study.
All very interesting. But useful? What are motorists to do with this information? Not drive in the states that pull people over? Lead-foot it over to the states that don't?
"Nothing can ruin a vacation more quickly than an undeserved traffic ticket,'' the press release claims. Actually, something can: A traffic accident, whether it's your fault or not. A fatal traffic accident could end your vacation.
Maybe instead of keeping an eye peeled for cops, drivers should just slow down, look before changing lanes, use those ever-less-employed turn signals more often, exhale and enjoy the ride. The accident rate - not just the rate of ticketing - would go down.
It's summertime and the living is easy. Let's take it easy and live.
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