How The TSA Kills Travelers
Why should terrorists attack all the people standing in line for "security" when the TSA is already taking out so many Americans through their incompetence and wait times?
Dylan Matthews writes at Vox via RSN :
The TSA doesn't save lives, but it probably ends them. One paper by economists Garrick Blalock, Vrinda Kadiyali, and Daniel Simon found that, controlling for other factors like weather and traffic, 9/11 provoked such a large decrease in air traffic and increase in driving that 327 more people died every month from road accidents. The effect dissipated over time, but the total death toll (up to 2,300) rivals that of the attacks themselves.Another paper by the same authors found that one post-9/11 security measure -- increased checked baggage screening -- reduced passenger volume by about 6 percent. Combine the two papers, and you get a disturbing conclusion: In their words, over the course of three months, "approximately 129 individuals died in automobile accidents which resulted from travelers substituting driving for flying in response to inconvenience associated with baggage screening."
This isn't just one set of studies; there's other evidence that 9/11 led to an increase in driving, which cost at least a thousand lives. The 129 deaths per quarter-year figure is, as Nate Silver notes, "the equivalent of four fully-loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year."
You can dispute the precise figures here; these are regression analyses, which are hardly perfect. But it stands to reason that having to get to the airport two or three hours before a flight reduces demand for flights relative to a world where you only have to arrive 30 minutes beforehand -- particularly for flights on routes where a two- to three-hour wait dramatically increases travel time relative to driving, like New York to Washington, DC, or Boston to New York. That means more driving. That means more death.
That might be worth it for a system that we know for a fact prevents attacks. But there's no evidence the TSA does. Meanwhile, as Bloomberg's Adam Minter notes, a classified TSA study found that private screeners were more effective than TSA staff, and a 2011 report from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee suggested that private screeners are considerably more efficient at processing passengers.
The solution is clear: Airports should kick out the TSA, hire (well-paid and unionized) private screeners, and simply ask people to go through normal metal detectors with their shoes on, their laptops in their bags, and all the liquids they desire. The increased risk would be negligible -- and if it gets people to stop driving and start flying, it could save lives.
Even then, you're still disarming travelers and thus creating a free-fire zone for bad guys. Why not eliminate the screening altogether except for a bomb-sniffing dog or two, and just encourage those with concealed-carry licenses to load their weapons with frangibles or Glaser rounds before boarding?
jdgalt at June 7, 2016 10:19 AM
... Not to mention, the additional fuel wasted by people driving instead of flying.
jefe at June 7, 2016 11:15 AM
"...and just encourage those with concealed-carry licenses to load their weapons with frangibles or Glaser rounds before boarding?"
This isn't strictly necessary. A review of the Joint Aircraft Crash Data Evaluation Center - which takes awhile - will show you that no commercial airliner has ever been downed by small-arms fire to the airframe. Some have even survived bombs, SAMs and AAMs.
Only about 11% of the liftoff weight of an airliner is passengers. They're really built tough.
I suggest that the best ammunition in all cases is the type that shoots to point of aim.
Radwaste at June 7, 2016 11:21 AM
The TSA and the airlines have lost their freaking minds regarding checked baggage. There's an old photo circulating on Facebook of a Pan Am 747 interior circa 1968. It's a mockup and isn't quite right, but most of the details are period authentic. One thing that I noted were the overhead bins, which were pretty small (consequently leaving more headroom). They didn't need large overhead bins because checked-baggage service was free and reasonably reliable. There was no compelling reason to carry on board anything but your handbag or briefcase, or anything especially fragile. Hand over those heavy bags to the porters and let them take care of it.
Now we've got airlines charging $25 a bag for checked baggage, sorting systems that routinely damage even the toughest bags, and TSA and baggage handler weenies pilfering things from bags and dumping your underwear out on the floor so they can look through everything. You open your bag at your destination and all of your carefully folded shirts are rumpled because they dumped everything out and then just crammed it all back in. And then airlines complain about carry-ons, even as they install massive overhead bins in their aircraft because they know they will lose business if they don't. People dragging big bags on board slows down the boarding process, and FAs are expected to keep pax from killing themselves or each other as they lift carry-ons that are apparently full of bricks into the overhead bin.
Cousin Dave at June 7, 2016 12:50 PM
"The solution is clear: Airports should kick out the TSA, hire (well-paid and unionized) private screeners,..."
Why should the screeners be unionized? That just leads to restrictive work rules and difficulty disciplining and/or terminating incompetent employees.
If we must have airport security checkers the criteria should be well trained and competitively paid in line with similar type work at other organizations. This would reduce turnover and improve professionalism.
Jay at June 7, 2016 1:22 PM
Speaking government of killing passengers, could the commenter who linked that aviation website a couple weeks ago please offer some thoughts about this? Because shitfuck, we are for some reason certain our regulators and/or military should be presumed to be doing something totally nasty.
Crid at June 7, 2016 4:15 PM
> If we must have airport security
> checkers the criteria should be
> well trained and competitively
> paid in line with similar type
> work at other organizations. This
> would reduce turnover and improve
> professionalism.
Turnover ain't the problem. (I searched in vain to find the 2016 union status of TSA personnel.)
If you must have airport security checkers, it should be a uniformed armed service. They should have (high) standards for physical fitness and marksmanship, (low/proportionate) standards for salary, five-year terms of service (max age: 33), martial justice instead of union/federal grievance procedures, and their deployment should be readily available to the state governor for short periods during natural and other disasters.
Ten hut, you fat, useless, sniggering sonofabitch.
Crid at June 7, 2016 7:23 PM
> the type that shoots to
> point of aim.
?
Um....
Z'at mean laser sights?
Crid at June 7, 2016 7:25 PM
"Z'at mean laser sights?"
Nope. Pistols have very low polar moment of inertia, which means that velocity and bullet weight differences produce different impact points for the exact same sight picture and grip position.
For example, a heavy, slow bullet can actually print higher on a target than a fast, light one - sometimes by several inches at just 50 feet - because the pistol has time to rotate just a few thousandths of an inch before the bullet leaves the barrel. We just can't hold them rigidly.
So if you change ammunition type, you have to know where it will hit, and adjust your sights, either mechanically if they are adjustable, or on-the-fly if they are not. With special ammunition costing $3 or so per round, sometimes it's not worth using it.
Radwaste at June 8, 2016 2:41 AM
"For example, a heavy, slow bullet can actually print higher on a target than a fast, light one - sometimes by several inches at just 50 feet - because the pistol has time to rotate just a few thousandths of an inch before the bullet leaves the barrel. We just can't hold them rigidly."
True, as far as it goes but a few inches at the short distances in an airplane is not relevant.
The bigger factor by far is the skill of the shooter under pressure when firing at a live target.
The value of guns on an airline is mostly the same as having them in your home. It deters people from pulling shit.
Isab at June 8, 2016 5:48 AM
"Speaking government of killing passengers, could the commenter who linked that aviation website a couple weeks ago please offer some thoughts about this?"
Um, yeah. This is the first I've heard of it. Obviously, it's in the past now, and apparently nothing bad happened. Of course, the military is constantly working on countermeasures to its own systems, lest those systems fall into enemy hands. But yeah, this whole thing strikes me as a bad idea, and hopefully it's a one-time thing. Or, if it isn't, they need to find somewhere a lot more isolated (offshore) to test it. We have Kwajalein specifically for stuff like this.
It also illustrates why it might be wise to continue to support, and for pilots to continue to learn, old-fashioned navigation methods like VORTAC, inertial, celestial, and good ol' pilotage. I'm going to have to look up that thing about the Phenom 300 and see what's up with that.
Cousin Dave at June 8, 2016 6:46 AM
Oops, I just looked at the Notam again and I see that they have more test dates scheduled throughout the month. Wow.
Cousin Dave at June 8, 2016 6:47 AM
"True, as far as it goes but a few inches at the short distances in an airplane is not relevant."
What are you aiming at? Distance in the plane is limited by cabin clutter. The engagement will depend much more on accuracy if shots are fired, will it not? Nowhere else will you have so many bystanders in the line of fire, or so many likely to be between you and your target.
I have an SP101 that is surprisingly easy to hit with; five rounds make one hole at 7 yards with 125-grain Golden Sabers, and they appear in the target right on top of the front sight, but not so with anything in the 150-plus weights.
You mention skill under pressure quite properly. Knowing just where the hits will be is a big weight off one's chest.
Remembering your competition skills...
Radwaste at June 8, 2016 6:48 AM
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