Wanted: “Shoe Weapon Inspection System”
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 08.11.05 | 1:12 PM ET
Few post-9/11, post-moron-shoe-bomber-guy airport requirements are more dispiriting than the one to remove your shoes before walking through the x-ray machine. It’s a relatively minor inconvenience, but it’s a sorry reminder of how much air travel has changed. Fortunately, there may be good news on the naked foot front. Ben Mutzabaugh writes in USA Today about a Transportation Security Administration effort to find companies to develop a “Shoe Weapon Inspection System” to screen shoes for bombs without passengers having to de-shoe. The administration has even placed an ad for it. If you happen to be in the Shoe Weapon Inspection System business, I beg you, on behalf of all travelers, to deliver us from this indignity.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Wendy Boucher Garrett 08.11.05 | 4:10 PM ET
Hurry up, inventors! Although it will bum out the shoe fashion designers who have undoubtedly already come out with “Easy on/Easy off Airport Clogs”.
Jim Benning 08.11.05 | 4:13 PM ET
Definitely. There’s a good story here for an enterprising business reporter.
Wendy Boucher Garrett 08.13.05 | 7:48 PM ET
The shoe inspection invention will probably come from an enterprising security worker who’s tired of having to whiff smelly sneakers. Then Wharton will turn it into a business school study after the Garrett Company (the one on all the screening equipment - not mine)makes a mint. And the smart security guy will go on to invent a machine that can tell if a computer is actually a computer, even if it’s still in it’s case. You heard it here first, folks.