Traveling by Cars Compares to Traveling by Planes

Name: Hoang, Oanh Thi Ngoc (Ann)
Class: Advanced Composition
Traveling by cars compares to traveling by planes
Thanks to technological development, people can travel to other places easily and quickly. Nowadays, there are many means of transportation for people to move or journey such as: cars, buses, trains, or even planes. In the developed countries, traveling by cars and traveling by planes are more popular than other transportations because they are convenient and fast. However, traveling by cars also has some differences from traveling by planes in some aspects: cost, speed, safety, environmental friendliness, comfort, as well as flexibility.
One obvious similarity is that both cars and planes are transportations that people use to travel and move to other places. In addition, the more developed the economy is, the more people travel by cars and planes. According to National Air Traffic Controllers Association, there were more than 87,000 flights per day in the United States, and there were an estimated 254.4 million registered passenger vehicles in the United States, according to a 2007 DOT study. Not only cars but also planes have become the necessary transportations in our life day to day, especially in the developed countries as The United States, Japan, European countries, and so on.
Although both cars and planes have the same function that helps people to move to other places easily, they also have a lot of differences such as: cost, speed, safe level, ecological friendliness, comfort, and flexibility.
The first difference is the cost of the trip. Generally, traveling by cars is much cheaper than traveling by planes if the trips are short enough for people to drive. When people use their own car, they just pay for fuel, or if they rent a car, they will have to pay more for the rent. In contrast, air ticket prices are usually much higher than the expenses for the cars because they include seat fee, fuel cost, service fee, as well as food and beverage bill. Therefore, using cars is more economical and efficient than traveling by planes in the cost aspect.
On the other hand, planes are much faster than cars. For example, traveling to Las Vegas from San Francisco just takes 1 hour and 25 minutes if people travel by planes, but it takes much more time for them to drive the cars, about 8 hours and 41 minutes. Therefore, people who have limited time often tend to travel by planes more than by cars because they want to save time to work or do their other important jobs. Depending on people’s free time, they can choose to travel by planes or by cars. Some people have more time, and they want to save money, so their best choice is using their cars. On the contrary, if people want to go more quickly, they prefer traveling by planes to traveling by cars.
The next difference is that planes are safer to the environment. According to a Traffic Report by the WHO, more than 1.2 million people die annually from car accidents, and around 50 million people get injured or disabled in car accidents. While road accidents can occur on every day, the risk of air crashes is much lower than road accidents. There was only one air accident in 1.4 million flights in 2009, according to The International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Moreover, planes seem to be more eco-friendly to the environment. Nobody can deny that a flight can carry many more people than a car. While a plane can carry about 500 people, a car can just carry 4 to 7 people. Can you imagine how many cars we need to carry 500 people on a plane, as well as how much exhaust fumes the cars discard? It’s obvious that 500 people traveling by cars create much more exhaust fumes than a plane does. Therefore, we can say that traveling by planes is less dangerous and less polluting to living environment.
Besides the above differences like cost, speed, safety, and environmental friendliness, another difference in the quality of the trip between traveling by planes and traveling by cars is comfort. Most of people agree that traveling by planes makes them feel much more comfortable because they don’t have to pay attention to driving; in addition, they can relax, listen to music, or even sleep during the flight. Furthermore, people can be adequately served everything they want on the planes. On the contrary, when people travel by the cars, they have to pay more attention to driving carefully, and they cannot sleep when driving because it may cause road accidents.
Finally, using cars is more flexible because people can change their schedule easily. For instance, as people travel by planes, they must be on time. If they come late, no one will wait for them, as well as the flights cannot be delayed just for them. But when traveling by cars, people have flexible time, and they can depart later than they originally planned. Additionally, people driving the cars can enjoy beautiful scenery on the streets. It’s really interesting. Unlike driving the cars, people traveling by planes may miss beautiful sight during the flight. They cannot ask pilots to stop flying just because they want to enjoy the beautiful scenery outside.
To sum up, although both cars and planes are convenient transportations, they also have the differences such as: cost, speed, safety, and so on. Planes, just like cars, have both advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, choosing which transportation is suitable for the trip depends on how much time people have, how much money they are willing to pay for the trip, as well as what is the purpose of the trip. Furthermore, everyone has individual hobby. Some people like to travel by cars more than by planes because they want to enjoy the scenery along the street, but some other people like traveling by planes because they can relax on the board. So, traveling by cars or by planes is also dependent on the demands of each person.