Because even airport security officials realize how hard it is to travel with young ones, families often can get special perks (the TSA, for example, lets kids keep their sneakers or booties on!). There might also be a fast lane for such families traveling together.Hmmm, I wonder if someone walked up to a TSA groper and, with a cane and a stiff knee limp, asked the groper if there is a special handicap lane, the same "courtesy" would be extended. I'm thinking that most readers of EPJ are what the government should consider "libertarian handicapped." We really have a problem with government authority..
Hint Mama writes that she's gone through priority lanes in San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Seattle, New York, and other city airports by asking the person manning the priority lane entrance if there's a family lane or a special one for strollers. Sometimes (very nice) airport workers ushered her family through a priority lane or even the TSA Precheck lane even if there wasn't a family lane.
-RW
I experienced this first hand last month. On my way out, traveling alone to SoCal, I opted out and was given the gate rape with little courtesy, almost disdain. I try to drive now as much as I can, but I just can't take enough time from my business to do it cross country, so when I do that flight I always dress super comfortably(no belt, elastic band shorts) and wear sandals for the opt out business. The funny thing is this time, I was wearing a LRC baseball cap and had signed copies of both Lew's and RW's most recent books in my one carry on bag....they made me take off my sandals as usual but never once asked me to remove the cap...lol!
ReplyDeleteOn the way back I had my family with me(wife & four kids) and was streamlined through despite my opt-out, no gate rape for me or the family(wife told me she received the same bypass with the kids on the way out)...but they didn't manage to flag my 10 year-old's backpack for potentially having explosives.
I stood next to her as the hero in TSA blue rifled through her back pack full of rocks(she collects them as we hike, she got these particular ones from both Washington state and the arid hills surrounding Laguna Nigel).
He actually asked her, "What are these?" She answered, with a semi-astonished look on her face, "Those are rocks."
lol....I didn't have to say a word...after it was over I asked her what she thought about the whole process, "It was stupid, Dad."
The only reason I think they don't do the gate rape thing on kids/families as much anymore is simply optics/PR. Safety is obviously not a TSA concern and never was IMO. I guess all the videos of them checking the drawers of kids in wheel chairs in the past is having a marginal effect on them.