FAA regulations, more so than nearly anything else regulated in the US, are written in blood. They are not written out of government corruption. Many many many hundreds of people have died in airplane accidents since airplanes were invented, and the reason why your average person can board a commercial flight and act like they just got on the bus (with a /better/ risk profile than a bus on public roads) is exactly due to these regulations. The FAA has and continues to lead the entire world in how to do reasonable and meaningful air traffic regulation.