How about: in the past year 200,000 pedestrians have been nearly hit by automobiles. The Bush Administration has to do something about the epidemic of street incursions by pedestrians. John Q. Smith came within 37 feet of an automobile just last month.
If someone kept track of everytime something disastrous could have happened, any field of human endeavor would look insane. Just today, I came within mere feet of colliding with another automobile several times. I could have fallen down the stairs, but didn't. I could have spontaneously combusted.
This is pure alarmism. In a business as serious as aviation, you always have to scrutinize performance for ways to improve. However, knee-jerk responses only divert attention and resources away from where they might be rationally directed. Congress can mandate that a gazillion dollars be spent on airport ground tracking radars, but that will come at the expense of something else, be that personnel, surveillance radars, maintenance, or whatever. It will come from something else worthwhile that wasn't a hotbutton issue.
