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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

> The inconvenience of extra passenger screening and added costs at airports after 9/11 cause many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination instead

"Inconvenience" is putting it mildly. Even before my recent experiences with airport security[0], I preferred to drive or take the train for short distances (NYC to Boston, Philly, DC, etc.). As one can imagine, that aversion has only increased.

Nate Silver puts this well:

> According to the Cornell study, roughly 130 inconvenienced travelers died every three months as a result of additional traffic fatalities brought on by substituting ground transit for air transit. That’s the equivalent of four fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year.[1]

Emphasis mine.

[0] Previously submitted to HN, but for the lazy: http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-... [1]http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/the-hidd...)

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Since the new "security measures" have gone into place. I've instituted a 12- to 14-hour rule: if I can get somewhere by driving there in less than 12 (to 14) hours, I'll drive.

As a tall person, a plane has always been uncomfortable for me. Add to that experience the long security lines and being treated like cattle... nah. It costs me more, but I'll drive.

If you had a self-driving EV such that a drive cost you duration of sitting in a comfortable chair with high-speed internet, a refrigerator full of drinks, and maybe $50, how far upward would you revise this?

I'd probably seriously consider commuting weekly or biweekly from central WA to SFBA, even if it took 20h. 10h would be nothing, as I could just sleep.

As a tall person who is prone to motion sickness, not one bit. If I so much as looked at that screen, I'd be ill.

I have a feeling that as time goes on, this will be seen as more and more of a handicap instead of a minor inconvenience.

Ginger. I prefer the pickled sushi ginger, but any type will do cookies, crystallized, tea, tablets - take your pick.

'The present study showed that ginger at a dose of 1,000 mg effectively reduced the severity of nausea evoked by circular vection, prolonging latency before the onset of nausea and shortening the recovery time from nausea after the cessation of vection.'

Effects of ginger on motion sickness and gastric slow-wave dysrhythmias induced by circular vection Han-Chung Lien , Wei Ming Sun , Yen-Hsueh Chen , Hyerang Kim , William Hasler , Chung Owyang American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver PhysiologyPublished 1 March 2003

http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/284/3/G481

If transportation changes to where most people will need to be comfortable in those situations, getting over motion sickness will be like getting your "sea legs" or accommodating to Zero G. You will just have to have a few unpleasant trips until you get used to the sensations. Sorry!

I cannot explain how infuriating it is that you'd have the gall to assume that "a few unpleasant trips" would solve the problem. If I could I would give you the experience of feeling nauseous for several hours after making the mistake of playing a first person shooter or reading directions to the driver in a moving car. Maybe after you experienced that you'd understand that the issue I have is not simply, "Get sick a few times and you'll stop complaining about it.

You are possibly correct -- but people have said the same about other disorientations and grown used to them given no other choice.

I hope I am right for your sake (or that you never have to change your method of transportation of I am wrong!) My comment was meant optimistically with respect to your human ability to adapt to something new.

I hope you understand my "gall" extends to speculation on an Internet forum only; I would certainly not want to subject you to such sensations in real life.

Somehow this used to really bother me when I was 4-8 years old, and then it stopped. I don't know if that's normal. Being directly in-line with the direction of travel mattered then, too (now I can sit sideways in an aircraft doing a combat spiral landing and not get sick). I don't think "doing it a few times" is what stopped it for me, it was probably some morphological change as I grew up.

Presumably you've tried medication? It would probably be horrible to have to take transdermal scopolamine fairly continually, though.

> Somehow this used to really bother me when I was 4-8 years old, and then it stopped.

I think that is normal, at least I was the same way. For me it was bad enough that I would avoid eating anything at all for a day before any long road-trip.

My unsubstantiated hypothesis is that car-sickness stops being a major issue around the time that you grow large enough to effectively see out of the car. Buses are still unpleasant, though not vomit inducing, to me. That might be attributable to the poor visibility on buses (however I have no problem with planes at all...).

Dramamine works for me. Of course use of that is not conducive to performing any complex activities.

I'm aware that motion sickness can change as people grow up. But given that I'm in my 40s, the odds of "growing out of it" are rather dim.

From watching people on boats, transderm scop is less likely to cause tiredness than the oral antihistamines.

My (somewhat uninformed) understanding is that car sourced motion sickness is due to turning without your body expecting it. That is, seeing and expecting a turn negates the problems.

If that's correct, then maybe some sort of visual indicator that lets you know when to expect a few minutes or more of relatively straight travelling (such as on a highway), and an indicator when this is about to end, would be helpful?

It is easier for me to be a driver than a passenger, I believe in part because as a driver I pay close attention to and know about all bumps before they happen.

But having been through it before, I have no desire to experiment with the limits of what makes me sick. Doubly so since I tend to not notice that I'm getting sick until I'm going to be sick for quite a bit...

I wonder if gimbal-mounting a seat could address motion sickness.

Probably not much.

Motion sickness is mostly caused by your brain trying to resolve opposing signals between your eyes and your sense of motion. If you're looking at a non-moving scene like a screen in the car, but everything else in your body says you're moving at 60 MPH, you might get motion sickness.

A gimbal-mounted seat would change how often you bumped around, but your vestibular system would still sense things like going up/down a hill or making a turn.

Basically, a gimbal-mounted seat would be about as effective as a perfectly paved road.

If I were single I'd go longer. But married w/ kid - anything more than ~12 hours ultimately cuts into time with my family at both ends of the trip.

They have these already, they are called buses.

Buses have schedules and can't take detours.

Buses could be significantly improved if you weren't crammed in with a bunch of people, generally one toilet, insufficient leg room, generally no wifi and no electricity, fairly little luggage.... I suspect self-driving EVs would have a bit more luxury ^_^

I'd definitely pay more for a bus ticket if it was more spacious and had 2-3 bathrooms.

Some of the buses in Asia (and some in Europe) tend to not be as disgusting as US buses. It appears "megabus" is now in some US markets and is a slight upgrade to Greyhound.

I'd still rather be in a private car and just pull over whenever I want to use a bathroom, or get food, etc. I wouldn't feel particularly comfortable sleeping (particularly with my luggage) on a public bus in the US.

I'd also pay extra to have a machine drive me from SF-SEA rather than a human driver, as I'm somewhat antisocial and dislike being around random people like taxi drivers in car-sized spaces for that long.

If my schedule permits it period, I drive. I've driven 4 days in a row rather than fly (my schedule was unusually loose then), though I have also flown rather than drive 6 hours (my schedule was unusually tight then).

Treated like cattle is exactly the right way of putting it. I would rather be inconvenienced on my terms.

"Add to that experience the long security lines and being treated like cattle..."

Cattle probably have more legal protections than travelers in a U.S. airport.

I guess 9/11 has been a benefit for Amtrak.

Only in the Northeast. For most of America it is easier to get around by plane than by train.

Travelling from Seattle to LA is fastest by plane, then car, then bus. Amtrack is slower than those 3, and more expensive than the last 2.

Cue the "Joe Biden caused 9/11" conspiracy theories!

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