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areoform 4 hours ago [-]
There is a deeper issue, in a crash, a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile. Worst comes to worst, today, the projectile is an infant. An infant is substantially softer and less massive than a rigid seat containing an infant.
For soft babywearing carriers, the outlook is also grim. The kinematics of the baby, adult, carrier and airplane seat lead to crush injuries that are worse than the poorly restrained arm hold version.
Could there be a solution here that straps around a seat to give babies a safe seat?
Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy to use or consumer friendly. The ideal solution would have the baby with their back facing front, and the attached carrier facing inwards towards the seat. It would have to be carefully specced and tested so no unverified, third-party seats... Logically extrapolated, in this scenario, the airline becomes responsible for the baby's wellbeing. And I don't think that's a good place for the airlines to be?
joshAg 1 minutes ago [-]
That solution already exists actually. You buy a ticket/seat for the infant and use an FAA approved carrier. For example, the nuna pipa rx is FAA approved for this use.
It's not a popular choice because you have to pay full price for the seat, so lap-carrying the baby can save quite a bit of money. Once the baby is 2, you can no longer lap carry them, so that option goes away. There's FAA approved options for small children for whom the lap belt would be inappropriate that are different from the infant seats.
bunderbunder 4 hours ago [-]
I think the challenge here might be that, as the article says, this is all just hypothetical and hasn't been empirically tested. It also sounds like a lot of the reasoning predates modern babywearing equipment quite a bit.
With our kids, we used two different devices. One was just a long strip of cloth that you tie in a special way. The other was a more structured carrier with straps and buckles and all that good stuff. For both of them, the child faces toward the parent, so they would be rear-facing relative to the plane. And both have an option to fully support the head. The main purpose there is just to protect their neck while sleeping or during moderate activity, but it would offer at least some additional protection against neck injuries in a crash, rough landing, or during periods of turbulence.
Perhaps crush injuries are more likely with the baby strapped to you, but honestly I would be more worried about a parent holding their baby being more likely to drop them in the aisle during an evacuation, which would be more likely to endanger everyone behind them on the plane as well.
paimapi 3 hours ago [-]
I think this is very true. the general consensus from NCPS techs we've talked to is that the most likely fatal injury to a child is spinal - their heads are extremely heavy relative to the rest of their body in infancy so the 'safest' seats tend to be the ones that distribute kinetics away or absorb it (like rear-facing seats where the sudden 'stop' pushes into the seat rather than having the baby's head fly forward)
that said, I've also heard that the US standards for car seats is piss poor relative to the rest of the world's. something about how they only test one head-on crash at 35mph and then extrapolate all the data from there. Germany's ADAC is supposedly the gold standard and I can see why - their tests are intensely comprehensive and granular, in the way you'd actually want them to be, and many of the seats rated safe by American standards fail ADAC: https://www.besafe.com/en/safety-tips/tests-awards/adac/
if there were to be a plane-oriented solution, the last place I'd trust it to be taken forward is in the USA especially given how easily corruptible safety-oriented institutions are here
yonaguska 2 hours ago [-]
The vast majority of the rest of the world simply doesn't use car seats at all. Even here in the US, in my very multinational city, I only see one demographic that consistently uses car seats at all, regardless of economic status.
lotsofpulp 1 hours ago [-]
Sometimes, I wonder what the societal costs of the ever increasing car seat requirements are.
I wouldn't want a third kid just because I don't want to deal with carseats anymore.
jefftk 38 minutes ago [-]
>I wouldn't want a third kid just because I don't want to deal with carseats anymore.
By the time you had your third, would the oldest still even be in a carseat?
I meant that I do not want to deal with taking a kid in and out of car seats, or traveling with car seats, or taking them in and out of cars, for more years of my life.
rootusrootus 2 hours ago [-]
> I've also heard that the US standards for car seats is piss poor relative to the rest of the world's
How do you define piss poor? The stats show that the US minimum standards still reduce fatal injury risks substantially. And your comparison point for 'rest of the world' is a German automobile club, not a government regulation. Would the better comparison be to ECE R129 for the EU?
> something about how they only test one head-on crash at 35mph and then extrapolate all the data from there
You know that the information is readily available and you could avoid spreading misinformation with a 10 second search, right?
The US regulation, FMVSS 213/213A, does a frontal crash at 30 mph as well as a side crash test at 30 mph. For apples-to-apples comparison, the EU regulation does a 31 mph frontal crash test and a 19 mph side test. All of the governmental tests are done on a standardized test bench. The German auto club test is 40 mph frontal and 31 mph side, done in a regular car.
There are also organizations in the US that do testing and ranking beyond the regulatory minimums.
paimapi 14 minutes ago [-]
I mean, you're right about side crashes but I'm reading that the NHTSA didn't implement this until 2022. and regardless, if all that were true the infant mortality rates per capita from car crashes would prove your point
so what do those stats say vs Germany, Sweden, the EU average? all very easily searchable, no mechanistic theorycrafting required. how does the US fare? certainly not multiple times worse across the board, right?
lkbm 4 hours ago [-]
Not sure how much we need to optimize for this. Plane crashes are rare. I'm happy to risk a baby seat crashing into me if my plane crashes if it means the 99.99987% of the flights are slightly better.
p_l 4 hours ago [-]
The math is more that benefits aren't that great and the dangers are pretty big, especially if someone fails to properly secure the carrier and you get a rejected takeoff
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
I do (barely) buy this for car seats. It obviously makes no sense for the baby carriers that the article is talking about.
houseofzeus 47 minutes ago [-]
Also, car seats are actually allowed as long as they have the right certification sticker.
koolba 1 hours ago [-]
Indeed. This is the same type of bankrupt government logic that classifies a slingshot as a firearm.
fn-mote 3 hours ago [-]
Really? Flight staff are checking to make sure everyone wears a seatbelt. Check the carriers, too. Seems like a non-issue.
What parent in their right mind is bothering to bring a baby carrier and can’t manage to secure it?
houseofzeus 45 minutes ago [-]
My experience has been that as long as your car seat has the right certification they are allowed and the flight staff do check both that it has the certification sticker and that you've installed then correctly. The installation mode for planes is typically significantly simpler than in a car because it's just the belt pass through and seat angle. There's nowhere to attach a top tether.
m-s-y 3 hours ago [-]
attaching a baby carrier / car seat to a vehicle seems easy, but a recent study showed that about half of US drivers had their seats installed incorrectly, and these are vehicles where the driver has unlimited time and resources to get it right.
I can't imagine that percentage goes up when strapped for time and under pressure during aircraft boarding.
The installation mode for planes is actually easier due to the standardization of the actual seat belts versus for cars the carriers will have different instructions depending on whether UAS is present, belt install, top tether, etc. In an aircraft there's really only one way to do it which is passing the belt through.
airstrike 3 hours ago [-]
Importantly, though, a crewmember doesn't stop by to check if you strapped the car sear correctly
houseofzeus 44 minutes ago [-]
In my experience they always stopped by to check that the seat was certified and that you knew how to install it. For aircraft install though it's usually simpler than a car because the only way to do it is a belt pass through.
dekhn 3 hours ago [-]
I remember the very first time I installed a car seat, I rigorously followed the instructions, verifying each step both textually and by image. After that, we had it inspected by the local FD who said "you did it wrong" and rearranged it in a way that looked wrong to me (some detail with the straps and routing). I still don't know who did it right.
rpdillon 3 hours ago [-]
Same experience. My wife and spent more than an hour trying to get it all right, then went to the inspection facility, and they completely re-did it all. I now have teenagers, but still don't actually know how to install a seat correctly.
vlovich123 3 hours ago [-]
Vehicles are also more dangerous which should tell you something about the actual impact on safety.
drdexebtjl 3 hours ago [-]
You would be surprised.
ranger_danger 3 hours ago [-]
Usually what I see happen is that people will wait until they are done checking seatbelts and then take them off.
> What parent in their right mind
As a parent, you would be extremely saddened to learn that many are not.
tsunamifury 4 hours ago [-]
Turbulence that loosens objects is very common.
My guy a car seat will do nothing in a crash.
lkbm 5 minutes ago [-]
This isn't about car seats, it's about baby carriers, and it's not about protecting you in a car crash:
> When our babies were little, carriers were massively helpful in flying. The baby likes it, and your arms are free.
> The carrier means the baby can sleep wherever we are, and I can have my hands free. If you can breastfeed in the carrier, even better because the baby can eat as you’re navigating the airport, etc. Carrying the baby centered on your body is easier on your back than carrying them in the carseat. Plus it’s good for walking / sightseeing at your destination.
rootusrootus 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah we're flying in aluminum cans with hundreds of pounds of luggage above our heads held in by doors with doors that regularly malfunction. The occasional baby seat that might become a projectile seems low on the list of things likely to impact me, much less change the outcome appreciably in a crash.
dualvariable 53 minutes ago [-]
Plus, everyone's poorly secured laptops and phones flying around.
houseofzeus 39 minutes ago [-]
In this context the baby that isn't strapped in is the loose object. The use of car seats and harnesses is not just about a full loss of control of the aircraft and resulting crash.
dualvariable 55 minutes ago [-]
If you have lethal babies and/or lethal rigid carriers flying around an airplane in a crash, I think you've got a severe enough crash that most of these arguments are picking bellybutton lint. I'd vastly prefer the FAA focus on the rulemaking around ensuring that I'm not in such a crash than worry about what happens if I'm in such a crash. The chances that I get into an accident which is severe enough that I get killed by a flying baby, but I would have otherwise survived, are exceptionally low.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
> For soft babywearing carriers, the outlook is also grim. The kinematics of the baby, adult, carrier and airplane seat lead to crush injuries that are worse than the poorly restrained arm hold version.
The point is that the "return" - in a vanishingly tiny number of cases, the kinematics is very slightly better (maybe I buy that it is slightly better, without doing research, but it can't possibly be much better) - is not at all worth the "investment" - every single parent of every single baby on every single flight having to put up with a very real annoyance.
tadfisher 3 hours ago [-]
There is an easy and FAA-approved child restraint system called CARES. My wife and I purchased one and used it with great success. The flight attendants had never seen one, so it comes with a card for you to show them.
CARES is for a completely different group of kids than TFA - infants vs small children...
keoneflick 3 hours ago [-]
Haven't you got pushback that it blocks the tray table of the seat behind you? I've only heard very mixed things about CARES.
kxyvr 2 hours ago [-]
We actively use ours and it's never been an issue. Simply, lift the tray on the chair behind you, slip the harness over, and close the tray. Normally, families with small children get to pre-board, so we have it setup before the other passengers have arrived. Even after, we've never had any push back.
Notably, though, German carriers like Lufthansa do not allow it, which I believe is due to German regulations. Outside of that, we've never had an issue in either the U.S. or Europe, but occasionally we need to show the airline a copy of their policy from their website on one of our phones. They weren't mean about it, but may not have seen one. Generally, the senior flight attendant is experienced enough to know the rules.
Our kids were huge, so we used it from before they were a year old and it has been very helpful.
tadfisher 2 hours ago [-]
It did work with the tray tables at the time (underneath, while open or shut). This was about 4 years ago when we last used it. Passenger behind us was more curious than upset.
saghm 3 hours ago [-]
> Logically extrapolated, in this scenario, the airline becomes responsible for the baby's wellbeing. And I don't think that's a good place for the airlines to be?
Aren't airlines responsible for the well-being of everyone on a plane? That seems like it kind of goes with the territory of charging money for hurtling people across the sky in a giant metal box.
atoav 3 hours ago [-]
I think this is ill-phrased, but true. It isn't about being responsible for wellbeing, it is about legal liability in case of accidents.
If you (as the airline) did what the rules where that everybody else follows and the FAA mandates and the baby dies you can argue you did everything correctly and the rules are at fault.
If you however go your own special, non-FAA-approved solution, typically the burden of proof that this special solution is at least up to par with existing certified standards is on you, the airline and if a baby dies it is on you alone to defend that solution.
Meaning from the standpoint of an airline there is not a lot to gain, but much to lose if they do things outside established standards.
This may sound idiotic, but it also prevents other "creative" solutions where airlines sacrifice safety willingly to spend less money.
saghm 2 hours ago [-]
I don't disagree with that. To me, that implies that there should be better established standards. The parent comment described some of the mechanisms, but stopped short of suggesting that they become standard, which I think is why I was sort of confused.
cucumber3732842 2 hours ago [-]
>This may sound idiotic, but it also prevents other "creative" solutions where airlines sacrifice safety willingly to spend less money.
Everyone loves to say this from the comfort of their arm chair somewhere in an ivory tower but literally every aviation and adjacent workplace has a phrase to the tune of "here we cut stupid corners, cutting smart ones is illegal"
Which is to say, the do-gooders in their infinite wisdom have blocked progress on various axis, some of them no-brainers, some of them the most reasonable ones, because once upon a time someone took it too far and something happened. So all investigation of where to save money, where to find improvement, etc, etc, happens on axis of optimization that are frequently absurd. This is where most of the "creative" solutions you deride come from.
jefftk 3 hours ago [-]
> a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile
Rigid carriers are already permitted on planes, as long as they're FAA approved (which many are). You attach them with the seatbelt, and the flight attendants check.
What I'm proposing in this post is that the FAA not require parents to remove lab infants from babywearing carriers.
ddj231 33 minutes ago [-]
I'm surprised at the amount of people here confusing carriers with car seats. It seemed obvious enough to me in the article. It's about wearing babies on the plane, not babies sitting in their own seat.
mbreese 2 hours ago [-]
From the comments here, many people don’t get the difference. If you’ve never flown with a kid, there is a nuance that is easy to miss.
I was going to make a comment earlier about how my kids travelled in car seats years ago before I realized you were talking about lap kids without their own seat.
jefftk 2 hours ago [-]
Any suggestions on how I might clean up the wording? Currently I have: "In fact, one specific place where I'd like to see this thinking applied is adjacent to this rule: babywearing carriers on planes."
jollyllama 1 hours ago [-]
This. The web page title should be "Allow Babywearing on Planes"
jefftk 32 minutes ago [-]
Good idea! Changed "Carriers" to "Babywearing Carriers"
schiffern 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe just include an example picture/diagram?
throw0101c 3 hours ago [-]
> Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy to use or consumer friendly. The ideal solution would have the baby with their back facing front, and the attached carrier facing inwards towards the seat.
There is an existing international standard (ISO 13216) for child safety seats in cars:
I got anecdata of people shopping for gargantuan 3-row SUVs so they can accommodate the third child seat. Most people don’t seem to mind as it’s “only” a monthly payment. (Over 8 years it’s a fortune in interest let alone the actual cost of the vehicle but most people don’t think that far ahead)
netrus 42 minutes ago [-]
To add my and data as someone who recently got a third child: number one question i get askes is whether we are going to move (we live in an apartment in the city) number two is a comment about cars size. So I am pretty sure people consider this when they think about having another child.
pfdietz 1 hours ago [-]
A 3-row minivan sounds more practical.
drdexebtjl 3 hours ago [-]
That’s great? You shouldn’t have kids if you can’t stand the slightest temporary inconvenience such as… providing them safe transportation.
bethekidyouwant 2 hours ago [-]
fun fact. the same number of women are having kids as in the 80's they are just having fewer children.
expedition32 45 minutes ago [-]
My mom had my brother when she was 21.
Who the hell has kids nowadays at that age? Not many in the first world.
Quitschquat 3 hours ago [-]
> There is a deeper issue, in a crash,
you'll be dead so it won't matter much.
toast0 52 minutes ago [-]
The vast majority of airplane incidents with injuries are not a total loss with most people dead.
Hard landings, rough turbulence, runway excursions, etc are far more common and also situations where differences in restraints make meaningful differences in outcomes.
ibejoeb 3 hours ago [-]
I don't think that's actually what the FAA has reasoned.
FAA calls all of these devices, in general, child restraint systems. Rigid seats with harnesses are allowed under FAA rules. The real consideration is blocked egress, since a large, rigid device strapped to a seat could actually make egress more challenging. That is covered in a more subjective advisory circular, which allows airlines to make policy, e.g., it may only be used at a window seat of a non-exit row.
Since FAA just this month has decided to start enforcing a 1992 rule requiring even so much as a paper cup to be stowed before pushback citing the egress concern, we might even expect some new policy on this.
aeternum 2 hours ago [-]
Can you link your kinematics? Modern science is much closer to the priests of old. Academics leverage their credentials to present untested predictions as science. Their ideas are considered correct because of their expertise and the institutions they belong to, not because the ideas have been thoroughly tested.
This is religion, not science.
houseofzeus 48 minutes ago [-]
Thing is a rigid car seat is what you ARE allowed.
einpoklum 47 minutes ago [-]
> a poorly secured rigid baby carrier seat becomes a potentially lethal projectile.
No it doesn't.
xnx 4 hours ago [-]
Is a rigid carrier more dangerous as a projectile, or more so as an obstacle to evacuation?
areoform 4 hours ago [-]
Lethal projectile. 2x more mass = 2x more energy.
In this scenario, there isn't going to be evacuation. At best, it's search and rescue. At worst, search and recovery.
The poorly attached rigid seat, with a well-secured infant, increases the infant's odds of survival, but the mass increase reduces everyone else's odds of survival (including other infants and caregivers).
There are designs and policies where it becomes "worth it." But it would have to be study to figure out at what point the tradeoff becomes worth it.
It's a grim outcome, but great safety engineering is built on the worst case taken seriously.
xfz 4 hours ago [-]
I've only done one return flight with Thai Airways (LHR-BKK) with a child seat, but it's only allowed by a window seat or in the middle seat in a 3x3x3 configuration. Probably standard but I didn't check for a while.
(Sorry, meant to reply to parent)
kortilla 3 hours ago [-]
>In this scenario, there isn't going to be evacuation. At best, it's search and rescue. At worst, search and recovery.
Scenarios without evacuations are ones where nearly everyone or everyone is already dead. That’s not a case to optimize for.
Can you explain your reasoning why is that the case with carrier seats but not with <literally_every_other_hard_object> including human bodies and their skulls which are way sturdier than plastic moldings?
robotresearcher 2 hours ago [-]
Humans are restrained by seatbelts, which are checked by cabin crew.
houseofzeus 35 minutes ago [-]
What do you think people are attaching the already approved rigid car seats to the aircraft with?
robotresearcher 32 minutes ago [-]
The argument, quoted by the GP, is about improperly restrained seats. They are only talking about those.
houseofzeus 7 minutes ago [-]
The GP also seems to think that having rigid car seats on plane would be a net new thing. They are already allowed and flight crew already check that it has the right certification and is attached correctly - this is much easier on a plane because the only way to attach them is the seat belt versus most seats have at least 3 different ways to attach in a car.
moralestapia 2 hours ago [-]
You're right, I forgot that's impossible with a carrier seat.
2 hours ago [-]
fsckboy 3 hours ago [-]
>Worst comes to worst
I only ever heard/said this. Seeing it in print, I suddenly realize it must be "worse comes to worst"
there is a use for the other phrase (but nobody uses it this way), should the worst (thing) come to the worst (people), then... just desserts?
what 3 hours ago [-]
Most airlines offer bassinets for babies. You can only get them in front rows where they get attached to the wall in front of the seats. They’ve got a mesh top that your supposed to keep zipped up while the baby is in there.
yks 3 hours ago [-]
Bassinets are only available in the wide-body airplanes, and only a few select domestic US routes are even flying those. And even then, the plane bassinets are tiny, and most infants outgrow them by 6mo. And purely anecdotal observation is that most flights I've been on had way more infants in the cabin than places to install bassinets.
tekla 4 hours ago [-]
I'll bet that is less of an issue than the issue of evacuation.
Currently, aircraft seatbelts are designed for very quick release when needed with no training or muscle memory needed, shove your hand at your waist and pull the metal flap and it immediately comes apart. This seems like it could be an issue with baby carriers, since a) you can probably expect a bit more complex arrangement of straps buckles and b) lack of muscle memory or training on presumably a different style of carrier than what you ever ever use outside an airplane.
A second issue that comes to mind, how to do seating arrangements? Imagine a parent struggling to remove baby during a emergency. Imagine a 3 seat row window side, where others are stuck waiting for parent to release baby.
This seems like a certification nightmare
houseofzeus 32 minutes ago [-]
Certified rigid car seats are already onboard and pretty much every airline you've ever flown on has clear guidelines on which seats they can be placed in for exactly that reason.
Torabaasu 3 hours ago [-]
You are only allowed to have the carrier in the window seat from the flights I’ve been on.
MostlyStable 4 hours ago [-]
The decision to not require seats is one of the best regulatory decisions I have ever heard of, and I wish this kind of thought process was more present in all kinds of places. The funny thing is that, I bet if it were used more broadly, given the absolutely enormous safety advantage that flying has over basically any other mode of transportation, there would be a non trivial number of other flight safety regulations that would get reconsidered.
ggreer 4 hours ago [-]
Going back to pre-9/11 security screening would probably save lives. The extra time & hassle required to get through security (and the fact that only passengers can go through) means that some people drive instead of fly. Driving is less safe than flying, so some of those people die in car wrecks.
dragonwriter 4 hours ago [-]
> The extra time & hassle required to get through security (and the fact that only passengers can go through) means that some people drive instead of fly.
I suspect it leads to more people not travelling at all (or much shorter distances) and net saves lives in both the relatively immediate travel sense and even moreso in the broader analysis including net carbon emissions and their effect in climate change.
(It is still a mix of corrupt corporatism and authoritarian conditioning that should be ended for that reason.)
ghaff 3 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure I disagree. I don't have numbers but, anecdotally, you sure hear a lot of "But flying is such a hassle" which is sorta true but not sure how much more than it's ever been especially if you're willing to pay a bit more. I'm not sure how many people translate that into "So I'll just drive 1,000 miles instead."
In Europe (and the US Northeast Corridor), I do favor trains to avoid going to and dealing with airports, but they're no panacea either. And I say this as someone with the various passes that make flying easier.
darrylb42 3 hours ago [-]
I can drive for 5 hours, or take the 1 hour flight. The one hour flight has a total time of over 5 hours when you include getting to the airport, clearing security and getting bags at the other end. Plus I will not have a vehicle. For one person the cost is probably a wash, for two or more driving will be cheaper. 1000 miles does tip towards flying. Under 300 miles driving is going to be way less hassle to drive.
ghaff 2 hours ago [-]
It has very little to do with security though. I usually go through security in 5 minutes at my home airport. I do leave a lot more time than that partially because my car company sort of insists on it. (Of course, the car company is another cost.)
Honestly, it would be faster and possibly cheaper for me to drive to Manhattan than take the train--in which case security doesn't enter in at all. And certainly for two people. But I hate driving into Manhattan.
expedition32 40 minutes ago [-]
International trains have security too nowadays. In fact they're trying to feel an awful lot like planes...
It is what it is. Governments can't risk the bad publicity of a terrorist attack. A car accident doesn't even make the news.
esikich 3 hours ago [-]
I suspect it doesn't.
CPLX 3 hours ago [-]
While I don't disagree and I think a lot of it is just nonsense security theater, it is probably worth noting that incidents of airline terrorism have fallen completely off the map in this new regime.
Not sure how old you are but bombings and hijackings of airplanes were just kind of a common fact of life when I was a kid and I was there on 9/11 as well.
There's at least some element of Chesterton's fence that could come into play here.
InitialLastName 37 minutes ago [-]
The biggest difference to hijackings post 9/11 has nothing to do with pre-boarding security: Locking the cockpit door.
esikich 3 hours ago [-]
Locking the cockpit doors and beaching the social contract that no one gets hurt in a hijacking stopped it, not TSA.
coredog64 23 minutes ago [-]
The trade-off here is that there's at least one instance where a protocol gap and a locked door led to intentional CFIT (Germanwings 9525)
tenacious_tuna 3 hours ago [-]
I would argue that high speed regional rail would address this as well. How many flights from regional airports to major hubs could be eliminated with a decent train?
frmersdog 3 hours ago [-]
Regular rail is already this, and for much of the Northeast is already roughly at or near time parity with flying, all things considered. If you have to arrive at the airport 2 hours early, and it takes 30 minutes-1 hour to leave by whatever means (renting a car, waiting for a bus or Uber, etc. + baggage return and simply walking through the airport), and then another 30 minutes-hour to actually arrive at your destination, arriving at your local station 10 minutes before departure and arriving in the city center/local destination station starts to look really attractive for flights of <2 hours/train rides of <6 hours.
ggreer 2 hours ago [-]
High speed rail is only cost-effective between major cities that are within a few hundred miles or so. Otherwise you don't have enough passengers to recoup the cost of building & maintaining the rail system.
For example: Spokane to Seattle is about 230 miles in a straight line, or 280 miles driving. A flight takes less than an hour (not even 40 minutes of which is spent in the air) and costs $80-130 one way. A train traveling 200mph nonstop would take 1 hour 24 minutes. Building high speed rail costs $20-$200 million per mile (the upper end of that is California HSR). If we optimistically assume $20m/mile, constructing the line will cost $5.6b. If all SEA-GEG passengers (677k per year) choose to take rail instead of flying, and we want the project to pay for itself after 50 years, then each ticket will need to cost $165. This also assumes no cost to maintain or operate the rail line.
rootusrootus 56 minutes ago [-]
You sent me down a rabbit hole, thank you, reading about the current state of Cascadia HSR, what it would take to make the current 79mph tracks capable of 110mph or 125mph (spoiler, 110mph is barely worthwhile and 125mph is an overt waste of effort), etc. The more I look at the numbers, the more I think the future does not look like HSR in the PNW. Wildly expensive, low ridership.
I wonder if we could not get most of the benefit by doing substantially cheaper options like separating freight from rail on major routes, electrifying parts of it where feasible. And maybe taking specific segments in areas where the track conditions are already favorable and increasing the maximum speeds on those segments. Probably two-thirds of the route between Portland and Salem, for example, is already suitable with modest upgrades to hit 125 mph. And basically all modern trains are capable of that speed already.
coredog64 3 hours ago [-]
If you're comparing HSR to air travel with post 9/11 security then there's a a moderate number. However, once you have HSR that moves a significant amount of people, you WILL get post 9/11 security there as well, taking the number to approximately zero.
InitialLastName 32 minutes ago [-]
Plenty of places operate much more dense transit without that level of security.
Trains, even HSR have essentially zero hijacking risk relative to airplanes, and proper safety interlocks make them very difficult to use the vehicle as a weapon.
At that point, your terrorism risk is approximately on level with any other dense transportation interconnect.
3 hours ago [-]
dfxm12 53 minutes ago [-]
Do you have any evidence on this? As a personal anecdote, driving is as much a hassle if not more than flying, depending on the distance. I care more about cost first and time second. Even if you buffer in getting to the airport 2 hours early, flying is almost certainly the fastest (compared to driving and train, if available) unless you're flying from like, bos -> nyc. Security at airports hasnt felt like a hassle for me in years (at least the past six years).
I had two recent trips to the same destination. I drove once because it was so much cheaper (during the world cup when air fare was jacked up) compared to the train or flying. I flew the other time, because it was only a little more expensive and flying is faster and less of a hassle, actually.
Additionally, given the article talks about families, the cost comes down a lot with multiple people in one car vs multiple plane tickets. If we want to make travel safer by putting fewer cars on the road, make alternatives cheaper. They're already more convenient to me...
tsunamifury 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
greenmilk 2 hours ago [-]
What happens when you factor in the downstream effects of carbon emissions (based on whatever the best projects are right now)?
qurren 2 hours ago [-]
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead.
Is this really why the rule was made? Did they really have safety of driving in mind or is this just in the interest of the profits of airlines?
It seems like if they really had safety in mind there are better solutions:
* Subsidize the 2nd seat for parents with children from tax dollars
* Criminalize many intentional driving violations
* Build high speed rail
gregwtmtno 2 hours ago [-]
I have a unique perspective on this as a former federal rulemaker. One thing you should know is that when it comes to rulemaking, the FAA isn't an ordinary rulemaker--they do the most of it and they're the best in the business. When I went to my intro to rule making classes, the FAA always rolled deep.
If you want a change and you want to make sure the right people see your request, I suggest you start here:
As a student pilot, I got confused by a sign in the aeronautical charts, and wrote to the faa.
I got to present in front of the aeronautical charting group, they discussed, and took up my change. It was a surreal experience. The level of depth, care, and just breadth of considerations to flip every possible stone to make flying infinitessimally safer was truly awe inspiring. The fact that me, a at-the-time-not-yet-even private pilot, was heard and taken super seriously, was equally amazing. Fully agree -- these people are the best in the biz.
xp84 2 hours ago [-]
Why doesn't the FAA usually implement the changes the NTSB raises after learning from crashes?
alex_sf 7 minutes ago [-]
They do when appropriate after considering all concerns. The NTSB is solely concerned with safety. The best rulemaking is not literally safety-first or nothing would actually get done.
silver92bullet 3 hours ago [-]
I think this is a way that airlines and the FFA could continue to grow in consideration. At some point the economics of flying with children starts to make less and less sense. I just flew with a toddler that was under 2 from the mainland US to Hawaii and back. The toddler is just under 2 so he was considered a lap child to fly free. However at 2 the child for most airlines graduates to a full price ticket. At that point it seems less and less likely for families to want to fly over driving. Then add more children you are spending something of a small fortune to fly anywhere. It seems like the airlines could capture more business if they could price into their model a discounted ticket for children older than 2 but under a certain age (ie. 13 or 10).
sojournerc 2 hours ago [-]
But why? They weigh slightly less, but take up a seat. Why should a child be subsidized. Planes are typically full or close to full. The airline doesn't really care what age the butt is in the seat, just that it's a revenue passenger.
seizethecheese 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah, and as someone who just travelled with three young kids I don’t think my party cost the airline less than our number of seats, probably a lot more. We required more attention from staff, made a bigger mess, and didn’t bring less stuff per person just because the kids are small.
Kids are already subsidized with free gate checking of strollers (to be fair, so are other things like skis on Alaska).
tadzikpk 4 hours ago [-]
As a parent of 3 kids and an extensive baby-carrier user, I see your argument but I think you're lacking consideration of the failure modes.
Yes, almost every baby carrier would likely restrain the infant better than add-on infant belt if the adult lap belt rides up over the infant carrier, the infant's going to be crushed between the adult and the belt. Not a good outcome.
Thus you're likely going to need FAA-approved infant carriers, same way as you'd need FAA-approved car seats you can take on planes.
jarvist 3 hours ago [-]
I dunno, I flew UK-IRL this summer and in both directions I just threaded the baby-belt (standard issue here, the cabin crew hand them out before the safety briefing) around the carrier and the sleeping baby.
In a full on crash situation infants are not going to do well, so optimising for much more likely turbulence injuries (for which having the baby strapped as securely as possible is definitely a good idea!) seems more important.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
You're doing perfect is the enemy of better.
ofek 3 hours ago [-]
Relatedly, I wish I could bring my electric wheelchair with me in the cabin. I went on a work trip to Paris in April and sitting in a regular seat was just as uncomfortable as I remember. Fortunately, halfway through the first flight one of the attendants noticed my caregiver frequently repositioning me and had the other person in our row move elsewhere so that I could lie down across two seats. American Airlines allowed me to do that on the return flight as well.
I was quite worried that my wheelchair would break in some way like I've experienced several times before but everything went quite smoothly! AI helped tremendously with planning, e.g. here's Claude: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/6c977d23-1b7c-4a00-a7aa-d...
hblanks 3 hours ago [-]
From sled tests done by Australia in 2022:
> A lap-belt restrained adult dummy in an aircraft seat, with an infant dummy in a carrier, was subjected to a 9G dynamic sled test. The severity of the pulse was based on the results of a static load test. The commercially available infant carriers tested were not able to restrain infants under crash situations.
The missing comparison is to a parent holding the baby in their arms, which I expect would also fail a 9G test. We're not making babies safer by requiring parents to take them out of babywearing carriers.
9cb14c1ec0 2 hours ago [-]
Exactly. There is no way most parents could keep ahold of a child during 9Gs, unless they have the grip strength to lift several tons.
molsongolden 4 hours ago [-]
Sort of tangential to the rulemaking discussion but I’ve had two flight attendants note that unbuckling the carrier during takeoff and landing is required due to the risk of breaking the child’s back.
If the adult is pitched forward with the child strapped to their chest (facing inward) then they risk bending the child’s spine backwards.
ggreer 4 hours ago [-]
The rules don't say that you have to hold your baby facing forward, and front-facing baby carriers are also banned during takeoff & landing.
brettcvz 4 hours ago [-]
Strongly agree. I’ve been made to multiple times to wake up a sleeping baby that was strapped to my chest and it feels absurd for everyone involved.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
This never happened to me when I had babies, thank god, but I would almost certainly have politely said "no" to this request. It isn't very fair to the flight attendant who is just trying to do their job, to force them to figure out how to handle an uncooperative parent with a sleeping baby, but IMO it's a very reasonable battle to pick. I think essentially every flight attendant would just let it go.
throooooo 3 hours ago [-]
Flight attendants, like mostly anyone else, have a job to do. Much of their job involves keeping hundreds of people safe at the same time. Not obeying a FA's order is a federal crime and could be a felony.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
I am aware of that, and also would politely reply "no" to being asked to wake my baby up for no good reason. It is extremely unlikely that this would lead to a felony conviction. It would make the flight attendant's life harder, which I would lament, but being politely told "no" by a parent is not the kind of uncooperative disruption that the laws around obedience to flight attendants are designed to avoid. This is not the same kind of problem as running up and down the aisles yelling and being disruptive.
Having said all that, if I thought I could get the baby out of the sling without waking them up, I'd probably try that first though. (I'm pretty sure most flight attendants aren't enforcing this silly rule to begin with, because I'm pretty sure I would have experienced it if they were, I used these slings / carriers all the time, including on planes.)
xp84 2 hours ago [-]
> It is extremely unlikely that this would lead to a felony conviction
Uh, you'd be surprised. Once you refuse, they are going to insist, and if you still refuse to comply, or they're going to return to the gate and have your ass removed. They don't pick and choose which rules to enforce.
And yes, they do enforce this rule. We experienced it all the time when my son was a baby.
ThunderSizzle 2 hours ago [-]
a flight attendant was annoyed that my diaper bag was in front of feet instead of in front of my feet by 3 more inches. While feeding a fussy baby as a parent traveling alone, with no hands free, I gave then a look of "are you serious?"...while I proceedes to make my daughter cry quite a bit to shove the bag a bit more.
Just being a flight attendant doesn't make them great humans to be around.
ballsac 48 minutes ago [-]
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jefftk 2 hours ago [-]
> I think essentially every flight attendant would just let it go.
I predict they will not let it go, and it will escalate to escorting you off the plane. It's a violation of federal law to allow you to keep your child strapped in, and the attendant risks losing their job.
wat10000 2 hours ago [-]
Just be very careful with this. Flight attendants have the force of law behind them and you never know when they'll decide the right way to handle an uncooperative passenger is to have police meet the plane when you land.
tiffanyh 3 hours ago [-]
Tangentially related ... US school buses don't have seatbelts.
another-dave 3 hours ago [-]
It's been awhile since I used one so maybe I'm misremembering, but isn't the brace position for a lap infant basically the same as what a rear facing soft baby carrier does naturally?
It seems strange to disallow the carrier, have the belt that loops through the adult belt but then if the plane is going down you have to get them into the same position they'll be in in the carrier anyway!
3 hours ago [-]
danhor 3 hours ago [-]
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead. Since driving is far less safe than flying, a ban would lead to more deaths. I'd love to see more of this "all things considered" thinking around bans.
In terms of CO2e, a familiy of 2 + a kid driving a car instead of flying results in quite a bit of less emissions. Depending on the assumed mortality per tonne CO2e, driving might lead to a lot less deaths.
This is of course quite unreliable data, but one example of just to say how "all things considered" is very hard and almost always still comes down to a judgement call.
changoplatanero 3 hours ago [-]
Of course, not everything needs to be decided by the FAA. Sometimes they could let people make decisions for themselves.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
Yes. This. We all - and especially parents - spend all day every day evaluating risks. The FAA does not need to decide for me the level of risk between holding a baby in my arms vs having it in a sling during take off and landing. That's very silly.
xp84 2 hours ago [-]
For real. For something like car seats, arguably the regulation was what we needed to get them adopted. This though, seems as necessary as government regulators deciding if I can babywear my child when walking down the street. The relative risks and benefits are impossible to fully compare with this issue, and the impact on other people is nil whether it's baby in lap or baby in carrier.
amelius 2 hours ago [-]
I'm OK with it if the carrier can be hermetically closed so that no sound can escape from it :)
vasco 36 minutes ago [-]
We should also allow window seat people to have their table down during take-off and landing. The only reason for it is delaying evacuation but in window you only delay yourself. Makes no sense to mandate that.
copperx 2 hours ago [-]
If people decide to have children, they should adapt to the world; expecting the world to adapt to them is insane.
sroussey 47 minutes ago [-]
Um, maybe don't allow babies on planes.
That would make my flying a bit nicer.
ChrisArchitect 4 hours ago [-]
Please adjust title to ..."Baby Carriers" for clarity
GordonS 4 hours ago [-]
Even then... is "baby carrier" an American term? Are we talking about slings or car seats or something else?
MobiusHorizons 3 hours ago [-]
It’s like a front backpack where the baby is facing the wearer and is supported up to the neck. Something like this https://share.google/cGaL54ZtqoxDq18zv
lemmetellya 3 hours ago [-]
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throooooo 3 hours ago [-]
What, you don't want to allow Verizon on planes?
dboreham 4 hours ago [-]
I was struggling with the inversion of containment: usually planes are on carriers.
atomic_cattlepr 3 hours ago [-]
It's because that's why.
tamimio 3 hours ago [-]
I think what’s better is modular seats. The interior of the airplane is empty with harnesses all over the floor, and based on the passengers the seats get customized. A baby? A carrier seat is put there. Disabled? They can use their own as long as it fulfills the specs. Fat person? Combo seat. Someone wants to sleep? A bed-like is added, and so on. Plus the arrangement inside can be easily reshaped for best experience
jstanley 3 hours ago [-]
How much time are you imagining the crew have got between flights to tidy up the plane for the next flight?
tamimio 3 hours ago [-]
It’s not a big issue, by the time they are loading/unloading the luggage, it can be done. It should be designed in a way that can be easily attached or detached, or even automated/robot based rails does the job quickly.
So for example: while booking you get to select those options, and while they load the luggage, an app on some crew tablet quickly arrange the seats and hit submit, the rails automatically do the jobs! Ycombinator, prepare that VC funds!! ;)
dave78 2 hours ago [-]
I don't know what your flying experience is, but mine is that you're lucky if the cleaning crews have a chance to make a quick sweep of the cabin before the next flight's occupants begin loading. I'm usually towards the back of the plane and the cleaning crews are already 10-15 rows into the plane by the time my row can exit.
There's no way, in my experience, that they'd have time for something like that. Especially since anything that moves will invariably have mechanical issues from time to time. I've had to sit in a broken seat before because they simply do not have time to fix it between flights.
jamiek88 2 hours ago [-]
They get 22 minutes on most US domestic flights and that includes deboarding.
DonHopkins 4 hours ago [-]
It's only fair, since they allow planes on aircraft carriers.
throooooo 3 hours ago [-]
When I read the title I thought it was referring to communications carriers (cell phone companies.)
andrecarini 4 hours ago [-]
Would that lead to a fractal of planes and carriers?
cyanydeez 4 hours ago [-]
"All things considered" is easily attacked by vultures and businesses typically pick it apart.
PFAS bans are another where the whole class is likely hazardous but EPA will continue chasing specific molecules rather than consider the whole class.
Now adays, chem engineering will just put different monomers in and move on untill 20 years and we find, all things considered, it still reaches humans at toxic levels.
poltergeist11 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
nkrisc 3 hours ago [-]
> Where is SO important that you need to take a baby with you on a plane?
I would guess that in most cases, someone is flying with an infant because they are going somewhere important and traveling with their infant was the best option available to them.
Traveling by air (or at all) with an infant is not fun and I can’t imagine that ever being anyone’s first choice.
So when you see frazzled parents at the airport with their young children, assume the best and be kind.
dlisboa 3 hours ago [-]
It's incredible how many people are willing to treat young children as second class citizens because they don't want to be inconvenienced.
We have child-free hotels, child-free restaurantes, maybe now child-free airplanes...what's next, child-free cities?
boelboel 3 hours ago [-]
Child free cities exist in the US. The villages has a population of 150K people. They genuinely dislike young people.
ballsac 2 hours ago [-]
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ryeats 4 hours ago [-]
No one travels with babies for fun, visiting my terminally Ill mother over the several years of her decline was indeed a nightmare with young children, we would not have put ourselves through that otherwise.
vigilantpuma 3 hours ago [-]
People do travel with babies for fun and there’s nothing wrong with that! It is possible to have a good time traveling with young kids, even a baby.
kortilla 3 hours ago [-]
> No one travels with babies for fun
I have encountered this many times flying so it’s not “no one”. It’s usually younger couples who either don’t know what they are getting into or just have the energy to deal with it.
On international flights from the US it’s common to hear the reason is to bring the baby to see extended family.
compiler-guy 2 hours ago [-]
That’s not what the idiom “don’t do x for fun” is about.
The expression means that X is the best of unpalatable options to accomplish something else, where X is taken in a literal and narrow sense.
People don’t fly with babies for fun. They do it because visiting grandparents is fun, and driving isn’t a good option. Or, if it involves a trip across the ocean, the alternative would be sailing.
kortilla 2 hours ago [-]
Well that’s idiotic. Approximately nobody “flies for fun” under that tortured definition.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
Yes but seeing extended family is not "for fun". Family is important.
dgently7 3 hours ago [-]
agree, and extend... ask any parent if taking small kids anywhere is a "vacation"
there is literally no such thing.
its like people who say that parental leave is a vacation. wildly miss informed and completely tone def.
kortilla 1 hours ago [-]
That’s not correct. I took my small children on vacations to grandparents all the time. Taking the kids to any extended family that can help watch them is a vacation. The best vacations you can have involve just taking kids to see family.
Austizzle 3 hours ago [-]
I flew with my six month old a while back with no issues. Gave her a bottle on both the ascent and the descent so her ears would pop and that worked perfectly.
She slept like a baby for most of the 5 hour flight and only cried once for maybe 60 seconds when she got hungry and I had to prep a bottle.
It definitely didn't seem like "babies experience a lot of pain" holds true at all if you plan for it
cityofdelusion 2 hours ago [-]
Good thing you spawned into the world as a fully formed adult and never had to be a burden on society, unlike all these other _kids_ and their greedy parents.
wakamoleguy 4 hours ago [-]
If parents can't take babies on planes, they'll tend to drive instead, which is much more dangerous overall.
derwiki 4 hours ago [-]
Because my elderly parents want to see their grandchild but are too old to fly
But that’s it: we don’t do other flights with the kids
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
Can you truly not think of a long list of things that are important enough and far enough away that it makes sense to take a baby on a plane? I could start writing you a list, but it seems like you should probably think about it for more than two seconds first.
werrett 4 hours ago [-]
Do you seriously think that parents are flying with infants for the lolz? The vast majority are not. It’s a major operation for both child and parents.
“What is so important that you need to take a baby on a plane” and “Have you thought about driving instead?” have got to be some of the most clueless and unempathic takes I’ve ever read. Ironic considering that’s what you’re accusing parents of.
poltergeist11 4 hours ago [-]
I mean sure, you have your lived experience, I can respect that. As for my lived experience, most of the families with children that I come into contact with on planes are going away for their first vacation together. Entirely optional.
ninkendo 2 hours ago [-]
> going away for their first vacation together
Yeah and fuck them, right? Won't these parasite breeders learn that they have no right to take vacations? They should experience nothing but misery until their children are 5.
Unrelated, why are so few people opting to have kids?
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
Based on your judgy comments here about babies and parents, I'm really not buying that you are engaging all these parents traveling with babies in conversation.
Forgeties79 4 hours ago [-]
What is so important that you need to get on a plane?
See this is what has bugged me so much about how common anti-natalism has become. It has become diluted but present everywhere.
Children are a part of our society. They are a part of your community. They are going to be around you, they are going to be where you don’t want them to be, they are just going to be present in general. And this can’t possibly be a safety argument, as planes I believe are the safest mode of transportation. If you’re worried about safety, then kids should never get in cars, which is also completely unfeasible.
So if it’s not about safety, then what is this really about?
poltergeist11 4 hours ago [-]
Regardless of what it is, I as an adult have full autonomy to do that, understand the pain in my ears that I will experience, and will do my best not to disrupt those around me. I also don't become a small baby-sized fleshy projectile on impact.
tonyneel923 4 hours ago [-]
This is the exact sort of take if you ever have a kid you will look back on and realize how ignorant it is.
You will not be worried about the baby in it's mother's arms if you crash land on a plane. In reality you don't want to be inconvenience. That's what happens when you live in a society full of different people though. Sometimes you have to wait as they load people in wheelchairs in planes. Sometimes a baby cries.
poltergeist11 4 hours ago [-]
I have a vasectomy. Having a kid in this economy? In this political climate? Why would I bring a child into this world?
vigilantpuma 2 hours ago [-]
Are you saying this is the worst economy or political climate the world has ever seen? Both economies and political climates change. It is strange to make a permanent decision based on a temporary circumstance.
Nevertheless, you have made a decision not to have kids and that decision is worthy of respect even if it rests on shaky logical foundations. But you should similarly respect people’s choice to travel with their children and appreciate that as someone who has opted out of that part of the human experience, you have no insight into it and shouldn’t be making statements about disincentivizing parents from traveling with their children. Ultimately, children are just small people. If you can’t deal with interacting with that subset of the population, I suggest you fly private. Or… don’t fly.
nkrisc 3 hours ago [-]
Unless you’re planning to be completely independent up until the moment you die, today’s children will be caring for you in your old age.
cityofdelusion 3 hours ago [-]
You do realize today’s kids are going to be feeding you, delivering your groceries, keeping your electrical and water running, farming your food and so on when you are old. Probably far before you are old. Unless you live alone on a farm homesteading, the anti-natalism is ridiculous.
Forgeties79 26 minutes ago [-]
Man how eager were you to drop that one
4 hours ago [-]
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
lol, there it is.
em-bee 3 hours ago [-]
the discomfort in the ears becomes a non-issue if the baby sucks on something while it's happening because sucking helps readjust the pressure. having flown with a baby myself, we never had problems with that.
and if you want my personal opinion, anyone who feels crying babies are disruptive is an asshole. i am not saying that lightly. parents are not just flying for fun and letting their babies cry to torture you.
as a society we need to be more child friendly and supportive of parents. especially when they have a baby in distress. this whole idea that children should always be quiet and never bother adults is absurd, and only really found in western culture. that doesn't mean kids should be allowed to get away with anything, but a crying baby is not something that can just be stopped until the parents can identify the cause, and we should have some tolerance for that.
Forgeties79 4 hours ago [-]
Children cannot fully understand what is happening to them for many, many years. This goes so far beyond planes. They don’t understand why they got jerked forward when you slammed the brakes on a car, or why the buckle burned their arm on a hot summer day. They don’t understand why they get a shot at the doctor, they don’t understand why the stove is hot, they don’t understand any of this crap until they get older and are exposed. The problem is that in order to avoid these situations, the only viable solution is to ask every parent to live in a lockdown-lite mode for 3 to 4 years every single time they have a kid. Is that reasonable?
Parents have lives and families and obligations. Kids are along for the ride until they can exert their own autonomy. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it will continue to be.
dgently7 3 hours ago [-]
its not reasonable because the only way kids or anyone learns these things is by
experiencing them. and the earlier you expose them
to these situations the better they cope
and eventually understand.
its not like magically one day they are old enough to just "get it" by being explained. when was the last time you really understood something only conceptually without any kind of experience with it. its the jobs of parents and society* to safely expose our kids to the situations that they need to experience to learn how to function on their own.
Like to
use the airplane example its not like parents just do it for fun and also every parent does stuff to try and give their kid the best ability to cope with the pressure change. snacks, pacifiers, timing flights around naps. its not like they are just like "eh, suck it up kiddo".
*there is a much longer diatribe about how even if you don't have kids or hate kids or never want to be in 100 ft of a kid its still your responsibility to society/biology to help make sure the next generation is raised. And maybe you could fulfill that responsibility at the literal bare minimum by managing to have a little compassion and understanding and not rag on parents who are (even by choice) doing something really hard with their kids. (flying)
poltergeist11 4 hours ago [-]
> Parents have lives and families and obligations. Kids are along for the ride until they can exert their own autonomy. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it will continue to be.
It's giving: "people want to have kids but also still want to do all that fun stuff they did but now with a kid because whatever, the kid will deal with it".
JosNun 3 hours ago [-]
Alternatively, keeping kids locked up at home for the first 3-4 years limits their exposure to a variety of situations that help their brains and bodies develop. Then the next generation has a terrible immune system, no social skills, and are underdeveloped mentally.
In fairness, I _do_ agree that there are some things that need to be given up as a parent of young kids... Don't take your kids to a fine restaurant. But at the same time, I don't think children should be excluded from 95% of things because it inconveniences someone else. If it were about preventing people from inconveniencing others, then I think there's a strong argument that it's more than just kids that shouldn't be allowed to do the "fun stuff".
Forgeties79 27 minutes ago [-]
Seriously you have to be trolling. You can’t possibly be this unreasonable.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
I recognize that this is not an appropriate comment for HN and I'll accept the deserved downvotes for it, but: Dude, you suck.
serf 4 hours ago [-]
I prefer the Fran Lebowitz suggestion : a separate plane with no seats for children, they can float round the whole trip from takeoff to landing. also let's option the adult plane with opening windows so we can smoke again.
here's the /s for those of you who are tonedeaf.
avazhi 3 hours ago [-]
Personally I think babies shouldn’t be allowed on planes.
stronglikedan 3 hours ago [-]
Oh no, you have to take your baby out and hold it during all the times when you have to have everything stowed and can't do much of anything else anyway, whatever shall we do, won't someone think of the children? This is a non-issue, and not worthy of a blog post.
sanderjd 3 hours ago [-]
People are free to write whatever they want on their blogs, and you are free to not read their post or comment about it.
I really don't understand people who accept inconveniences for themselves or for other people without any interest in examining whether those inconveniences are serving any useful purpose. Everything like this should be interrogated. Yes, most things don't matter at all, but we still shouldn't do them if they're dumb. Some things - like this example - matter a bit more. It's not the end of the world, but waking up a sleeping baby can easily ruin the rest of a family's day. If there is a good reason for that, then no biggie, if the reason is nonsensical, then no.
cyberrock 4 hours ago [-]
If they do then I hope there is an additional rule forcing the guardian to purchase an adjacent seat, so there's no risk of someone (me) being guilt tripped into swapping seats.
vigilantpuma 3 hours ago [-]
This sounds like a different problem than the one this post is about. For baby-in-lap, no one is being guilt tripped into switching seats because the baby doesn’t have a seat.
If you’re being guilt tripped into switching seats so that a family with a young child can sit together, consider blaming the airline for not automatically seating a young child next to their guardian.
nottorp 3 hours ago [-]
Blame the airline for not automatically seating people who buy tickets together... together. It's just a trick to get travelers to pay extra.
vigilantpuma 2 hours ago [-]
It’s absolutely a trick to get travelers to pay extra, but I can grudgingly accept the nickel and diming when my party consists of adults. When one of the members of my party is a literal 3 year old, it becomes ridiculous.
buzzy_hacker 4 hours ago [-]
This is addressed in the first paragraph of the article.
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead. Since driving is far less safe than flying, a ban would lead to more deaths. I'd love to see more of this "all things considered" thinking around bans.
tsunamifury 4 hours ago [-]
This is extremely dubious logic with very bad stats.
Vast majority of accidents happen on regular driven known routes not road trips.
I would expect far better from the FAA.
abtinf 4 hours ago [-]
> Vast majority of accidents happen on regular driven known routes not road trips.
It is possible for this to be true while also simultaneously it being true that road trips are more at risk of accidents than regular routes.
vablings 3 hours ago [-]
You can't circle around this because simply put per million miles flew the fatality rate is significantly lower than that of driving
SkyeCA 3 hours ago [-]
> Vast majority of accidents happen on regular driven known routes not road trips.
I always heard people say most crashes happen close to home and I never thought twice about what they were actually saying.
Then one day it hit me: most people don't regularly drive far from home, so of course of accidents happen close to home.
jamiek88 2 hours ago [-]
Most accidents happen close to home because most driving happens close to home it says nothing of the risk of road trips - I expect better from HN commenters.
For soft babywearing carriers, the outlook is also grim. The kinematics of the baby, adult, carrier and airplane seat lead to crush injuries that are worse than the poorly restrained arm hold version.
Could there be a solution here that straps around a seat to give babies a safe seat?
Yes, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy to use or consumer friendly. The ideal solution would have the baby with their back facing front, and the attached carrier facing inwards towards the seat. It would have to be carefully specced and tested so no unverified, third-party seats... Logically extrapolated, in this scenario, the airline becomes responsible for the baby's wellbeing. And I don't think that's a good place for the airlines to be?
It's not a popular choice because you have to pay full price for the seat, so lap-carrying the baby can save quite a bit of money. Once the baby is 2, you can no longer lap carry them, so that option goes away. There's FAA approved options for small children for whom the lap belt would be inappropriate that are different from the infant seats.
With our kids, we used two different devices. One was just a long strip of cloth that you tie in a special way. The other was a more structured carrier with straps and buckles and all that good stuff. For both of them, the child faces toward the parent, so they would be rear-facing relative to the plane. And both have an option to fully support the head. The main purpose there is just to protect their neck while sleeping or during moderate activity, but it would offer at least some additional protection against neck injuries in a crash, rough landing, or during periods of turbulence.
Perhaps crush injuries are more likely with the baby strapped to you, but honestly I would be more worried about a parent holding their baby being more likely to drop them in the aisle during an evacuation, which would be more likely to endanger everyone behind them on the plane as well.
that said, I've also heard that the US standards for car seats is piss poor relative to the rest of the world's. something about how they only test one head-on crash at 35mph and then extrapolate all the data from there. Germany's ADAC is supposedly the gold standard and I can see why - their tests are intensely comprehensive and granular, in the way you'd actually want them to be, and many of the seats rated safe by American standards fail ADAC: https://www.besafe.com/en/safety-tips/tests-awards/adac/
if there were to be a plane-oriented solution, the last place I'd trust it to be taken forward is in the USA especially given how easily corruptible safety-oriented institutions are here
I wouldn't want a third kid just because I don't want to deal with carseats anymore.
By the time you had your third, would the oldest still even be in a carseat?
But even then, three car seats is doable even in small cars: https://www.jefftk.com/p/three-car-seats
How do you define piss poor? The stats show that the US minimum standards still reduce fatal injury risks substantially. And your comparison point for 'rest of the world' is a German automobile club, not a government regulation. Would the better comparison be to ECE R129 for the EU?
> something about how they only test one head-on crash at 35mph and then extrapolate all the data from there
You know that the information is readily available and you could avoid spreading misinformation with a 10 second search, right?
The US regulation, FMVSS 213/213A, does a frontal crash at 30 mph as well as a side crash test at 30 mph. For apples-to-apples comparison, the EU regulation does a 31 mph frontal crash test and a 19 mph side test. All of the governmental tests are done on a standardized test bench. The German auto club test is 40 mph frontal and 31 mph side, done in a regular car.
There are also organizations in the US that do testing and ranking beyond the regulatory minimums.
so what do those stats say vs Germany, Sweden, the EU average? all very easily searchable, no mechanistic theorycrafting required. how does the US fare? certainly not multiple times worse across the board, right?
What parent in their right mind is bothering to bring a baby carrier and can’t manage to secure it?
I can't imagine that percentage goes up when strapped for time and under pressure during aircraft boarding.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/national-car-seat-check...
> What parent in their right mind
As a parent, you would be extremely saddened to learn that many are not.
My guy a car seat will do nothing in a crash.
> When our babies were little, carriers were massively helpful in flying. The baby likes it, and your arms are free.
> The carrier means the baby can sleep wherever we are, and I can have my hands free. If you can breastfeed in the carrier, even better because the baby can eat as you’re navigating the airport, etc. Carrying the baby centered on your body is easier on your back than carrying them in the carseat. Plus it’s good for walking / sightseeing at your destination.
The point is that the "return" - in a vanishingly tiny number of cases, the kinematics is very slightly better (maybe I buy that it is slightly better, without doing research, but it can't possibly be much better) - is not at all worth the "investment" - every single parent of every single baby on every single flight having to put up with a very real annoyance.
https://www.amsafe.com/kidsflysafe-com/
Notably, though, German carriers like Lufthansa do not allow it, which I believe is due to German regulations. Outside of that, we've never had an issue in either the U.S. or Europe, but occasionally we need to show the airline a copy of their policy from their website on one of our phones. They weren't mean about it, but may not have seen one. Generally, the senior flight attendant is experienced enough to know the rules.
Our kids were huge, so we used it from before they were a year old and it has been very helpful.
Aren't airlines responsible for the well-being of everyone on a plane? That seems like it kind of goes with the territory of charging money for hurtling people across the sky in a giant metal box.
If you (as the airline) did what the rules where that everybody else follows and the FAA mandates and the baby dies you can argue you did everything correctly and the rules are at fault.
If you however go your own special, non-FAA-approved solution, typically the burden of proof that this special solution is at least up to par with existing certified standards is on you, the airline and if a baby dies it is on you alone to defend that solution.
Meaning from the standpoint of an airline there is not a lot to gain, but much to lose if they do things outside established standards.
This may sound idiotic, but it also prevents other "creative" solutions where airlines sacrifice safety willingly to spend less money.
Everyone loves to say this from the comfort of their arm chair somewhere in an ivory tower but literally every aviation and adjacent workplace has a phrase to the tune of "here we cut stupid corners, cutting smart ones is illegal"
Which is to say, the do-gooders in their infinite wisdom have blocked progress on various axis, some of them no-brainers, some of them the most reasonable ones, because once upon a time someone took it too far and something happened. So all investigation of where to save money, where to find improvement, etc, etc, happens on axis of optimization that are frequently absurd. This is where most of the "creative" solutions you deride come from.
Rigid carriers are already permitted on planes, as long as they're FAA approved (which many are). You attach them with the seatbelt, and the flight attendants check.
What I'm proposing in this post is that the FAA not require parents to remove lab infants from babywearing carriers.
I was going to make a comment earlier about how my kids travelled in car seats years ago before I realized you were talking about lap kids without their own seat.
There is an existing international standard (ISO 13216) for child safety seats in cars:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isofix
It could be added to airplanes seats.
But I don't buy it: https://www.jefftk.com/p/three-car-seats
I got anecdata of people shopping for gargantuan 3-row SUVs so they can accommodate the third child seat. Most people don’t seem to mind as it’s “only” a monthly payment. (Over 8 years it’s a fortune in interest let alone the actual cost of the vehicle but most people don’t think that far ahead)
Who the hell has kids nowadays at that age? Not many in the first world.
you'll be dead so it won't matter much.
Hard landings, rough turbulence, runway excursions, etc are far more common and also situations where differences in restraints make meaningful differences in outcomes.
FAA calls all of these devices, in general, child restraint systems. Rigid seats with harnesses are allowed under FAA rules. The real consideration is blocked egress, since a large, rigid device strapped to a seat could actually make egress more challenging. That is covered in a more subjective advisory circular, which allows airlines to make policy, e.g., it may only be used at a window seat of a non-exit row.
Since FAA just this month has decided to start enforcing a 1992 rule requiring even so much as a paper cup to be stowed before pushback citing the egress concern, we might even expect some new policy on this.
This is religion, not science.
No it doesn't.
In this scenario, there isn't going to be evacuation. At best, it's search and rescue. At worst, search and recovery.
The poorly attached rigid seat, with a well-secured infant, increases the infant's odds of survival, but the mass increase reduces everyone else's odds of survival (including other infants and caregivers).
There are designs and policies where it becomes "worth it." But it would have to be study to figure out at what point the tradeoff becomes worth it.
It's a grim outcome, but great safety engineering is built on the worst case taken seriously.
(Sorry, meant to reply to parent)
Scenarios without evacuations are ones where nearly everyone or everyone is already dead. That’s not a case to optimize for.
Too smaht for me to understand.
Can you explain your reasoning why is that the case with carrier seats but not with <literally_every_other_hard_object> including human bodies and their skulls which are way sturdier than plastic moldings?
I only ever heard/said this. Seeing it in print, I suddenly realize it must be "worse comes to worst"
there is a use for the other phrase (but nobody uses it this way), should the worst (thing) come to the worst (people), then... just desserts?
Currently, aircraft seatbelts are designed for very quick release when needed with no training or muscle memory needed, shove your hand at your waist and pull the metal flap and it immediately comes apart. This seems like it could be an issue with baby carriers, since a) you can probably expect a bit more complex arrangement of straps buckles and b) lack of muscle memory or training on presumably a different style of carrier than what you ever ever use outside an airplane.
A second issue that comes to mind, how to do seating arrangements? Imagine a parent struggling to remove baby during a emergency. Imagine a 3 seat row window side, where others are stuck waiting for parent to release baby.
This seems like a certification nightmare
I suspect it leads to more people not travelling at all (or much shorter distances) and net saves lives in both the relatively immediate travel sense and even moreso in the broader analysis including net carbon emissions and their effect in climate change.
(It is still a mix of corrupt corporatism and authoritarian conditioning that should be ended for that reason.)
In Europe (and the US Northeast Corridor), I do favor trains to avoid going to and dealing with airports, but they're no panacea either. And I say this as someone with the various passes that make flying easier.
Honestly, it would be faster and possibly cheaper for me to drive to Manhattan than take the train--in which case security doesn't enter in at all. And certainly for two people. But I hate driving into Manhattan.
It is what it is. Governments can't risk the bad publicity of a terrorist attack. A car accident doesn't even make the news.
Not sure how old you are but bombings and hijackings of airplanes were just kind of a common fact of life when I was a kid and I was there on 9/11 as well.
There's at least some element of Chesterton's fence that could come into play here.
For example: Spokane to Seattle is about 230 miles in a straight line, or 280 miles driving. A flight takes less than an hour (not even 40 minutes of which is spent in the air) and costs $80-130 one way. A train traveling 200mph nonstop would take 1 hour 24 minutes. Building high speed rail costs $20-$200 million per mile (the upper end of that is California HSR). If we optimistically assume $20m/mile, constructing the line will cost $5.6b. If all SEA-GEG passengers (677k per year) choose to take rail instead of flying, and we want the project to pay for itself after 50 years, then each ticket will need to cost $165. This also assumes no cost to maintain or operate the rail line.
I wonder if we could not get most of the benefit by doing substantially cheaper options like separating freight from rail on major routes, electrifying parts of it where feasible. And maybe taking specific segments in areas where the track conditions are already favorable and increasing the maximum speeds on those segments. Probably two-thirds of the route between Portland and Salem, for example, is already suitable with modest upgrades to hit 125 mph. And basically all modern trains are capable of that speed already.
Trains, even HSR have essentially zero hijacking risk relative to airplanes, and proper safety interlocks make them very difficult to use the vehicle as a weapon.
At that point, your terrorism risk is approximately on level with any other dense transportation interconnect.
I had two recent trips to the same destination. I drove once because it was so much cheaper (during the world cup when air fare was jacked up) compared to the train or flying. I flew the other time, because it was only a little more expensive and flying is faster and less of a hassle, actually.
Additionally, given the article talks about families, the cost comes down a lot with multiple people in one car vs multiple plane tickets. If we want to make travel safer by putting fewer cars on the road, make alternatives cheaper. They're already more convenient to me...
Is this really why the rule was made? Did they really have safety of driving in mind or is this just in the interest of the profits of airlines?
It seems like if they really had safety in mind there are better solutions:
* Subsidize the 2nd seat for parents with children from tax dollars
* Criminalize many intentional driving violations
* Build high speed rail
If you want a change and you want to make sure the right people see your request, I suggest you start here:
https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/petitions
I got to present in front of the aeronautical charting group, they discussed, and took up my change. It was a surreal experience. The level of depth, care, and just breadth of considerations to flip every possible stone to make flying infinitessimally safer was truly awe inspiring. The fact that me, a at-the-time-not-yet-even private pilot, was heard and taken super seriously, was equally amazing. Fully agree -- these people are the best in the biz.
Kids are already subsidized with free gate checking of strollers (to be fair, so are other things like skis on Alaska).
Yes, almost every baby carrier would likely restrain the infant better than add-on infant belt if the adult lap belt rides up over the infant carrier, the infant's going to be crushed between the adult and the belt. Not a good outcome.
Thus you're likely going to need FAA-approved infant carriers, same way as you'd need FAA-approved car seats you can take on planes.
In a full on crash situation infants are not going to do well, so optimising for much more likely turbulence injuries (for which having the baby strapped as securely as possible is definitely a good idea!) seems more important.
I was quite worried that my wheelchair would break in some way like I've experienced several times before but everything went quite smoothly! AI helped tremendously with planning, e.g. here's Claude: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/6c977d23-1b7c-4a00-a7aa-d...
> A lap-belt restrained adult dummy in an aircraft seat, with an infant dummy in a carrier, was subjected to a 9G dynamic sled test. The severity of the pulse was based on the results of a static load test. The commercially available infant carriers tested were not able to restrain infants under crash situations.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/research-and-analysis-r...
If the adult is pitched forward with the child strapped to their chest (facing inward) then they risk bending the child’s spine backwards.
Having said all that, if I thought I could get the baby out of the sling without waking them up, I'd probably try that first though. (I'm pretty sure most flight attendants aren't enforcing this silly rule to begin with, because I'm pretty sure I would have experienced it if they were, I used these slings / carriers all the time, including on planes.)
Uh, you'd be surprised. Once you refuse, they are going to insist, and if you still refuse to comply, or they're going to return to the gate and have your ass removed. They don't pick and choose which rules to enforce.
And yes, they do enforce this rule. We experienced it all the time when my son was a baby.
Just being a flight attendant doesn't make them great humans to be around.
I predict they will not let it go, and it will escalate to escorting you off the plane. It's a violation of federal law to allow you to keep your child strapped in, and the attendant risks losing their job.
It seems strange to disallow the carrier, have the belt that loops through the adult belt but then if the plane is going down you have to get them into the same position they'll be in in the carrier anyway!
In terms of CO2e, a familiy of 2 + a kid driving a car instead of flying results in quite a bit of less emissions. Depending on the assumed mortality per tonne CO2e, driving might lead to a lot less deaths.
This is of course quite unreliable data, but one example of just to say how "all things considered" is very hard and almost always still comes down to a judgement call.
That would make my flying a bit nicer.
So for example: while booking you get to select those options, and while they load the luggage, an app on some crew tablet quickly arrange the seats and hit submit, the rails automatically do the jobs! Ycombinator, prepare that VC funds!! ;)
There's no way, in my experience, that they'd have time for something like that. Especially since anything that moves will invariably have mechanical issues from time to time. I've had to sit in a broken seat before because they simply do not have time to fix it between flights.
PFAS bans are another where the whole class is likely hazardous but EPA will continue chasing specific molecules rather than consider the whole class.
Now adays, chem engineering will just put different monomers in and move on untill 20 years and we find, all things considered, it still reaches humans at toxic levels.
I would guess that in most cases, someone is flying with an infant because they are going somewhere important and traveling with their infant was the best option available to them.
Traveling by air (or at all) with an infant is not fun and I can’t imagine that ever being anyone’s first choice.
So when you see frazzled parents at the airport with their young children, assume the best and be kind.
We have child-free hotels, child-free restaurantes, maybe now child-free airplanes...what's next, child-free cities?
I have encountered this many times flying so it’s not “no one”. It’s usually younger couples who either don’t know what they are getting into or just have the energy to deal with it.
On international flights from the US it’s common to hear the reason is to bring the baby to see extended family.
The expression means that X is the best of unpalatable options to accomplish something else, where X is taken in a literal and narrow sense.
People don’t fly with babies for fun. They do it because visiting grandparents is fun, and driving isn’t a good option. Or, if it involves a trip across the ocean, the alternative would be sailing.
there is literally no such thing.
its like people who say that parental leave is a vacation. wildly miss informed and completely tone def.
She slept like a baby for most of the 5 hour flight and only cried once for maybe 60 seconds when she got hungry and I had to prep a bottle.
It definitely didn't seem like "babies experience a lot of pain" holds true at all if you plan for it
But that’s it: we don’t do other flights with the kids
“What is so important that you need to take a baby on a plane” and “Have you thought about driving instead?” have got to be some of the most clueless and unempathic takes I’ve ever read. Ironic considering that’s what you’re accusing parents of.
Yeah and fuck them, right? Won't these parasite breeders learn that they have no right to take vacations? They should experience nothing but misery until their children are 5.
Unrelated, why are so few people opting to have kids?
See this is what has bugged me so much about how common anti-natalism has become. It has become diluted but present everywhere.
Children are a part of our society. They are a part of your community. They are going to be around you, they are going to be where you don’t want them to be, they are just going to be present in general. And this can’t possibly be a safety argument, as planes I believe are the safest mode of transportation. If you’re worried about safety, then kids should never get in cars, which is also completely unfeasible.
So if it’s not about safety, then what is this really about?
You will not be worried about the baby in it's mother's arms if you crash land on a plane. In reality you don't want to be inconvenience. That's what happens when you live in a society full of different people though. Sometimes you have to wait as they load people in wheelchairs in planes. Sometimes a baby cries.
Nevertheless, you have made a decision not to have kids and that decision is worthy of respect even if it rests on shaky logical foundations. But you should similarly respect people’s choice to travel with their children and appreciate that as someone who has opted out of that part of the human experience, you have no insight into it and shouldn’t be making statements about disincentivizing parents from traveling with their children. Ultimately, children are just small people. If you can’t deal with interacting with that subset of the population, I suggest you fly private. Or… don’t fly.
and if you want my personal opinion, anyone who feels crying babies are disruptive is an asshole. i am not saying that lightly. parents are not just flying for fun and letting their babies cry to torture you.
as a society we need to be more child friendly and supportive of parents. especially when they have a baby in distress. this whole idea that children should always be quiet and never bother adults is absurd, and only really found in western culture. that doesn't mean kids should be allowed to get away with anything, but a crying baby is not something that can just be stopped until the parents can identify the cause, and we should have some tolerance for that.
Parents have lives and families and obligations. Kids are along for the ride until they can exert their own autonomy. That’s how it has always been and that’s how it will continue to be.
its not like magically one day they are old enough to just "get it" by being explained. when was the last time you really understood something only conceptually without any kind of experience with it. its the jobs of parents and society* to safely expose our kids to the situations that they need to experience to learn how to function on their own.
Like to use the airplane example its not like parents just do it for fun and also every parent does stuff to try and give their kid the best ability to cope with the pressure change. snacks, pacifiers, timing flights around naps. its not like they are just like "eh, suck it up kiddo".
*there is a much longer diatribe about how even if you don't have kids or hate kids or never want to be in 100 ft of a kid its still your responsibility to society/biology to help make sure the next generation is raised. And maybe you could fulfill that responsibility at the literal bare minimum by managing to have a little compassion and understanding and not rag on parents who are (even by choice) doing something really hard with their kids. (flying)
It's giving: "people want to have kids but also still want to do all that fun stuff they did but now with a kid because whatever, the kid will deal with it".
In fairness, I _do_ agree that there are some things that need to be given up as a parent of young kids... Don't take your kids to a fine restaurant. But at the same time, I don't think children should be excluded from 95% of things because it inconveniences someone else. If it were about preventing people from inconveniencing others, then I think there's a strong argument that it's more than just kids that shouldn't be allowed to do the "fun stuff".
here's the /s for those of you who are tonedeaf.
I really don't understand people who accept inconveniences for themselves or for other people without any interest in examining whether those inconveniences are serving any useful purpose. Everything like this should be interrogated. Yes, most things don't matter at all, but we still shouldn't do them if they're dumb. Some things - like this example - matter a bit more. It's not the end of the world, but waking up a sleeping baby can easily ruin the rest of a family's day. If there is a good reason for that, then no biggie, if the reason is nonsensical, then no.
If you’re being guilt tripped into switching seats so that a family with a young child can sit together, consider blaming the airline for not automatically seating a young child next to their guardian.
> The FAA has one of my favorite examples of thoughtful rulemaking. They haven't banned flying with a baby on your lap, because the extra cost would mean many parents would drive instead. Since driving is far less safe than flying, a ban would lead to more deaths. I'd love to see more of this "all things considered" thinking around bans.
Vast majority of accidents happen on regular driven known routes not road trips.
I would expect far better from the FAA.
It is possible for this to be true while also simultaneously it being true that road trips are more at risk of accidents than regular routes.
I always heard people say most crashes happen close to home and I never thought twice about what they were actually saying.
Then one day it hit me: most people don't regularly drive far from home, so of course of accidents happen close to home.