Hey.... Red white and blue signs popping up at security. All tell us how to get through the nightmare sooner. Remove computers, take off coats, put metal in bag.... lots of pretty signs. Some big and some small.

Lets print signs instead of fixing problem

Mikey, I think this actually might help. You have to remember that most of the public is the once or twice a year to Aunt Mabel's kind of flyer. They don't go to the airports very often, so they don't know what the rules are.

Come on, doesn't it piss you off when someone doesn't know the rules, and doesn't take off his coat, and then doesn't empty out his pockets of all metal, and holds up the line? I know it irritates me. And if these signs help prevent that from happening, I say go for it.

I agree w/ mdtony (although I share Mikey's frustration overall) - the signs will help the large number of occaisonal travelers, and that should speed things up. The whole area of communications and wayfinding at airports stinks, so actually paying attention to what we tell people and how we tell them should be an improvement

I'll read them too - one of my biggest peeves is when someone (i.e., a screener) acts like I'm an idiot for not following a rule I didn't know about - tell me the rules, or the way to make it through the system smoother, and I can do that.

a bit off topic:

How does taking the laptop out of my bag do anything other than slow the line down and risk theft?

Europe and Asia seem to do just fine without laptop removal.

I believe the reasoning is that the solid mass of the laptop could obscure something else from xray.

Here at SFO soon after 9/11 some of the screeners penned their own signs, but unfortunately since English is not their first language (or in some cases they don't seem to speak much at all), the instructions were not understandable. So any standardization of signing can only be an improvement.

John

Sorry, now it's starting to spread here too. Just came through Dublin this evening where all laptops have to be out of the bag now.

Meanwhile at London Heathrow all mobile phones now get put INTO the laptop bag by the screeners! An absolute recipe for it being left in there, switched on, forgotten by the passenger, and it then ringing in flight and upsetting the aircraft communications. All in the name of flight safety!

In passing, all these requirements could be achieved quicker if they would provide some tabletops along the APPROACH side of the security point, so you can get things ready. But they don't. If you are carrying 2 or 3 bags/carry-ons, how do you remove the laptop, fish the keys out of your pocket, etc, before you get to the checkpoint?

Well, my Aunt Mabel was quite a flyer. Born in 1913, she was named after a notorious screen star of that age. She knew how to travel. Bumped into her in the '80s at the depressingly dry SLC. Mabel opened her traveling liquor case in a lounge, and we shared a drink or two.