Airport body scan vs patdown

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Which

  • Scanner

    Votes: 26 68.4%

  • Patdown

    Votes: 12 31.6%
  • Total voters
    38
I haven't seen one person elect for the pat down on my 20ish times in the airport so far in the past month.

You just stand there with your arms over your head and a little bubble figure lights up on areas to check, which has happened twice on my back.
 
It's fine to choose the pat down if you're into that sort of thing, but don't avoid the scanner because of any perceived radiation concern. If you take a 5 hour cross-country flight, the scanner adds the radiation equivalent of 2 minutes of airtime.
 
MossPoh said:
I haven't seen one person elect for the pat down on my 20ish times in the airport so far in the past month.

You just stand there with your arms over your head and a little bubble figure lights up on areas to check, which has happened twice on my back.
Click to expand...

Back bush?
 
See http://www.columbia.edu/~djb3/papers/radiol7.pdf

The ALARA (as low as reasonably attainable) principle suggests
"Comparisons with other risks are not necessarily relevant. The fact that flying involves other radiation exposures or other different risks is not relevant to the ALARA requirement to minimize the ionization radiation exposure associated with practical passenger screening. In another context, for example, one would not ignore the radiation exposures associated with computed tomographic scans simply because domestic radon exposure involves larger effective doses."

If you're going to get a pat-down anyway because of weird stuff in your back, why not just elect for the pat-down straight up in the first place?
 
I used to always elect for the pat-down back when they had the Backscatter scanners (ionizing). Now with the Provision ATD using the millimeter wave technology (non-ionizing), I use that.
 
this is the kind of conversation that does not help our reputation... come on guys
 
who cares as long as you get from one destination to the other in one piece and alive?
 
I wonder what their protocol is for maintenance....is there a radiation safety officer? What if these machines malfunction? How often are they checking? Perhaps I will bring an exposure badge one of these days....all in all though I vote scanner, but I would like to emphasize the gross incompetence of TSA, those guys are hosers.
 
It is about much radiation as you would receive after about 30 - 40 minutes at altitude during your flight.
 
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