New carry-on battery rules shelved?
Beginning January 1, new Department of Transportation rules about lithium and lithium ion batteries in checked and carry-on baggage in airplanes supposedly went into effect. The announcement generated some fevered commentary at the time. This was in part because the rules were in the form of government writing commonly known as bureaucratese, leading a lot of people to think that they were far more onerous than they in fact are. (I discussed the new rules in an earlier posting.)
Well, I recently returned from a trip to California and there's no evidence that the new restrictions are being enforced in any way. No screening. No signs. No notices. Nada. When I arrived home I did some poking around on the Web and, as far as I can tell, nobody else has run across any noteworthy changes to battery screening procedures either. For example, under the new rules, loose batteries are now supposed to be placed in individual plastic bags or otherwise stored in a way that their contacts can't be shorted out. I've seen no evidence that anyone is paying any attention to this requirement.
Your mileage may vary, of course. Especially if you're transporting multiple large batteries for professional video equipment and the like (which is the sort of thing that the rule change really targeted), it may still be worth trying to get some clarification--for whatever good that will do. However, it certainly appears that the government has effectively shelved putting the new safety regulations into practice for the time being.
Does anyone have any experiences to the contrary?
Gordon Haff is a Principal IT Advisor with Illuminata, Inc. and has over 20 years of IT industry experience. He blogs about what's happening with enterprise servers and datacenters, "Yotta-scale" computing, and related software and device trends as part of the CNET Blog Network. Disclosure.
These rules are likely to be as understood as the "no liquids beyond the security checkpoint" requirement. I just returned from an overseas trip and while standing in the Atlanta bagagge claim area, I heard an announcement that liquid containers can not be larger than 3.4 oz or 100ml. Within 5 minutes, there was another announcement that said the limit was 3 oz.
The limit is 3oz or 100ml?
This one says 3oz:
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311_brochure.pdf
But, these say 3 oz or 100ml:
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-spanish.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-chinese-trad.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-chinese-simp.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-french.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-german.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-korean.pdf
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/311-broch-japanese.pdf
But, 100ml = ~3.38oz. So, how can these brochures all say 3oz = 100ml?
On this trip, I was refused to take my 100ml tube of toothpaste with me through security, in spite of the fact that all of these brochures say that 100ml is acceptable. (Note: this toothpaste was purchased outside the US and did not have an oz value printed on it.)
Here they state 3.4oz/100ml:
http://www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/02/more-on-liquid-rules-why-we-do-things.html
This whole problem is only made worse by the fact that the government cannot differentiate between liquids and solids. The government decided that gels count as liquids, but does not address other solids. What they really want is to limit the size of the container. Unfortunately, not all containers are labeled in liquid ounces. Instead, the weight in ounces and grams is printed on them. But, our fine airport security folks merely look at the "oz" value to determine whether it's acceptable. Perhaps that's why the TSA limits containers to also fitting inside a quart-sized container as a precaution?
Personally, I'm somewhat amused by the fact that we are all required to take a quart-sized container through security.
Anyway, I suspect these battery rules will be met with as much confusion.