The Tin Lizard

Passenger Rights

My wife and I shopped for a car recently.  We've always been a one-car family, even when we were working.  But that situation is such a rarity these days that it's almost amusing - and a little enervating - to observe, as we did at the Washington DC Car Show and later at individual dealers, how much carmakers seem to believe there will only be one person in the car.

Because passengers (Rodney Dangerfield, where are you?) "don't get no respect."  We found, for example, that in terms of seat adjustments and comfort amenities, very few manufacturers offer the passenger the same deal as the driver.  Across the board, even in some relatively high-end makes, even in the premium trims, the "shotgun" gets a short stick:  8-way seat adjustment v. 4-way (or even two-way), power seat adjustment v. manual, lumbar support v. none, heated seat v. no heated seat.  

The dichotomy varies, but there seems always to be something where the manufacturer cuts a corner or two at the passenger's expense.  (Kudos to the one exception we noted -- Volvo.) 

Also, we found no brand offering seat "memory" to the passenger, even if it's available for the driver.  Since we share a car and the driving, this lack bugged us more than a little.  Do they think the passenger seat has no need of memory?  Not so.  It's eminently practical, for the times when drivers switch off, or the passenger is someone other than the second driver, or when you turn your car over to a car wash.

Remote keyless entry hasn't been thought through for two drivers in one car, either.  In most of these systems, if you're the only driver, your master key will automatically adjust to your settings for seat, mirrors, and even heat and music in some cases; but it will be confused if it encounters two keys with different "favorite" settings in the same car.  In today's cars, technology has trumped convenience.

Maybe the answer, for us old clunkers, is to go find and drive an old clunker?  Like the 1954 Nash Ambassador that was "my" first car, perhaps. 

Another Reason To Despise Airlines

I'm happy to see the Washington Post is calling attention to the problem caused by airlines' resorting to extra charges for those who want "premium" seating - such as an aisle or a window.  This reduces the number of available contiguous seats, so families on a budget often will have difficulty getting seated together. 

I don't travel with children but I'm pretty sure it's a difficult thing to do, especially if your kids are wee.  Does anyone need the airlines making it more difficult to do so?  This system inconveniences everyone, causing uncertainty and tension for the families, who often have to rely on finding a sympathetic stewardess, or a sympathetic fellow passenger, during the boarding process, who is willing to swap seats.  It slows loading the plane and delays everyone.  It's a nuisance, too, for those who aren't traveling with kids and aren't really looking forward to minding someone else's.

Shame on the airlines, and shame on one Jamie Pearson, who runs a website called Travel Savvy Mom, who is quoted in this article with the opinion that people should stop "whining" about this problem and just suck it up, because that's the way things are and "airlines aren't nonprofits."  (I suspect Pearson has a background with one of the airlines.)  

No, airlines aren't nonprofits.  They are businesses.  Businesses that deliver a service.  A service with an implied contract.  And in every business there are certain elements that are considered normal parts of the service.  My wife and I went out to dinner last night.  The restaurant did not seat her in a vacant space with that big office party of 20, and place me across the room.  Airline travelers, too, have a right to expect that their party will be seated together, whether it's a couple, a family of seven, or even an entire choral group.

If we "must" pay extra for an aisle or window seat, I suggest families should be able to pay for only one such seat, with a guarantee of contiguous seating for the whole group.  This ought to be possible because family groups, I think, are far more likely to make their reservations early, i.e. well before most of the "premium" seats have been booked up by business travelers.  Families who do book later, of course, will have to take their lumps.

A last word for you families:  If the three of you do end up, say, with two seats together in one part of the plane and a single seat elsewhere, do NOT under any circumstances do what I saw one family do:  The two parents sat together, and dispatched their offspring to annoy complete strangers.  NO!  Not permitted.

 

Electronic Gadgets And Airplanes - Unfriendly Skies

There is apparently some hope for air travelers that the latest generation of portable entertainment devices (i.e. electronic book readers, tablets, and the like) might some day become usable on passenger aircraft at levels below 10,000 feet.  That, at least, is the promise of the FAA's intent to look into more effective means of testing such devices to determine if they really have an effect on aircraft safety.

Ever since I first acquired a Kindle, I wondered about the ban on their use on planes.  It turns out, as the above report explains, it's just as I suspected:  There is little reason to think that these devices have any effect on airline safety, but as always in the security field, the choice is always to err on the side of extreme caution.  It's easier (for the airlines).  

Most of us understand I think, that the original ban on cell phone use may make some sense:  We instinctively "get" that an electronic device actively receiving/transmitting during flight could represent a danger -- not so much out of concern for a bomb (because we assume the terrorist who put it there will NOT have turned it off) but for its potential effect on the aircraft's guidance system and instruments.  OK.

But technically, this is not a concern with e-readers, tablets, and the latest generation of smart phones, nearly all of which provide a way to switch off the internet connection while still using the device.  The concerns expressed by various airline and safety officials about the effects of "several hundred people using their devices at once" simply aren't relevant here.  So why shouldn't we be able to use them, in their "disconnected" or "airplane" mode, when there are l-o-n-g waits to be whiled away, and hardly anyone is carrying an actual book anymore?

Two reasons:  One is bureaucratic lethargy.  It's just easier to issue a blanket ban.  The other is more real:  human nature.  If you've attended any public gathering lately at which people are cautioned ahead of time to turn off their phones, you're still likely to hear a half-dozen or more phones ringing during the program.  People are idiots, and can't be relied on for responsible behavior; even the best of us suffer memory lapses or make mistakes. 

So while the FAA's efforts may be a step in the right direction, they're unlikely to provide an immediate solution.   Meanwhile, it's probably not reasonable for airlines to permit people to use their devices "disconnected," when clearly some won't be. The only solution I can think of is that maybe the next generation of devices should have a light of a specific color, clearly visible on the face of the device, indicating it's truly disconnected.  Then airplane crews might be able to check effectively.    

Driving Right (Or Not) When Traveling

I liked the fun-but-serious article "When the Right Side of the Road is Wrong" in the travel section of the Washington Post a couple of days ago.  If you can't guess, it's about places (there are quite a few of them) where traffic drives on the left side of the road.  Great Britain, for example, and much of the former British Commonwealth.  Author Christopher Elliott has some good observations on the perils, for us right-side drivers, of driving on the left. 

I've done that in a few different situations - Scotland for two weeks, The Bahamas for a week every year recently, and two weeks in Ireland in autumn 2010 - and can say that everything he relates here is valid, but I might add a few thoughts (and I suspect you can too, if you've had that experience):

It makes a huge difference whether your car's steering wheel is also on the right.  In Scotland, I had my own car (left-hand steering) brought over from Germany, and in the Bahamas, they have mostly American cars (l.h.s., again) but drive them on the "wrong" side.  It's easy if you remain cautious.  Only in Ireland did I go all the way, using a rented car with right-hand steering, and that's the only case where I ran into problems.  I believe the difference is that if the steering wheel is where you're used to having it, you're in at least some part of a familiar comfort zone; otherwise, you have to do a double adjustment.

I don't find turns are the most difficult thing.  For me, at least, the difficulty arose from the unfamiliar feel of driving from the right.  Distance was hard to judge. I've been driving so long that I never actively consider stand-off distance on my left, at home.  But my downfall was in approaching a toll booth, not more than 10 minutes out of the airport, when a momentary lapse in considering where the left side of the car was led me to scrape the entire left side of it on the jersey wall.

Last, Elliott's report that car-rental companies in Ireland more or less expect that drivers from the U.S. or the continent will have accidents is spot-on.  What needs to be said in addition is that, if you are in the habit of relying on the additional insurance your credit card may give you when driving abroad, be aware that Ireland and certain other countries are specifically excluded from that coverage.  So as an American visitor to the Emerald Isle, be sure to take the collision damage coverage.  It adds quite a bit to the rental cost, but it will likely be far cheaper than major body work.

Air Travel And Surgery - Are There Differences?

It popped into my head just now that air travel, which has become increasingly unpleasant over the past couple of decades, is now very similar to having surgery.  I'm not currently planning either of these "adventures" for myself, but I note that both experiences:

• have an end benefit that's a bit uncertain: arrival at a destination, or a state of better health; you need to have hope, you can't be certain!
• include an element of danger - it makes no sense to travel by air or to have surgery if it isn't essential
• are priced similarly, i.e., by accretion:  Want an extra bag? That'll be extra.  Want the anaesthesia?  That, and the anaesthesiologist, will be separate on your bill.
• have a long lead-up that takes longer than the process itself, and is generally more unpleasant -- consider hospital check-in forms, restricted diet, and prep for surgery, or getting to the airport and making your way through security.

I think air travel probably has a somewhat better survival rate than surgery but even if that's not the case, if I were facing both experiences, I'd always do the air travel first.  A flight that goes wrong might eliminate the need for surgery, but even a surgery that goes right can't eliminate the need for truly necessary travel.

Minneapolis's Standout Manhole Covers

I spent about a week in the Minnesota Twin Cities recently.  There's a lot of public art in the area, particularly in Minneapolis -- street statuary, fountains, much of it very impressive.  But the one thing that really caught my imagination was the specially commissioned manhole covers that line the city's walking/shopping street (Nicollet Mall).

They sort of took me back to the day when it wasn't at all unusual to see rather fancy art or decoration on everyday public items.  Manhole covers, but also grates, benches, bus stops, or even fire hydrants.  I recall also the custom of stamping bricks with the name of the place they were produced.  The sidewalk in front of my grandmother's house (built in the late 19th century) was bricks, each of them imprinted with "Lawrence, Kansas."

But... back to the present day.  One neat thing about the Minneapolis manhole covers is not just their elegant look and well-executed design, but that, in the midst of the metropolis, the eleven different designs represent eleven plants or animals that are important in the local lore and/or economy:  walleye, northern pike, loon, timber wolf, ladyslipper, wheat, corn, oats, wild rice, apples, and Norway pine.  There are also surprises, if you look closely, in at least some of them:  a squirrel in the pine tree, or .. is that maybe a worm in the apples?

Below are two of them -- the apples and the walleye -- just as samples.  You can see all of them at the artist's website, www.katekburke.com, under portfolio/public art/manhole covers.

 

 

 

Cross-posted on Morning Fog (www.morning-fog.com)

I spent about a week in the Minnesota Twin Cities recently.  There's a lot of public art in the area, particularly in Minneapolis -- street statuary, fountains, much of it very impressive.  But the one thing that really caught my imagination was the specially commissioned manhole covers that line the city's walking/shopping street (Nicollet Mall).

They sort of took me back to the day when it wasn't at all unusual to see rather fancy art or decoration on everyday public items.  Manhole covers, but also grates, benches, bus stops, or even fire hydrants.  I recall also the custom of stamping bricks with the name of the place they were produced.  The sidewalk in front of my grandmother's house (built in the late 19th century) was bricks, each of them imprinted with "Lawrence, Kansas."

But... back to the present day.  One neat thing about the Minneapolis manhole covers is not just their elegant look and well-executed design, but that, in the midst of the metropolis, the eleven different designs represent eleven plants or animals that are important in the local lore and/or economy:  walleye, northern pike, loon, timber wolf, ladyslipper, wheat, corn, oats, wild rice, apples, and Norway pine.  There are also surprises, if you look closely, in at least some of them:  a squirrel in the pine tree, or .. is that maybe a worm in the apples?

Below are two of them -- the apples and the walleye -- just as samples.  You can see all of them at the artist's website, www.katekburke.com, under portfolio/public art/manhole covers.

 

 

Moochy Of Chincoteague

The famous wild horses of Assateague Island, Virginia represent a majestic and well-meaning effort on the part of man to preserve a bit of wildness against human population pressures.  But the horses are getting into a bind.  Like bears at Yellowstone, these critters have come to like human food, and are becoming aggressive with the human visitors to obtain it.   (At least the horses have good taste:  I like potato chips and marshmallows myself.  But that diet isn't as healthy for horses as it is for people.)

The problem, of course, is not the horses but the people.  Who might have been the first idiot who offered them a bit of their picnic food?  Tourists never learn.  On the other hand, from what I can see of the description of the problem in this article, the authorities who manage the park ought to have seen the problem and done something about it long ago.   They're now getting around to trying more serious ways to separate people and horses.  But I suspect the only thing that's going to work is to make the park like some of the safari parks in Africa:  Nobody goes in except in a van, in a group, with a guide.  If there must be picnic areas, they must be fenced off and inaccessible by the horses.  

Self-Service Air Travel

My last post ("Life's Annoyances"), and a comment I received on it. got me to thinking about the frustrations of modern air travel, and how we got to where we are now, when most people seem to agree air travel is neither fun nor convenient anymore.

Certainly the handling of our "stuff" is one of those areas that contributes to our inconvenience.  People jam onto planes carrying all manner of huge suitcases, oddly shaped bulky packages, or multiple bags per traveler; they delay loading, whack their fellow passengers with their gear, and the like; and as my commenter pointed out, they're saddled with having to drag their bags around with them through check-in, to the snack bar, to the rest room, etc.  This isn't a new trend that arose after airlines started charging for stowed baggage.  It's been going on (and getting worse) for decades, abetted by the airlines themselves, which do not enforce the few rules they do have (regarding the size of carry-on bags, for example).

Airlines will tell us that their passengers demand this "convenience" but in my view that's double-speak worthy of George Orwell.  If we look back at some of those idyllic advertisements for air travel in the 1950s when companies like PanAm and TWA were trying to build passenger traffic, we'll see those happy besuited passengers filing aboard with nothing but a purse or a briefcase.  They're not dragging entire steamer trunks on rollers!  Nor were airplanes designed for huge amounts of in-cabin luggage.

I suggest that it was the airlines, not the passengers, that encouraged more and more carry-on luggage.  As air travel burgeoned, they found it inconvenient and expensive to handle our baggage.  Why bother with that, when they could subtly incentivize people to carry their own belongings?  As it became standard for the business traveler to carry his/her own luggage onto the plane with him, savings translated into fewer baggage handlers, less interest in making the service work well, and more lost and damaged baggage. Now we're in the era of paying separately for a whole panoply of "services" that ought to be part of the ticket price. 

The whole process is standard teaching in first-year business school courses.  Establish a product or service in the market, and then look for ways to reduce costs while still charging the same or higher prices.  Whether it's self-service gas pumps, ATMs, or a seat on an airplane, the process is the same -- do it cheaper, but sell it as a benefit to your customer. 

We can't deny that in some cases the end result really is more convenient. After all, we can get cash at any time of the day or night now (rather than just the three hours per day that banks used to be open to the public) but on the other hand, who needs cash these days?  But far too often, the benefit to the consumer is illusory, while the advantage to the seller is tangible. 

Will the new fee structures change anything?  Charging for checked luggage will only make matters worse, pushing people toward carrying more and more junk into the cabin with them.   One airline is testing a charge for a carry-on bag.  That seems like effrontery.  It is effrontery, if a fee is assessed for any bag.  But if properly structured -- what about no fee up to a certain basic size and weight, with charges increasing as the piece gets larger and/or heavier? -- it could actually bring improvement.  Unfortunately I don't see any benefit for the airline in that, so it's unlikely to happen.

Finally, it's worth noting that governments also succumb to the lure of short-term savings that leave traveler paying for that "saving" thousands, even millions, of times over in lost time and inconvenience.  In the Washington DC area, the "metro" is being extended for the first time to Dulles International Airport (an airport, incidentally, that has the slowest baggage delivery I've ever encountered anywhere).  But this week there were reports that to cut costs, planners are considering building the airport subway station NOT at/under the terminal, but at one of the satellite parking garages instead. 

Reason? Cost.  Effect?  Travelers for ever afterward will have to schlepp their bags into the subway, then get off for a second trip by bus/rail/whatever to the terminal, adding another 30 minutes to their planning.  How many people will give up entirely and take a cab instead, when faced with this kind of deliberately placed obstacle to convenience and speed?   I will.  Such short-sightedness is endemic; ultimately, it adds needlessly to the frustrations of air travel. 

Life's Annoyances

Have a look at this little list:

-- Difficulty merging into traffic or staying in lane.

-- Abrupt lane changes.

-- Increased aggressiveness or irritation while driving.

-- Speeding or going too slow for road conditions.

These are the first several items in a list of driving behaviors that "may prompt intervention," taken from an article about the problems of older drivers whose skills deteriorate to the point where they are a danger to themselves or others. 

As my wife remarked, reading this, you can hardly take a five-minute drive anymore without seeing all of these behaviors.  They're usually not the actions of oldsters, but of "normal" middle-aged and young people; and they're usually not attributable to dementia or old age, but to cell phones, texting, or just plain blithering. 

Admittedly, the article goes on to list other driving issues that are more clearly the province of the elderly who are losing some cognitive skills, e.g., being unable to find their way home, or difficulty moving their foot from gas pedal to brake. 

Nevertheless, if doctors, police, and just plain folks are going to start recommending "intervention," remedial driver training, and even "taking away the keys" for drivers who exhibit the first four traits listed above, we would quickly find that about half the motorists in the country were affected.  Of course, there's a silver lining:  this could soon solve our traffic problems. 

From here I jump from drivers to other annoying people, like those who might think the rules of air travel just aren't meant for them.   Which brings us to the JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, who's made himself famous by berating a passenger over the plane's PA system, then jumping plane via the emergency chute, absconding with a couple of beers.  No doubt the passenger involved belongs in the class of cell-phone-jabberers who clog our highways but I can't share the web's enthusiasm for Mr. Slater as a "hero."  Doesn't the younger crowd these days recognize that unfortunately, earning a living in almost any walk of life involves learning to cope with annoying clients without blowing your cool?  Evidently not.  The backstory (that Slater is dealing with some personal difficulties) isn't germane.

So maybe we need new ways of dealing with those annoying ones.  Possibly some guidelines for intervention:  if they carry on bags double the size of what's nominally permitted; leap from their seats before the plane has stopped taxiing; refuse reasonable requests; crowd in at the boarding gate before their seating tranche has been called -- we should consider these people demented, a possible danger to themselves and others, and ensure that they take training, or in extreme cases, get blacklisted so that no airline will issue them a ticket ever again.  Once again, at least half the air-passenger population would be affected, and the benefits in terms of reduced crowding and more pleasant air travel could be immeasurable.    

Tying Concrete In Knots

Today's early news brings the report that one of the DC area's busiest traffic arteries, Interstate 270, was completely blocked in both directions for the early part of the rush hour, and will remain partly blocked for at least several hours.  It's one of those days that makes me glad I don't commute any more.

Reports further indicated that the cause of this huge inconvenience was power lines down across the highway.  I assumed it might have been the violent thunderstorm that passed through the area last night but in fact, it was another of those errant tractor/trailers going off the road.

The cause doesn't really matter.  My first reaction was to ask myself why power lines were suspended directly across this major highway in the first place.  As long as we continue to string our power lines along poles, this kind of disruption can, and will, continue to occur both from weather and from traffic accidents.  The answer is to bury those lines.

Power companies resist this.  As always, it's a question of profits.  It's cheaper to erect above-ground lines than to bury them.  Is this really true, once the costs of having repair crews constantly on duty and paying them overtime, and once the effects of lost productivity are factored in?

One of the major goals of building the interstate highway system, when it was conceived, was to establish a road network that was secure, that would be built to withstand at least some basic kinds of military destruction, if the nation were attacked.  It seems we've gotten away from that cold-war thinking, but it may not hurt to reconsider it as we engage in a war on terrorism.  With electrical wiring strung all over the place, an enemy might just choose to hire a few semi rigs to be driven down a highway and crashed at the right points, as a means of sowing chaos and preparing for an attack.