Laser Scanner May Allow Passengers To Take Bottled Drinks On Planes Again

cylonlover writes "Besides having to remove our shoes, the volume limitations regarding liquids and gels in carry-on baggage has become a major hassle in the world of post 9-11 airport security. Hopefully, however, we may soon be able to once again bring our big bottles of water and tubes of toothpaste aboard airliners in our overnight bags. Britain's Cobalt Light Systems has developed a scanner called the INSIGHT100, that uses laser light to assess the liquid contents of containers, even if those containers are opaque."

Comments

Re:Here's another solution

[QuasiSteve]

and why would we allow that, when a thirsty passenger...
1. Has to buy a bottle of drink after clearing the security checkpoint.
2. Has to buy another one on arrival at the connecting airport.
3. Has to buy yet another one on arrival at the destination airport.

And that's just the drinks - don't forget about all the awesome 3floz bottle variants of ointments, creams, moisturizers, sanitizers, etc. etc. that now litter some (airport) stores.

Allowing people to take their own packaged fluids onto planes again will just cut into this very profitable market.

Re:what do you need all this stuff for anyway?

[Kjella]

When you're a regular traveler, you adapt to jump through all the hoops. I have the laptop and liquid bag ready and everything like toothpaste, deodorant, contact lens liquid etc. are less than 100ml, I wear shoes that won't beep, belt that won't beep, put all my stuff in the jacket pockets, don't carry large amounts of loose change, drink up my soda before the security check and so on. You don't forget to take off your watch or any other of the million annoyances. I swear they have a "beep anyway" button though, just to annoy you.

Then you've got everybody else that only travel a few times a year. Oh, I need to take out the laptop I put at the bottom of my bag? Oh, I have to throw away the soda? Oh, I have to spend two minutes getting all the change out of my pockets? Oh, I have to untie my shoes and send through? Oh, you mean I can't bring my regular size tooth paste? They get frustrated and I get frustrated waiting for them, I wish there was a frequent traveller's lane (not the insanely expensive business express lane) where if you got say >10 stamps a year don't have to stand in line with the rest.

Re:what do you need all this stuff for anyway?

[pz]

I swear they have a "beep anyway" button though, just to annoy you.

I've seen a presentation by a perceptual scientist who was doing a study for the TSA on false alarm rates (both false positive where they detect something that shouldn't have been detected, and false negatives where they miss something that should have been seen). It turns out that boredom in agents watching the scanner monitors is a serious problem and that if there aren't enough items to detect, the agents become complacent and the false negative rate goes up. False negatives result in serious security breaches, like guns getting on planes. Say what you like about the TSA, false negatives are a problem. So, according to this presentation, x-ray scanners have a mechanism to insert fictitious objects into the images to keep the agents sharp. That's why you get asked to go through your hand luggage every now and then even though there's absolutely nothing that could be considered suspicious: the false positive rate is raised so that the false negative rate can be reduced to near zero.

And, to bring this back to the quote above, this is, essentially, a "beep anyway" button, only it isn't under direct TSA staff control.