Airport Security Increase: Good news for 'Detroit'?

[Lowell]

The 'shoe bomber' got us to all take off our shoes at TSA security, now the 'underpants bomber' has us getting the choice of have our private parts displayed by full body scanners or, take your pick, a full body 'pat down'.

Now there is a call for a protest effort on the upcoming busy Thanksgiving travel days to get passengers to refuse the quicker scans and request the time consuming pat downs, thus clogging the inspection process and delaying flights.

No matter how one may feel about that, it is adding even more disincentive to the once very convenient option of flying [particularly for flights under 300 miles where driving becomes an option] and having many people opting to driving where none of these invasive procedures, along with the cramped packed seating, baggage restrictions and other negatives that come with the speed of flying.

So my question are: Does airport hassle + airline service cutbacks = more driving = more car sales = good news for "Detroit". [Detroit = the automotive industry and, by extension, Detroit-Windsor metropolis.]

Structure your answer by answering this first: Let's say money [you have an expense account and you can get a paid rental car or cab fees at other end] and time is not an issue, would you drive or fly to, say, Chicago, Toronto or Pittsburgh for a one or two day event or business trip?

[silverbeauty]

we have drove to Chicago for a one day business trips many times. I do prefer to drive but don't necessarily have the time to take off of work. I do hate flying,it has become a miserable experience.

[313rd]

In the past I'd rather hop on a plane for the quick one hour flight after being dropped off at the airport, right before a flight. Now it is always drive to these locations within 5 hours of departure. I think the 5 hour destination is the driving benchmark for me. Anything over the 5, would strongly consider the switch to flight. Also taking into consideration the weather. If snow is in the forecast, I might opt to fly in lie of driving.

[Magnatomicflux]

Amtrak, here I come.

Yup. Maybe this will be the thing that finally brings railroads back to some serious passenger service!
Of course....with the decline in air travel as a result and all that money wasted on these machines and whatnot, the Gov will just shift all that stuff to Stations around the country claiming that now trains are the terrorists favorite target. We'll just end up getting patted by or exposed to potential perverts who just found their calling in what used to be a relaxed, carefree mode of transportation.

[Lowell]

As matter of disclosure I have been in the bomb scanner. Shortly after the first ones were installed at DTW I arrived not overly alert at 5 AM and made the unforgivable sin of forgetting to remove my laptop and placing in a separate tray. That earned me a trip to new bomb scanner.

What struck me most was the feeling of abject surrender. Stand there, raise your arms up, turn perpendicular, stand there, put your arms up. A giant cylinder whooshes around you and, reportedly, nothing is hidden.

Being the curious type, the first thought that passed my mind was, "Why don't I get to see the pictures?" IMO, we should own those images. But am I going to miss my flight to make a point? Of course not; so we meekly surrender and move on to our next interrogation. What the scan might have done to me... I don't even what to think about that.

At least we are not letting the terrorists win. errr...right I guess. If they say so it must be true.

[Ray1936]

Without answering the proposed questions, I just gotta say it don't matter to me. I prefer to drive anywhere -- including from home in LV to Michigan, which I did twice this year -- but when I fly the scanner don't make no mind to me. If they want me to drop my pants, no problem there either. Unless my urologist happens to be there, that is..........

[gazhekwe]

We have opted out of flying and drive everywhere. We just got back from a four day business meeting in San Diego. We drive frequently to Chicago, Sault Ste. Marie area, Pittsburgh and DC. We love the freedom of driving and we get to see the country, too. I drive by myself to FL and to the Soo area with no problem.

In the future, when we expect to have digs in FL and in MI, hubby may elect to commute by plane between Detroit and Orlando so he can spend more time in the second home. No luggage, no carry-ons, and I am pretty sure he won't want the screening OR the patdown, so we shall see. I think we can fly out of Bishop here and Melbourne in FL for now, but maybe they are on patdown alert since they don't have full body scanners.

Since we put more miles on with long distance trips, we do a lot more maintenance on our vehicles and buy more tires, but so far, the only reason we might buy a new car is being tired of our old one.

[Jimaz]

I abandoned flying years ago [[pre-2005) because of what I felt then were already excessively paranoid security obsessions. It's ironic because I seem to be personally less concerned than others about the latest TSA "X-ray specs" intrusion. What bugged me then and now was the continuously growing "mission creep" of airport security. Heck, the whole commercial airline industry needs a bureaucratic enema, IMHO.

I consciously evaluated the trade offs, weighing the probability and consequences of getting blown out of the sky against the collective inconvenience of unnecessary security measures. [[I say "unnecessary" after weighing the number of inconvenience events that did truly prevent disaster against those that did not.) I concluded that I'd rather bear the minor risk of becoming a terrorist's victim than bear the certainty of bowing to the bureaucrats who make these policies.

Sometimes this paranoia along with other trends seems as if part of a greater social engineering project to gradually chip away at the public's dignity and spirit. To what intended end? I often wonder.

Should it ever become necessary to fly, we're considering the alternative of chartering a small private plane and have a relative who is a pilot fly it. I understand there's less antiterrorist security for small planes.

Maybe I'm just not yet sufficiently cowardly to be integrated into today's Brazilified society. What's wrong with me?

Oh, the car industry. This has to sell more cars but I'm not sure how big the effect would be. I have heard of many cases where people are turning to teleconferencing to circumvent the airport hassles though.

[Detroitnerd]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6URhJTvVg

[mikefmich]

Seeing the way progression has gone in this insanity, I expect full body cavity searches the first time some idiot shoves plastic explosives up his arse.
Given some of the comments the courts have made in the past about airport searches do not have an unlimited options, I wonder if the current gropes will make it thru the courts.

[thnk2mch]

If I go along with the full body scan, do I still have to take off my shoes, belt, loose clothing, jacket, etc.?

[Detroitnerd]

I think you should opt for the body search and piss your pants while they feel your willie.

[Jimaz]

I think you should opt for the body search and piss your pants while they feel your willie.

That's pretty close to what happened here: Cancer survivor tells of humiliating pat-down at Metro Airport

A Houghton Lake man says he was so aggressively patted down by an agent at a Detroit Metro Airport security checkpoint this month that it caused the lid on his urostomy bag to come loose, spilling urine on his shirt and pants...

[gdogslim]

The future TSA question, would you like a pat down with that scan, or a feel up?

Seriously though, I think that the private jet industry will take off [[no pun intended) with people chartering jets, like politicians. City airports may benefit, trains should see an increase.
Alternative transportation in general will benefit, big gas guzzlin' minivans and suv's may sell better to van pooling companies going betwen cities.
Either way Detroit will see more car sales the next few years, although other countries are now eating a larger piece of the car pie.

[DetroitPlanner]

Amtrak, here I come.

Unfortunately Amtrak is only an option if you are travelling West. Detroit's geography has it being poorly served to the East by anything other than Via, then you have to still deal with crossing the border [[twice if you want to get back to the states). For east travellers, Amtrak and Greyhound have bus service to Toledo where you can hop an eastbound train. You still can't go south from here either.

[johnsmith]

Per Lowell's and Jimaz' posts here, you dudes are absolutely spot on.

[Islandman]

I've been driving for my last few trip, not only to avoid the airport but to also have my car once I reach my destination. Bounced down to NC last week and on the way to Miami. Plus, it's nice to see this country from the road once in a while.

[bailey]

Personally I think it'll have no effect whatsoever. Pretty soon this will be accepted as normal just as the stupid shoe removal is. People will forget that it ever was any different. I'm just wondering where they go from here.

[Detroitnerd]

Full anal cavity searches for all!

[ndavies]

What do these multimillion dollar machines do that a handful of well trained dogs can't do? Other than put huge amounts of cash into the companies that make the machines.

How many dogs and dog handlers could you train and employ for the cost of one machine? The dogs don't need to submit the passengers to unflattering imaging or radiation.

[Hypestyles]

interesting.. I guess we'll see in the long term whether auto purchases increase as a result of pushback to air travel.. I'm still not a fan of the high airfare prices that continue.. I wish that rail developments would expand sooner than later..
on a side note.. are the TSA workers allowed to unionize, and is that why some are pushing for this to be privatized?

[gdogslim]

Street vendors and stores could make money selling these t shirts.
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/villagestree...134_1151725038

Start a luxury van delivery service to other cities to people who don't want a 'touch down'.

Start a 'Pat Down' service, to mentally prepare people to go through airports.

Money Idea: Short the stock symbol: OSIS becuase of TSA outrage.
Old news: George Soros owns over 11,000 shares of OSI Systems, the parent company of Rapiscan, which manufactures the controversial TSA scanners.
Newer news: Soros’s OSIS investments now shows that Soros owns zero shares of the company sometime in the third quarter 2010. This might mean that the TSA machines are now out of favor and may not be hot sellers in the future.
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/u...s-holdings.jpg

These could actually be serious money making part time jobs for people.
Many possibilities out there.

[Magnatomicflux]

What do these multimillion dollar machines do that a handful of well trained dogs can't do? Other than put huge amounts of cash into the companies that make the machines.

How many dogs and dog handlers could you train and employ for the cost of one machine? The dogs don't need to submit the passengers to unflattering imaging or radiation.

I suppose aside from the money, people are allergic to dogs. I guess that could be a reason.

[DetroitDad]

I'm more scared of the body scanners and groping of my daughter than I am of the a terrorist on the plane, so it makes me really rethink what safety means.

I will no longer fly. The odds of getting killed by a terrorist are practically zero, but the odds of me getting probed by a TSA agent are 100% [[I often fly with a family member named Mohamed, who happens to have the same name as someone on the do not fly list, it takes us a couple extra hours to get through security).

[Magnatomicflux]

Could be old news to you guys, but I found this in the Windsor Star today


http://www.windsorstar.com/security+...969/story.html


More political BS I'm sure.