New scanner gets off on wrong foot - (ShoeScanners) 52% of travelers had to remove shoes anyway

[Kadie]

New scanner gets off on wrong foot
Updated 1/16/2007 11:29 PM ET


By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

ORLANDO — Many air travelers who were screened Tuesday by a revolutionary new machine aimed at letting them keep their shoes on through airport security got an unexpected surprise — they had to take their shoes off anyway.

About half of the travelers using Orlando International Airport's first-in-the-nation ShoeScanner underwent the very hassle the machines were designed to ease — putting shoes through checkpoint X-rays — because the ShoeScanner detected metal in their shoes.

"It's a waste of time," Tracey Grenkoski of Orlando said after spending more than a minute on a ShoeScanner only to be told to remove her high-heeled shoes. "What's the point of me standing there if I still have to take my shoes off?"

Grenkoski had company. Of 50 travelers who used the ShoeScanner in a one-hour period here Tuesday, 28 had to remove their metal-laden shoes, according to USA TODAY's observation.

Steven Brill, whose Manhattan company, Verified Identity Pass, operates the ShoeScanners, said 52% of hundreds of passengers using the machine Tuesday morning had to remove shoes. In about a third of the cases in which travelers were told to take their shoes off, the ShoeScanner couldn't do an electronic scan for weapons because people moved their feet, he said.

more...
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2007-01-16-shoe-scanner_x.htm?csp=34

[madeline_con]

1. So, the designer"forgot" some shoes have metal in them?

STOOPID...........

:dunce:

[Art_from_Ark]

2. What I want to know is

How the hell can ANYONE blow up an airplane with their shoes?

After that question is answered, I would like to know:
How the hell can ANYONE blow up an airplane with Coke/Pepsi/bottled water/toothpaste/shampoo/hemerrhoid medication/Elmer's glue?

[silverweb]

3. LMAO

And all this great expense, inconvenience, and paranoid harassment because one moron tried to light a fuse in his shoe with matches on a plane -- what is it, two or three years ago, now?

:banghead:

[hopeisaplace]

4. More Fodder for Boston Legal

"the Shoe-Scanner couldn't do an electronic scan for weapons because people moved their feet"
A little background music...these boots were made for walkin' and that's just what they'll do, one of these days these boots are gonna stay right on my feet.

ok. I believe the Shoe-Scanner Engineer has now earned a promotion? and a Medal. Your doing a heck of a job Shoescanny.



Sorry. I had to login and post on this one. Gheesh.

[Kadie]

9. ROFL

It would make a great episode. You should email your idea to them.

:rofl:

[geomon666]

5. How many millions were wasted on this crap?

We could be driving electric cars with big stickers on them giving the finger to big oil but instead we're wasting our time, money, and resources on shit like this.

[HuffleClaw]

6. some entrepreneur sure knew how to make their $$$ eh?

good for them!

[Emit]

7. One of the saddest days over the holidays was when I watched my 76 year old mother fumbling

around taking her shoes off and having to pull out her id and boarding pass at every desk she passed. Our airport won't let anyone past a certain without a ticket/boarding pass, so I had to see her off and watch her stumble alone through the maze on her way to the boarding area. I thought for sure she was a prime suspect for a purse snatching --

... She seemed so vulnerable ... *sigh*

[Erika]

8. I threw a fit at being patted down at the Boise Airport

when travelling to Phoenix. This TSA broad takes out blue gloves to pat me down and I asked her if I looked like a Muslim with my blonde hair and green eyes. She said that had nothing to do with it so I asked her what did. I told her that George W Bush and his republicanism should be tossed out and buried for what he/they have done to this country. I am so sick of what the GOP has done to this country.

[pitohui]

10. what does a muslim look like?

so there are no blonde green-eyed muslims now?

tsa screeners are not allowed to make exceptions for the blondes, we are all supposed to be treated the same