I have a Garmin Friction mount for my GPS so I can easily remove it from rental cars. I've had it for 2 years and it always goes in the same spot in my backpack. I've traveled through big and small airports with it weekly.



Early after I got it CLT called a bag check, saw it, then returned my stuff to me.
A couple months later CLT asked me if I had a GPS mount in my bag. I said yes and they let me through without opening my bag.

Today at YYZ they had 4 different screeners looking at the Xray screen. Finally they let the bag through and opened it. They found my friction mount and proceeded to manhandle it. The first bag check guy passed it off to another screener who manhandled it, then sent it through the Xray.

It cleared the xray and was clearly the object that perplexed them so they continued to squeeze each compartment. I bet if they would have had a knife handy they would have opened it up and let the beans fall out thus making it useless.

Does Canada not have friction mounts for GPS units? You'd think by now an airport as busy as YYZ would have seen one.

I asked the bag check guy if he had ever seen a GPS mount before and he said that it was not obviously a GPS mount and he was just doing his job.


Also thought it was weird that the first step of a bag check was to take my boarding pass. In the US they never take my boarding pass for a routine bag check. They only cared about boarding passes for SSSS since they had to sign off that it was done. The CATSA guy didn't write down anything. I also had to beg for my BP back. The guy said he gave it back to me already, then realized it was still there in front of hi

I have an identical Garmin GPS mount. I now keep it in a bag along with all of my chargers, spare batteries and other items that have been "interesting" to the TSAers in the past. Instead of removing my kippie bag, I remove the electrical toy bag and put it in the bin at the x-ray. So far, I have had a 100% success rate at avoiding further scrutiny.

Items tend to shift in the bag and the end results could look like an IED in a certain angle. This is why I never leave my BlackBerry and its charger in the same compartment. Also why I clearly isolate any bars of soap I might bring with me.

Neither TSA or CATSA have bothered to upgrade their x-ray equipment (hence why you see a lot of bag checks and/or re-runs of bags).

The bigger question to me is why CATSA folks would sit there and squeeze and tinker with something they don't know about. If it's an explosive, I wouldn't be sitting there and squeezing it.

I would have asked for a supervisor and ask if that's the SOP to handle an unknown item in that fashion.

"Hey, what is this thing?"

I have the same product (excellent btw; suction cups, well, they suck at sucking). I've never had a hassle. It might help to remove the pole from the base; it slips out pretty easily and makes it easier to stow in a back pack.

Maybe the compartments are filled with lead shot?

I have a suction mount that works just fine for me and doesnt have this sort of problem.

The guy actually showed me what the screen looked like. Since i'm not trained in reading them it didn't look like a gun or anything obvious like that so I just kinda shrugged and didn't get his point. Thinking back I guess it would have looked like I had 4 grenades in my bag since they were about that shape. I have no clue what a grenade looks like on x-ray though. Taking the plastic hook thing off wouldn't have made a difference since it fits in my bag fine already and they were more concerned with the 4 pouches of stuff than the hook part.

When I saw them playing with the bean bag part I thought they thought I was smuggling drugs or something. I dunno. I didn't ask for an explanation of what they thought it was. I don't know if they would have told me anyway.
I used a suction cup for about 8 or 9 months. I had maybe 2 times where the suction cup came off. I had maybe 5 or 6 occasions where it took me a few minutes to get the cup unstuck.

I have the exact unut for my Nuvi and I flown into airports with it in my carry-on domestically some many times I cannot even count ( plus in the UK, France, Switzerland and Germany airports) and nobody ever asked me about.

I also had it in my carry-on when I took the hydrofoil almost 18 month ago from Seattle to Victoria BC and back and it obviously cleared the CATSA

But what do expect from the (any of those) security nitwits?
One wonders if they even know what a GPS looks like

That said it does have some shot like pellets to keep it stable on your dash but I believe the shot are steel balls as opposed to lead.

Its great much better than the suction since you can reposition the entire unit without having to do the "restick thingy" plus if you leave the suction on too long in either very hot or very cold weather it tends to get "glued" to the windscreen and you end having some of the rubber stuck there after you pull it off and the no longer smooth sticking surface looses so of its traction.

mike

P.S. I never remove my ball-joint pole, either.