Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25233
SPECIAL FOCUS: TO GO OR NOT TO GO Text: Edward Hasbrouck Edward Hasbrouck is the author of the Practical Nomad series of travel how-to and advice books: The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World (2nd edition, 2000) and The Practical Nomad Guide to the Online Travel Marketplace (2001). Should we still travel around the world, after what happened 9/11? Yes, absolutely. Now more than ever. The sad events carry a clear message that isolationism is impossible in an interconnected and interdependent world. Now more than ever, we need international awareness and understanding. We need to recognize our common humanity-and the suffering that unites us-with people everywhere of all races and cultures. And we need to understand the ways in which, for better or worse, our decisions affect others (and vice versa) around the world. What greater victory could we hand the terrorists than to allow them to deprive us of our humanity, and to drive us to emulate them in isolating ourselves from world opinion? But is it safe to travel? Specifically overseas? Yes, absolutely. Now more than ever. The 9/11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania have disabused us of any notion that staying home can keep us out of harm's way. Bad things can happen anywhere. And travel abroad is no more risky than travel in the USA-in fact, statistically speaking, it's often safer. Not that this means people from other coun- tries should stay away from the USA! The US is a wonderful place to visit, and on the whole most Americans remain very welcoming to foreigners. Most of the risks of travel, as I'm constantly reminding other travelers (including myself), are the commonplace risks of our everyday lives at home: car accidents, slips and falls, etc. Most travel safety at home or abroad is simple com- mon sense, like remembering to watch where we're putting our feet when we're dis- tracted by looking at the sights and scenery. Is it safe to fly? Yes, absolutely. Now more than ever. Per mile, air travel is a hundred to a thousand times safer than any alternative means of transportation. That safety will only be improved. Your time in the air is unquestionably the safest part of your trip. One of the saddest consequences of the hijackings will be if they scare large numbers of people into driving rather than flying. The inevitable result would be an increase in the tens of thousands of people ki lled on the roads in the US each year. Fear of flying is real. It's common. And it's understandable. But fear is a very different issue from safety. If you're afraid, deal with your fear, even if that isn't easy. But don't assume that airplanes are dangerous just because for you they are scary. What about airport and airline security? While airport and airline securi· ty in the US has lagged behind the rest of the world, major changes have already been made since 9/11 toward bringing it into conformity with international norms. The difference between the USA and most other countries has been that in the USA only selected airline passengers and bags have been subjected to the sort of search that all passengers and bags receive in those other countries. Since 1998, all US airlines have been required to pass passenger data from their reservation systems through a government·run Computer Assisted Passenger Screening (CAPS) system each time a passenger checks in . If your reser· vation matched the CAPS profile, you and your luggage are set aside for "second· ary security screen ing" comparable to normal international screenin g. The govern- ment retains the reservation data, whether or not you fit the profile, creating a mas- sive-and little known-set of dossiers on individual travelers. Those who don't fit the profile, and their luggage, have otherwise been largely ignored. The events of 9/11 clearly demonstrate that this profiling doesn't work. Advocates of both security and civil liberties share an interest in abolit ion of the CAPS profiling system (and, I hope, destruction of the files collected on innocent American travelers) and its replacement with universal passenger and baggage inspection and bag matching. That would be fairer, safer, and less vulnerable to abuse. Universally more rigorous inspections will slow check-in. The main result will be to make trains more competitive in door-to-door time over longer distances. Improved rail service, particularly on corridor routes such as those between Boston and Washington and Northern and Southern California-where trains are more eco- logically and economically appropriate anyway-could significantly relieve conges- tion at many airports. But all this relates only to domestic US flights, because flights in the rest of the world, and foreign airlines flying to and from the USA, have long been much more secure than US airlines' domestic flights. Finally, it's important to remember that our safety and security depend most of all on understanding between people around the world that is the result, above all else, of the direct personal contact, experience, and learning from inter· national travel. 38