WASHINGTON — I drove 32,000 miles in 2004, more than double the national annual average of 15,000 miles. I intend to drive as much — more, if possible — in the new year.

Perhaps I'm crazy; or maybe I'm simply addicted to the road. But if driving to a destination is at all feasible, I'd much rather do that than fly.

It is not so much a fear of altitudes, of being miles aloft in an aluminum-skinned tube moving at the ground-speed equivalent of hundreds of miles per hour. I am a member of several frequent-flier clubs, thanks to much overseas travel and the time constraints on many domestic assignments.

It's airline and airport attitudes that bother me. Flying is a commercial activity in which the consumer is treated as a suspect until he or she departs the airport, with baggage in tow.

Of course, I am aware of the need for increased airline security in these troubled times. The world can be an unkind place, ruined by people who would do egregious harm to others and to themselves for the most dubious of political or religious reasons — or just out of plain hatred.

I understand the government's passion for going after the bad guys. I just wish that the government wouldn't consider me one of them.

I cannot make a simple change in a flight itinerary without being pulled into the suspect line for extra body or baggage searches. If I buy a one-way ticket, which I often do when going somewhere to pick up a car or truck for a long-distance drive, I am searched and questioned as if I were planning a bank robbery, or worse.

There is nothing — neither word nor deed — that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can do to lessen the sting and underlying humiliation of such interrogations. And the shibboleth that I shouldn't mind being treated like a criminal if I'm not a criminal just doesn't cut it.

I'd rather drive round-trip and avoid the federally imposed loss of face.

Airline customers have no rights in the current milieu of fear. I've seen perfectly ordinary people get into trouble with TSA officials simply because they had the temerity to argue with a ticket agent over a lost seat on yet another oversold flight.

What are airline customers supposed to do under such circumstances? Shut up, sit down and pray that they and their luggage will be granted the privilege, extended the kindness, of travel on the next flight out? The answer is yes, assuming that you have no desire to be escorted from the airport by a bevy of TSA agents.

The recent holiday travel muddle involving US Airways and Comair — the hundreds of canceled flights, destroyed Christmas plans and thousands of pieces of delayed or lost luggage associated with that collective debacle — have strengthened my bias in favor of driving versus flying.

I suppose it is the illusion of freedom and control that keeps me tied to the steering wheel. Certainly, I know there are risks in driving. An annual highway death toll exceeding 41,000 on U.S. roads attests to that fact.

Still, I'd rather take my chances on the highway. The road is a friend. I cannot say the same thing for airline employees who are at war with their bosses or airline bosses who are at war with their employees.

I want to escape that conflict. The road is my out. In 2005, whenever possible, I'm going to drive.