Security Checks and Balances

Re “Most Limo, Bus Drivers at LAX Not Screened,” Oct. 27: So they’re checking the backgrounds of the shuttle drivers and doing random inspections in the taxi holding pen? The cabs in the holding pen are for arriving passengers. Who’s going to arrive with an explosive device? Assuming they check out all the professional drivers, I still think they missed something really obvious. If terrorists can take over a Boeing 767, how hard would it be for them to hijack a shuttle or taxicab en route to LAX? They’d have all the time necessary to turn the whole vehicle into a bomb and not have to worry about a security check. Checking the background of the commercial drivers does no good if you don’t check each one on the way in to make sure if he or she is actually the one driving the vehicle.

Also, if the reason for not allowing private cars to stop at the curb is that professional drivers are less likely to leave their cars, then let’s make leaving your car a really expensive ticket and get more officers to enforce it. It’s got to be better than the current mess.

Andy Pearlman

Marina del Rey

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Before we federalize and further complicate airport security, shouldn’t we consider whether perhaps we already had enough airport security before Sept. 11? Much has been said about the failure of airport security to prevent the attacks. But by that time, apparently, the only weapon even the most determined terrorist could smuggle on board a plane was a box cutter or a ceramic knife. The current, higher level of expense and inconvenience aimed at making sure no one ever gets onto a plane with a cutting tool again risks missing the point: the weapon is not what ultimately makes a hijacking work.

What used to make it work was the presumed docility of a group of passengers who hope to survive the experience. Now that terrorists have made it clear that staying in your seat and doing what you’re told is no guarantee of survival, what chance does a small group of hijackers stand of taking over an airliner with the intent of using it as a guided missile? It seems probable that even on United Flight 93, when the concept of suicide hijackers was only minutes new, passengers took action. How likely is it that passengers would not now rise up and overpower men with knives, putting an end to the hijacking before it got started?

Jim Houghton

Encino