I've been clear that I have no use for security theatre...

[Scooter]

... but when loudspeakers throughout the transit system are continually admonishing passengers about "See something? Say something," and when I then notice an unattended bag on a crowded transit vehicle and bring it to the driver's attention, I expect a bit more concern for passenger safety than to have him roll his eyes at me and say, "people forget to take all sort of things when they get off ."

I decided against the possibility of finding out the hard way what was in the bag , and got off at the next stop to catch another streetcar. As I have not since read or heard anything about an explosion on the TTC, it was obviously of no consequence. Perhaps it is impractical or even foolish to treat every lost bag as a potential bomb, but still, isn't this precisely the sort of attack we have been told to expect, now that it has become too difficult for terrorists to bring down planes or hit other high profile targets?

[Long Run]

You did the right thing. The driver doesn't get that even though it is a 1 in 10,000 possibility that the bag was dangerous, it is that one that we are all supposed to be on the lookout for. The stories are usually buried well off the front page, but it is common to hear of alerts from regular people that headed off a tragic attack.

[Scooter]

Part of me wonders if he wasn't trying to downplay it so as not to induce panic - we were a few blocks away from the end of the route at a subway station where all remaining passengers would be getting off, perhaps better to investigate then. But that would mean potentially allowing a bomb to explode inside a busy subway station, so not sure if there would have been an upside...

[Sue U]

Who would want to attack Toronto? Other than the rest of Canada, I mean.

[rubato]

There has to be some probability that it is a bomb (or something as dangerous) which is so low that responding as if it were is not justified. Otherwise we are just behaving superstitiously.

After 9-11 the guard at Bonneville dam grilled me about whether I had a gun in my car before I could drive across the front of the dam. As if I am going to shoot the dam! They also closed the ship locks viewing area.

yrs,
rubato