Aug 04, 2010 09:38PM
The verdict: What an unbelievable hassle.
I went to DFW for a flight on Friday, and happened to pick a lane where they had replaced the traditional metal detector with one of the new millimeter wave scanners. Not having used one before I didn’t really know what to expect. After putting my carry-on bags and Ziplock® baggie of liquids and shoes on the x-ray machine belt, I stepped into the scanner. (Yes, into, and not through, like you would walk through a metal detector.)
There, I was asked if I was wearing a belt. I was. I always do. It’s never a problem. Apparently, with the body scanners, it is. So back out of the scanner to put my belt on the x-ray machine belt in the midst of some other poor woman’s carry-on bags and Ziplock® baggie and shoes, and then back into the scanner.
Next, I got another round of questioning…Did I have a wallet in my pocket? Yes. Apparently that’s a problem for this machine too. So, I gathered from the next set of questions, is money, paper, or anything else that you might carry in your pockets. Apparently, despite being horrendously expensive, they’re next to useless if you’re not practically naked.
So, now holding my wallet in my hand above my head, it’s finally time for the machine to scan me.
Two or three seconds later, it’s done, and I’m finally out of the machine. I’d already have my shoes back on, and been on my way if I’d just gone though the lane with the bloody metal detector instead. But wait, we’re not through.
Now, it’s time for me to stand and wait for a bit. Apparently, the TSA employees manning the gate (it takes two of them, it seems, rather than the one it takes for a metal detector) have to hear back from whoever it is that is looking at the scan, and that seems to take another few seconds.
Now, they’ve apparently gotten the alarming news that I’m wearing socks, (given that they already made me take off my shoes, I’m not sure why that wasn’t apparent) and they have to give my socks a thorough manual pat-down. Yes, apparently socks are a problem for this white elephant of a security device as well.
So, in something around ten-fold the amount of time it would have taken for me to walk though a metal detector and been manually patted down, I’ve basically been subjected to the same treatment save the use of a far more expensive and clearly deeply flawed device.
The silver lining, if there is one, is that these absurd pieces of garbage are far too expensive to replace every metal detector currently in use at every checkpoint, and I’m confident that they’ll be easy for me to avoid in the future.