More TSA silliness:
At the Dallas checkpoint, the contents of his bag were dumped on the table. ”They pull out my car key,” he said.
”What’s this?” an inspector asked.
”My car key,” Mr. Rau said.
Mr. Rau drives an Audi. Audis now come with stylish ignition keys designed to house the key inside a holder, preventing rips and wear on pocket liners. You push a button on a flat two-inch shaft and the key slides out.
As he demonstrated it, Mr. Rau could see the word forming in the minds of the screeners, now three, on his case: switchblade.
”Now the bells are ringing,” he said. After running the key through the X-ray machine three times, the security committee reached a conclusion. ”Well, sir, that’s a switchblade style, and that’s a prohibited item,” Mr. Rau said he was told. ”We’re going to have to confiscate that.”
Paperwork, of course, was required. His driver’s license and other identification papers were photocopied.
”And of course, I didn’t have my car keys,” he said. Luckily, he keeps a spare in a little magnetized box under his car. But, it cost $300 to replace the key at the dealer, who must add a computer code for a specific car.
Here is the switchblade.
Again, I don’t know if this is true. Sure seems believable.
Jeff Harrell
I don’t believe it for a second. I drive a ’99 Jetta with an identical key, and I live in Dallas. I’ve passed through DFW airport security checkpoints countless times over the past six years, most recently just before Memorial Day, and I’ve never had anybody even examine my car key, much less give me any grief about it.
If this did happen, it’s a total aberration.
Rugger
Don’t be so sure, Jeff. For starters, the past six years are padding things a bit. Post 9/11 and post TSA is where the real stupidities begin.
How you get treated depends entirely on the people manning the checkpoints and/or what airport you are at. It is only a matter of time until you have meet your own stupidity Waterloo.
sidereal
“I don’t believe it for a second.”
You’re forgetting the total arbitrariness of the system. Sometimes the granny with nail clippers is dangerous, sometimes she isn’t. I’ve seen a gift box of wine confiscated because it had a corkscrew in it.
ppgaz
Not sure. I have had first-hand experience with what appears to be sophisticated xray equipment software that detects not just the shape of a thing, but its internal configuration, and matches it to certain patterns. Using this, they pulled me aside and went over every item in my luggage and in my pockets with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. After a while, a supervisor came over, and I heard them talking. Can’t understand it, the machine said pocket knife, but we can’t find one. When I heard that, I realized that the machine had detected a tiny pocketknife-like device — actually a nail file gadget with a minuscule knife blade that would just about cut an aspirin tablet in half. Could your machine have alerted you to this? I handed over the 1-1/2 inch long gadget. Yep, this is it. Sorry, you’re going to have to leave this here.
Thus I lost a little nail file thing I’d been carrying for 20 years, a gift from long ago that I carried as much for sentimental reasons as anything else. Carried it on airplanes without a problem. Never even thought about it. A sharp pencil would do more damage, but it’s contraband on an airplane now, and it is sacrificed to the terrorists.
My point is that if the car key were “retracted”, the machine might sense it as a “jacknife-style” device and in a zero-tolerance atmoshphere, common sense has no place. It’s confiscated.
But don’t worry …. we are winning the War on Terror.
stickler
We had the same key on our ’99 Passat. This key has been out there for a while. It was featured on a VW ad back in ’02.
Ah, but give another glance to the man’s last name: Rau. Either he’s related to the former German politician Johannes Rau, or he’s from the Indian subcontinent. IF the latter, then skin color might — just maybe — have something to do with this.
etc.
The idiocy of the transportation security people knows no bounds.
Soon after 9/11, the security people at Phoenix singled out an old white guy for special treatment. His name was Joe Foss. If you are a military history buff, you might remember a Joe Foss who became an ace over Guadacanal in 1942 and won the Medal of Honor for his exploits. Same guy. He went on to become a general in the Marines. After retirement, he became governor of North Dakota. He was flying to Joe Foss International Airport.
Anthow, after they spent hours interogating an old white guy who was a Marine General, an ace pilot, a Medal of Honor recipient, a former governor of his state, who was bound for an airport that bears his name, and got bupkis for their efforts, I am prepared to believe anything about those morons.
Decided Fence Sitter
Flying home for christmas to visit my parents the year of 9/11, my wife and I left. Me a large, 250lb man, long hair, dressing in dark colors, my wife, cute, young, and female.
My beard scissors got taken. All 1.5″ of blade.
My wife’s sewing SHEARs did not, all 4-5″ of SHARP blade.
Yeah. Entirely possible this guy found the asshole of the week.
cj51
My favorite story is the one about when security people found out the *captain* of a commercial flight was carrying a gun. The captain had a permit and eventually convinced security to let him keep the gun. Then security discovered the captain had nail clippers in his carry-one bag and said they had to confiscate the clippers. Probably urban ledgend. However, the car key thing sounds very plausible. It can get a lot worse than that. Found this
Tyrone Slothrop
Joe Foss was from South Dakota, and the airfield that bears his name is the Sioux Falls airport, but that’s a great story.
Kimmitt
We’ve had items confiscated at airports; you can always get them back.
If he was away from home, couldn’t he at least mail himself the key?
the friendly grizzly
I don’t know which is the more stupid situation here: having a car key taken because it is perceived as a weapon? Or ownership of a car where a farshimelt KEY costs $300. Oh, that’s right: it’s a GERMAN key, so it must be very special and better.
Pfui. I may only have a lowly no good rotten crappy American Chevrolet, but at least I can get through Checkpoint Charlie with my keys.
CadillaqJaq
I’m at Cleveland International Airport (or whatever it’s called) making a telephone call to Las Vegas when I sense the presence of someone standing too close to me. I turn and it’s a TSA “officer” who interrupts my call asking, “Is that your luggage?”
On the floor next to my right leg is my carry-on bag sitting quietly. I nodded, yes it is. The TSA “officer” sternly remarks, “Don’t leave it unattended again.”
(Worse than Rent-a-Cops…)
Kiganshee
I know I’m late on this, but the TSA just kills me. They make me take off my shoes every time I go through, but none of them has yet to notice that my real drivers’ license says that I am 5’1″ tall, and 185 pounds. I am actually 6’3″ and 185 pounds. The DMV made a laughable mistake, but what’s not funny is the fact that no TSA person has EVER noticed it. It’s a basic reality check that, if the TSA people were actually doing their jobs, they would notice. There is no way I could ever be mistaken for 5-1.
The notion that the TSA is actually improving security when things like this happen is ridiculous.