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by Ryan Vagabundo
If you've traveled Greyhound regularly over the past few years, you may have noticed that some of their stations in bigger cities (like L.A., Salt Lake City and San Francisco) abruptly started doing TSA-esque "security screenings" before they let you into the "secure passenger area." These can consist anything up to wanding of your person and bags, to having you open the bag compartments for them to peek in, to the security guy actually pulling stuff out of your bags and holding it up for inspection.
I can verify that not every station is doing this. I've departed from Vegas many times and never seen them do it there. Reno had a short burst of doing it in 2013-2014 then quickly laid off, probably because they didn't want to pay for security (they don't even want to pay for a water fountain these days).
I'm pretty sure Oakland and Sacramento aren't doing it either (even though that's two places where it might actually be halfway justified). The stops in smaller towns and cities that board outdoors, like Truckee in the Sierra Nevada and Santa Rosa, CA (which is located in a cheap motel lobby) certainly aren't.
My theory about this haphazard screening practice between stations is that only the stations that are trying to woo 9-5 commuters (like Sacramento -> SF, Salt Lake -> Provo and the outer reaches of greater L.A. metro area -> downtown) are doing this. Greyhound offers low fares for putting up with rough conditions, and they attract a largely rough-around-the-edges and low-income clientele. The commuters they want in these cities are at least middle-class office workers, if not outright upper-middle or upper-class management, so they have to put on this ridiculous dog-and-pony show to make them feel safe.
George Carlin summed it up best, so many years ago (albeit for airplanes):
The show appears to be working, at least going by Yelp reviews from yupsters who appear to be in favor of this arbitrary screening.
But here's the problem with this security screening. If you stop to actually analyze it for 10 seconds, you'll find it isn't really preventing anything bad from happening at all. Anyone with even an ounce of determination and higher brain function can easily circumvent it for whatever purposes they want to.
Don't believe me? Let me break it down into detail, point-by-point, then. Here's why Greyhound's security screening is a completely pointless, useless invasion of privacy:
Thanks to Marcus @ Brainless Tales for the image
1) Your Checked Bag Isn't Screened At All
When you check in at the ticket counter - which is outside the "secure area" - you can have one checked bag that goes under the bus tagged. Nobody ever looks in or wands this thing. If a bag has a checked tag on it, the security screener isn't supposed to so much as wand it, let alone look in it.
This leaves a ne'er-do-well with ample opportunity to transfer a weapon from the checked bag to their carry-on or to their pockets in the waiting lobby or the bathroom inside the "secure area". Let alone just having a bom-ba-ba-bomb-bomb-bomb inside of it from the moment they walk in.
2) Package Express Packages and Bags Aren't Screened Either
Greyhound has a service called "Package Express" which allows you to ship bags and packages between stations, where they are held for pickup. It used to be a really economical alternative to UPS and such if you were shipping to someone you personally know, but the prices have crept up and now it's kinda samey to using Ground service.
Anyway. The point is, these packages go underneath the passenger buses wherever space is available. So that's not going to stop The Terroristing either, if that's what you're worried about.
3) Extreme Inconsistency In Screening Procedure
Some of the screeners are more gung-ho about their job than others. Some frankly seem a bit embarrassed about having to do this, which I completely empathize with. And I've noticed that screening seems a lot more half-hearted in the late hours when it's nearly all Poors taking the bus, versus the morning and mid-afternoon when the Bridge-And-Tunnelers are there.
Anyway. Regardless how rigorous, I've always been able to put my utility knife behind my laptop in its case - when they see a laptop in there they don't ask to pull it out or inspect further. Even on its best days, there's plenty of opportunity to slip something by.
4) The Bathroom Handoff
Admittedly this is starting to get into Ocean's 11 levels of planning, but people getting off an incoming bus can enter the secure area to use the bathroom without having to be searched or show their ticket. Not much stopping somebody from waiting outside, blending into the crowd, then stashing something in the restroom for someone else to pick up after they've been screened.
5) Get As High As You Want
Setting aside all this terrorist/psycho stuff, screening is also looking for drugs and alcohol. And I'll concede to the yuppies that no one wants to be stuck on a bus for hours with a belligerent pukey drunk or someone out of their mind on meth or LSD.
But aside from there being plenty of ways to slip drugs and drink past security (since they're almost totally focused on metal), there's nothing stopping someone from getting totally loaded outside just before the bus takes off, then just walking in and boarding up. Certainly hasn't stopped weed use, as I used to smell people burning Js all the time in the SF Greyhound terminal restroom.
Also, unlike some shitty public transit agencies I could name, when someone gets drunk, disruptive or violent on the Greyhound, they WILL pull the bus over and kick their ass off in the middle of nowhere. Greyhound drivers are battle-scarred veterans who don't play.
But finally, by far the most important reason that these "security screens" are a total waste of time ...
6) NO ONE EVER PSYCHOS OUT OR TERRORISTS A BUS
My whole list here must make Greyhound seem like one big soft target. Especially pre-2012, when they weren't even doing the big-city screenings.
So why don't we hear about Greyhound bus rides turning into horror shows every other day? Why hasn't Al-Qaeda ULULULULULU'd one yet? And why not the same for Megabus and a thousand other Asian-owned intercity buses that run every single day, that board up outdoors and don't do any screenings whatsoever?
Because nobody wants to attack a fucking bus. Buses are mostly poor people, and nobody cares about us.
And as far as people randomly snapping and going on a stab/shooting spree on a bus, let's run the numbers and see how likely that is to actually happen based on decades of Greyhound business operations.
Average # of Greyhound runs per day in the U.S.: About 16,000 (source: Greyhound site > About Us)
# of years Greyhound has been in operation: 104
# of times someone has flipped out and gotten violent on a bus (that I can find news reports of): 14
This is setting aside any number of random fistfights between arguing trashbags, which don't really pose a risk to other passengers, and which security screening wouldn't stop anyway as there were no weapons. And similar such minor incidents. Just 14 where somebody had a weapon and people got seriously injured / died.
Granted, there was one very lurid incident in 2008 involving a violent schizophrenic, but that was in Canada so we're not counting it.
# of times someone has flipped out and gotten violent on a Megabus in the U.S., which doesn't even check your ID before you get on board: 2
Megabus has had more crashes than Greyhound due to drunk or tired drivers, but only two weapon attacks I can find. One wannabe gunman in Chicago, which admittedly sounds pretty serious, and one guy who stabbed another guy in some sort of domestic dispute. Up until 2015 it was 0 incidents, though.
Now, when you cherry-pick out all those stabbings and line them up next to each other, it might make Greyhound look really scary and like it undermines my whole argument. But try to keep this in mind - 16,000 departures PER DAY. That's 14 major incidents over 19 years of 16,000 departures per day, or 110,960,000 trips total.
Statistically speaking, you are thus way more likely to ...
Get into an auto accident driving your own car. Not even a fatal or serious injury accident, just an accident.
Get robbed, assaulted or stabbed on a city bus
Slip on something and hurt yourself
Win a slot machine jackpot
... than you are to get shanked, shot or blowed up on a Greyhound or similar pov bus.
Also note the bulk of these violent acts came AFTER security screening was implemented. Many had something to do with mental illness or being high on hallucinogens, and either used bare hands or a small weapon that likely could have been slid through security pretty easily anyway.
Not to mention, if someone really got out of line on most Greyhound trips, given their usual clientele this would be the likely result:
Now, a plane would certainly be more secure. But a plane also costs usually about 5x-10x what the Greyhound costs to cover the same distance. And planes aren't immune to attack either, as demonstrated a few years back by the kid who hopped a fence and ran up into the wheel well with no problems.
Everything in life involves some amount of risk. For the cost and convenience, interstate bus ride risk is negligible. Yes, you may share space with pimps, prostitutes, and other sketchy individuals, particularly if you ride after dark. Most of them just want to get to where they're going, and aside from maybe being loud and socially inappropriate, will cause you no problems. Bring earplugs and they're a non-issue.
I know this is anecdotal, but I've been riding Greyhound and similar buses for years now (as much as five times per month for some stretches), and I've never seen anything violent. Worst "incident" I've seen is a couple who just got a quickie-wed in Reno bicker all the way to Oakland, ending with them throwing their rings at each other and swearing divorce. Police met them at the station along with Greyhound security.
tl;dr Greyhound security screenings are another erosion of our privacy and liberty in the name of making paranoid office workers feel safe.
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