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From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.aviation,net.politics
Subject: Re: "A Design Proposal That Would Make Passenger Planes Safe"
Message-ID: <1029@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-Jan-86 10:40:52 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1029
Posted: Sat Jan 11 10:40:52 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jan-86 11:18:34 EST
References: <3223@hplabsb.UUCP> <4785@alice.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 22
Summary: Yuck

> > The question to ask is: "Is the general public willing to fly in an airplane
> > that is designed to crash?"
> 
> In essentially all cases, the safest airplane [is] the most popular,
> by a fairly wide margin.

That may be, but nobody has tried backwards seats on airliners hereabouts;
the safety improvements tend to be independent of passenger comfort matters.
I would certainly refuse to ride in one, given a choice.  One of the things
that makes travel pleasurable for me is watching what goes by the window,
and I don't appreciate being forced to watch it recede rather than advance.

(I'm not speaking hypothetically; I have traveled backwards, though not by
 air.  In Britain, and I think Europe generally, half the seats on trains
 face backwards, and if the train is busy there may be no choice.  For that
 matter, similar conditions apply on the Toronto subway.)

There may be a greater chance of surviving a crash in a backwards seat,
but the odds of having the crash in the first place are long enough that
this member of the general public would rather be comfortable.

Mark Brader