94% of holiday travelers use roads

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS

Michael Sommermeyer’s Thanksgiving plan goes like this: Load his wife and children into their Ford Taurus, hand his teens an iPad stocked with movies and drive 15 hours — from Las Vegas to Texas.

Sommermeyer would not have it any other way.

Lost in the frenzy over new airport inspections is the fact that 94 percent of holiday travelers will reach their destination by road this year. For some, a snarled freeway and $3-a-gallon gasoline is a welcome respite from the madness of air travel.

“The full-body scan, I am worried about it because of the radiation,” he said. “They claim it’s safe, but who knows?”

Roughly 39.7 million will travel by road this year, a 12 percent increase from last Thanksgiving, according to a AAA travel survey of 50,000 U.S. households conducted during the week of Oct. 25.

With more people traveling for the holiday this year than last, the numbers who chose to fly also went up. Just over 1.62 million holiday travelers are flying the skies, a 3.5 percent increase from last year, AAA said.

AAA conducted its travel survey before many groups began organizing protests at airports against additional security procedures, including the body-scan machines and a more- rigorous, intrusive pat-down process.

When they do travel, families are not straying far from home. Those who travel by car will drive roughly 816 miles over the holiday weekend. The day before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after generally are the busiest days for air and road travelers.