When pigs fly: Taking travel advice from Joe Biden
As we should all know by now, there is an outbreak of swine flu spreading around the world. While this strain of flu has proved rather deadly in Mexico, it has not yet been so fatal in its U.S. cases. While most of the response in the U.S. and the rest of the world has been cautious, some voices have been on the panic end of the scale. Vice President Joe Biden, always ready to open his mouth wide enough to fit his foot, told the press that he advises his family to avoid air travel, and any other mass transportation mode, such as trains and buses (see the USA Today’s “Today in the Sky” air travel blog by Ben Mutzabaugh).
The problem is that many people will take Biden’s advice. But shouldn’t that reduce the spread of swine flu? Maybe. But there is something else that people need to keep in mind that may not occur to them. By thinking that air travel is now more costly, in terms of one’s health and the risk of getting the flu, this increase in the non-monetary cost flying will reduce the amount of miles traveled by plane and will surely increase the miles traveled by automobile if there is a significant positive cross-elasticity of demand between air and auto travel. Shane Sanders, Assistant Professor of Economics at Nicholls, had a paper published recently in the Journal of Economic Education that should help us think about value of Biden’s advice.
In his paper with Dennis Weisman and Dong Li, Sanders discusses the substantial cross-price elasticity of airline and automobile travel, which suggests that higher prices for airline travel induces people to substitute auto for air transportation. Of course, health fears, as they raise the perceived cost of air travel, should also induce substitution into auto travel.
The problem is that auto transportation is not as safe as air travel, and it is not even close. According to the Department of Transportation’s statistics (shown and cited in the Sanders, Weisman and Li paper), for every 100 million air passenger miles traveled, there are .3 fatalities, while for every 100 million auto passenger miles traveled, there are .97 fatalities, so passenger mile for passenger mile traveled , auto transportation is over 32 times as deadly.
So, without realizing the relative safety of air and auto transportation, when people hear that Vice President Biden is suggesting to his own family that they avoid air travel, some people will switch from air travel where the chance of a fatality is very small, even after factoring in the very minute chance of getting swine flu, and passing it on to family members. In this case, the number of fatalities, including swine flu, is likely to increase.
-MC
May 4th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I come from a family that belives in driving everywhere. This past weekend we rented a 15 passenger van and drove to Tallahassee for my cousin’s graduatin from Florida State University. FSU made each student (over 1,000) sanitize their hands before shaking hands on stage and after shaking hands. I agree that air travel is best due to the amount of people on the highways texting and driving. People drive for to long and either get sleepy or distracted and wreck.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Honestly when I first heard of the comments by Vice Pres. Biden, when he was backtracking himself, and saying that his words were taking out of context.But it comes at a time when our economy is in trouble and healthcare being a major issue and Swine flu is beginning to travel, so I couldnt but agree when talking with my econ professor and him saying that the vice pres making those comments were in my words ridiculus, when your chances of being in a plane crash is one in a million and over 33 million car accidents occur a year killing over 47000 people, and injuring at 5.4 million. To prevent spreading swine flu lets simply increase the number of drivers on the roads. Great job Joe
August 7th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I am still shocked that this man is our Vice President. Aren’t there people who work for him that tell him what he should and shouldn’t say? They should be fired!
Also with the increase of drivers on the road, wouldn’t that create more air pollution. I mean this is odd to hear because aren’t these guys all about going green?
Swine flu is a very serious issue, but if the United States hasn’t experienced fatalities because of it, these reccomendations from Biden are a little far-fetched! He should be recomending people to stay healthy, eat right, wash your hands, cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing, and avoid public places if possible. That is what his PR people should be telling him to say!