On Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:33:15 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In the last episode of ,
Bill said:

On Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:07:34 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:

In the last episode of , Tom P
said:

I let someone in a hurry to catch his plane get through the security
line in front of me just today. He gave me a big thanks. That must
really upset your moral principles.

Decency is different from intentional abuse. You did good for someone
else, rather than someone taking what they didn't deserve.

So short of the idiocies described earlier, what's the solution?

An obvious one is to make all security check-points capable of
checking all passengers, but cost and space requirements rules that
out.

Airports don't have to room for a cubical at every screening point,
never mind the money for the staff to man the special facilities
disabled people need.

There is a Europe (well, EC) wide system for assigning privileges to
people with mobility issues, but from the sound of things this
doesn't extend to the USA, never mind the rest of the world...

Possessing a handicap sticker or other formal documentation, or having a
doctor's note would be a good start. At least in Canada and the US, the
bar to get a handicap parking sticker should be low enough that most
qualifying individuals have one even if they don't drive, and would
absolve one of the risk of fines.

But you need a common standard and a common set of rules and a uniform
documentation system of you'd have people more or less buying them
from their doctors.

Can you say 'Socialised medical system'?

In the UK a 'blue badge' can be sold illegally for as much as £1,000
($1,600) in some places.

Failing that, you could also require a declaration to be signed that
indicates that, in order to be treated as handicapped and provided with
a wheelchair at the airport, the traveler must also own or rent a
wheelchair, walker or other mobility device of their own, for use in
their day to day lives, and regularly use it. Then throw in a $10,000
fine for misuse of the system, especially focusing on investigating
individuals who's mobility needs change over the course of the flight;
the so called "miracle flights" where "passengers use wheelchairs to
board but abandon them when their planes land"

Why?

Some people just aren't fit enough to traverse modern airports under
their own power.

My elderly mother couldn't but she doesn't use a wheelchair in her
normal life, just a walking stick.

She could get a 'doctor's note' for about £20, but why should she?
She's pretty obviously not capable of traversing an airport under her
own steam.