| WARNING: Old man about to say "Back in my day..." As a child, we were taught that "America is better than the USSR because
$REASONS." One reason given was we didn't need identification to travel
around the country (this included flying). And when I saw "taught" I mean "this was taught to us in a public school." Back in my day (There it is!), you would see newspaper want-ads like
"Vegas bachelor party canceled. Two airline tickets avail this weekend.
$200 OBO." You'd meet the guy, buy the tickets and get on the flight. ID
was more for proving you were old enough to fly alone than anything.
Tickets were not made out to the buyer, they were just assigned seating.
Airlines were losing money and they knew it but couldn't figure out a
way to stop it cheaply enough. Metal detector screenings started in the 70's because back then
airplane hijacking was a thing. Then, 9/11. Metal detector screenings became mandatory. The airlines
got the government to do the identity checks (TSA) and tighten the
security the airlines did/could/would not pay for. State IDs (driver's
licenses, for example) were sufficient. No more want-ads for a Vegas
bachelor parties! The buyer might get a refund, might not, and the
airline got to resell the seat either way. And we still take our shoes
off to get on a plane decades later. Fast forward to today, you (will) need a federal ID to travel on airplanes
domestically, either a REAL ID or a passport. Sure, it's not hard to
get, and there are ways around it if you forget or lose yours. Besides,
what's the harm, right? And every step along the way, it was a perfectly cromulent thing to do. Now excuse me, I need to change the onion on my belt. That's still the
fashion, right? |
Train tickets remained completely anonymous in the USSR up until its dissolution.