My most white-knuckle travel experience was not on an airplane but on the shuttle bus traveling to the airport for my second flight ever. Pittsburg, 1989. Driver is some combination of nuts, blind, angry, and a comedian.

The fun starts as we pick up the last passenger. Driver gets on the PA. "(static) I've got good news and bad news. (static) The bad news is every major road to the airport is congested with rush hour traffic and most of you will miss your flights. (static) The good news is we're not going to use any major roads."

Driver yanks the steering wheel hard and floors the throttle. Bus goes lurching around a corner. He accelerates down a narrow street, weaving around parked delivery trucks. Not only are we exceeding the speed limit, but it is a one-way street and we are going the wrong way.

Driver turns hard onto an arterial street. Runs a red light at a major intersection. Honks at the pedestrians who are in the middle of the crosswalk, crossing with the light! Driver gets on the PA again. "(static) Where do they teach people to walk in this city?"

I note the looks of horror frozen onto the pedestrians' faces as we pass within inches of them. The same looks of horror are on the faces of all my fellow passengers. We are holding on for dear life and afraid to say anything to the driver.

Driver continues jackrabbit starts and stops across city streets. It's deathly quiet in the bus so he gets on the PA again, this time playing up tour guide trivia. "(static) There are over 800 bridges in Pittsburgh. (static) That's more than any other city in the world. (static) And they're all free."

I double-checked his facts years later while preparing a report on the trip. Pittsburgh, known as "The City of Bridges", is the world record holder, but it has only 446.

Back to the trip. Actually, I forget the rest of it. By that point my mental faculties were reduced to basic fight-or-flight responses. Next thing I know, the bus arrives at PIT in one piece. There are no injuries and no visible damage. A small miracle. Three of eight passengers clamber down the stairs and literally kiss the ground. Still shaking, we unload our luggage from the back, enter the airport, and embark on the statistically safest part of our journeys, flying in a commercial aircraft.