I've been out through Portsmouth many times since 2007 and I can clearly remember the first time the security was introduced as I recall about the time of a number of bomb scares etc.
Since then I have had a pannier scanned every time I've passed through. As has been said other vehicles going through have no such checks although initially there was a mirror check of the underneath of every vehicle.
I always carry a Swiss Army Knife, usually in my bar bag (nothing devious), but they always seem to check a pannier.
As I recall in the early days the cleats would set off the airport type scanner.
At the risk of being boring I will again recommend Felicity Cloake's amusing experience in One More Croissant for the Road when her cheese knife caused a big problem.
Ferries
Re: Ferries
The law is fine and balanced. It seems to be BF's rules that are faulty.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Re: Ferries
This is a bit of Security Theatre, remember it's Portsmouth Port not Brittany Ferries running it. Yes, it's utter nonsense as caravans full of kitchen knives drive past, nor do they search cars. However we are where we are.
In the past I have had exactly the same situation. Be polite and helpful, offer up a bag
and you are soon on your way. Above all don't argue, the staff aren't the ones who make the (daft) rules.
By comparison, Poole has no such checks. Book tickets accordingly?
In the past I have had exactly the same situation. Be polite and helpful, offer up a bag
and you are soon on your way. Above all don't argue, the staff aren't the ones who make the (daft) rules.By comparison, Poole has no such checks. Book tickets accordingly?
Re: Ferries
It seems by all accounts that Portsmouth is the only ferry port where this is an issue. Book tickets accordingly?
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MartinBrice
- Posts: 471
- Joined: 13 Nov 2007, 9:57am
Re: Ferries
This is a pathetic and ridiculous interpretation of silly rules.
I've been out through Portsmouth several times with The Fridays cycling club, so there have been many of us, and each time we have been searched - while, as others say, dozens of cars and caravans obviously loaded with cooking knives drive past unchecked.
The usual check involved being told to bring one pannier to be x-rayed. So we had a choice between x-raying the pannier containing the bomb, revolver, ammunition and several murderous knives, and the pannier that contained clothing. Once I was patted down by a security guard who missed the metal multi tool in my pocket.
This is a complete waste of time.
I have long suspected that they need to show a certain percentage of "wheeled vehicles" has been searched and a bicycle is "wheeled".
I've never ever been searched coming back, from any French port, and never ever been searched going out of Newhaven or Dover. It's only Portsmouth that has this idiotic practice.
It can only, I suppose, be justified on the grounds that Portsmouth is the only port likely to be used by terrorists who plan to hijack a cross channel ferry and fly it into a New York office block.
I've been out through Portsmouth several times with The Fridays cycling club, so there have been many of us, and each time we have been searched - while, as others say, dozens of cars and caravans obviously loaded with cooking knives drive past unchecked.
The usual check involved being told to bring one pannier to be x-rayed. So we had a choice between x-raying the pannier containing the bomb, revolver, ammunition and several murderous knives, and the pannier that contained clothing. Once I was patted down by a security guard who missed the metal multi tool in my pocket.
This is a complete waste of time.
I have long suspected that they need to show a certain percentage of "wheeled vehicles" has been searched and a bicycle is "wheeled".
I've never ever been searched coming back, from any French port, and never ever been searched going out of Newhaven or Dover. It's only Portsmouth that has this idiotic practice.
It can only, I suppose, be justified on the grounds that Portsmouth is the only port likely to be used by terrorists who plan to hijack a cross channel ferry and fly it into a New York office block.
Re: Ferries
My experience was Plymouth.
As stated above it's the Port not the ferry company and, in the case of Plymouth, the security checks are sub-contracted. Mitie at Plymouth.
Re: Ferries
Most of the discussion has focused on the inconvenience of the restrictions and the inconsistent approaches taken depending upon which ports or even which side of the Channel a cyclist departs from.
Not much attention has been given to the risk of knives being used to attack people on a ferry, which is what the security measures are supposed to protect against. Presumably that is because most people don't even consider the risk or dismiss it out of hand. The superficial perception that the risk is not significant is probably heavily influenced by the fact that there have been no previous significant such attacks. However, ferries are in some respects a soft target for a terrorist or other rampage type attack using knives. Police/military response times for vessels in the middle of the Channel might be at least an hour and possibly much more, and I don't think the ferries have covert armed security like the sky marshalls on US airlines. The rampage attack by a mentally ill person in a Sydney shopping mall illustrates the potential risk where there are large numbers of people in an enclosed space: six killed within four minutes, and it would probably have been more if the first police officer to arrive had followed procedure and waited for other officers to arrive before entering the building - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... rds-ntwnfb. To state the obvious, terrorists and others seeking to attack and kill people will seek out soft targets, and obvious gaps in security will attract them and increase the likelihood of an attack.
From what has been posted it seems the security at Portsmouth, despite the tighter rules and enforcement for cyclists and motorcyclists, is performative. It appears very possible that the two groups are targeted because they are quick and easy for security staff to process, and each one presumably counts towards contracted service standards, regardless of their actual value in preventing a knife attack. If so this would be the McNamara fallacy in operation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy.
The risk of a cyclist carrying out a knife attack on a ferry is probably much lower than other passenger categories. A terrorist could buy a suitable bike and kit to blend in amongst the others boarding a ferry, but they will run a risk that they will not so readily pass as a 'genuine cyclist' and will raise the suspicions of security staff, who see so many cyclists that they probably have a very good feel for genuine cycle tourists, regardless of whether they are riding a top end bike with all the gear or are a novice on a Halfords Carrera in jeans and a t shirt. That might explain the instances where posters have encountered helpful security staff who have exercised discretion rather than take a jobsworth approach: those staff were familiar with cycle tourists and knew they pose a much lower risk compared to most other categories of passenger. In contrast, a terrorist driving a vehicle onto a ferry is less likely to stand out from other vehicle drivers: a large proportion of the diverse population of UK adults drive cars and could be expected to use a ferry.
I doubt the effectiveness of the requirement that vehicle drivers declare chef's knives and the like, and that they are kept in the locked vehicle. Even if the car decks are locked to prevent access to vehicles during the voyage, I don't think there are any checks of vehicle passengers when they leave the car deck after parking their vehicle. People getting out of a car would be able to carry large knives undetected in their hand luggage. The ferry operators appear to be seeking to rely on the security checks undertaken by the port operator, despite it being obvious that allowing drivers to have knives in their vehicles means that vehicle drivers and passengers can take the knives with them when they get out of the vehicle. The security checks might be effective against the sort of incident where a drink fuelled argument on board might escalate if someone could access the car deck and fetch a knife from their vehicle, but not against a planned terrorist or similar rampage attack.
If it seems that I am being irresponsible in pointing out possible flaws in security and how an attack might be undertaken, I don't doubt that the police/security authorities, ferry operators and port security are all well aware of any such vulnerabilities, and similarly I don't think they believe that terrorists etc. will not view ferries as a potential target and not be aware of the weaknesses in security. As others have stated above, much of the security checks are performative. The authorities and ferry operators know what the inherent risks are, and have decided that effective preventative measures would be too difficult and disruptive to implement, and probably that they would result in significant increases in ferry prices/loss of bookings due to the resulting extra costs and disruption. That is likely to remain the situation until there is an attack, which would followed by the inevitable inquiry that would highlight how all the various people and organisations responsible for security knew all along about the security failings, and all individually and collectively turned a blind eye to them in order not to discourage people travelling by ferry with the resulting loss of sales and profit.
Personally, I would be a bit less concerned about the inconvenience of not being able to bring a knife in my panniers and having to put up with the pantomine security checks, and a bit more concerned about the risk of a rampage attack on a ferry mid-Channel. Flying probably has much more effective security precautions, allows knives in hold luggage, and is often significantly cheaper than using a ferry. The ferry operators and ports seem to want to make ferry travel by the most environmentally friendly of their passengers as awkward as possible, not least so that they can pretend to provide a safe service by inconveniencing cyclists and ignoring the greater real level of risk potentially posed by drivers and passengers of vehicles. It almost seems like cyclists are being used in this way as a performative distraction to draw attention away from the real risks, and to avoid having to implement costly and disruptive effective security checks of vehicles and their drivers/passengers.
Not much attention has been given to the risk of knives being used to attack people on a ferry, which is what the security measures are supposed to protect against. Presumably that is because most people don't even consider the risk or dismiss it out of hand. The superficial perception that the risk is not significant is probably heavily influenced by the fact that there have been no previous significant such attacks. However, ferries are in some respects a soft target for a terrorist or other rampage type attack using knives. Police/military response times for vessels in the middle of the Channel might be at least an hour and possibly much more, and I don't think the ferries have covert armed security like the sky marshalls on US airlines. The rampage attack by a mentally ill person in a Sydney shopping mall illustrates the potential risk where there are large numbers of people in an enclosed space: six killed within four minutes, and it would probably have been more if the first police officer to arrive had followed procedure and waited for other officers to arrive before entering the building - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... rds-ntwnfb. To state the obvious, terrorists and others seeking to attack and kill people will seek out soft targets, and obvious gaps in security will attract them and increase the likelihood of an attack.
From what has been posted it seems the security at Portsmouth, despite the tighter rules and enforcement for cyclists and motorcyclists, is performative. It appears very possible that the two groups are targeted because they are quick and easy for security staff to process, and each one presumably counts towards contracted service standards, regardless of their actual value in preventing a knife attack. If so this would be the McNamara fallacy in operation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy.
The risk of a cyclist carrying out a knife attack on a ferry is probably much lower than other passenger categories. A terrorist could buy a suitable bike and kit to blend in amongst the others boarding a ferry, but they will run a risk that they will not so readily pass as a 'genuine cyclist' and will raise the suspicions of security staff, who see so many cyclists that they probably have a very good feel for genuine cycle tourists, regardless of whether they are riding a top end bike with all the gear or are a novice on a Halfords Carrera in jeans and a t shirt. That might explain the instances where posters have encountered helpful security staff who have exercised discretion rather than take a jobsworth approach: those staff were familiar with cycle tourists and knew they pose a much lower risk compared to most other categories of passenger. In contrast, a terrorist driving a vehicle onto a ferry is less likely to stand out from other vehicle drivers: a large proportion of the diverse population of UK adults drive cars and could be expected to use a ferry.
I doubt the effectiveness of the requirement that vehicle drivers declare chef's knives and the like, and that they are kept in the locked vehicle. Even if the car decks are locked to prevent access to vehicles during the voyage, I don't think there are any checks of vehicle passengers when they leave the car deck after parking their vehicle. People getting out of a car would be able to carry large knives undetected in their hand luggage. The ferry operators appear to be seeking to rely on the security checks undertaken by the port operator, despite it being obvious that allowing drivers to have knives in their vehicles means that vehicle drivers and passengers can take the knives with them when they get out of the vehicle. The security checks might be effective against the sort of incident where a drink fuelled argument on board might escalate if someone could access the car deck and fetch a knife from their vehicle, but not against a planned terrorist or similar rampage attack.
If it seems that I am being irresponsible in pointing out possible flaws in security and how an attack might be undertaken, I don't doubt that the police/security authorities, ferry operators and port security are all well aware of any such vulnerabilities, and similarly I don't think they believe that terrorists etc. will not view ferries as a potential target and not be aware of the weaknesses in security. As others have stated above, much of the security checks are performative. The authorities and ferry operators know what the inherent risks are, and have decided that effective preventative measures would be too difficult and disruptive to implement, and probably that they would result in significant increases in ferry prices/loss of bookings due to the resulting extra costs and disruption. That is likely to remain the situation until there is an attack, which would followed by the inevitable inquiry that would highlight how all the various people and organisations responsible for security knew all along about the security failings, and all individually and collectively turned a blind eye to them in order not to discourage people travelling by ferry with the resulting loss of sales and profit.
Personally, I would be a bit less concerned about the inconvenience of not being able to bring a knife in my panniers and having to put up with the pantomine security checks, and a bit more concerned about the risk of a rampage attack on a ferry mid-Channel. Flying probably has much more effective security precautions, allows knives in hold luggage, and is often significantly cheaper than using a ferry. The ferry operators and ports seem to want to make ferry travel by the most environmentally friendly of their passengers as awkward as possible, not least so that they can pretend to provide a safe service by inconveniencing cyclists and ignoring the greater real level of risk potentially posed by drivers and passengers of vehicles. It almost seems like cyclists are being used in this way as a performative distraction to draw attention away from the real risks, and to avoid having to implement costly and disruptive effective security checks of vehicles and their drivers/passengers.
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roubaixtuesday
- Posts: 6859
- Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm
Re: Ferries
I wouldn't be concerned about it at all, but even if you are, there's nothing that physical security can do to limit it. Given the number of vehicles on a ferry and limitless ways to conceal weapons in one, any terrorist could trivially avoid security.
Re: Ferries
Most people are not concerned about it at all. Until it happens. Then new safety measures soon become the norm, which were previously rejected as too expensive, too difficult and something passengers would not tolerate.roubaixtuesday wrote: ↑11 May 2025, 5:19pm I wouldn't be concerned about it at all, but even if you are, there's nothing that physical security can do to limit it. Given the number of vehicles on a ferry and limitless ways to conceal weapons in one, any terrorist could trivially avoid security.
A more effective level of security could be achieved by adopting similar safety protocols as for air travel. That would mean all passengers going through airport style security checks as they left the car deck, including scanning of hand luggage. That would be extremely disruptive, time consuming and costly. Ironically it would probably mean that cyclists and motorcyclists could bring knives, because they could be left in panniers on bikes on the car deck, i.e. the car deck would would be akin to the hold of an aircraft.
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Thehairs1970
- Posts: 702
- Joined: 11 Aug 2018, 9:30am
Re: Ferries
Firstly, slowster, a very well written reply to this. Really thoughtful and thought provoking.slowster wrote: ↑11 May 2025, 4:51pm Most of the discussion has focused on the inconvenience of the restrictions and the inconsistent approaches taken depending upon which ports or even which side of the Channel a cyclist departs from.
Not much attention has been given to the risk of knives being used to attack people on a ferry, which is what the security measures are supposed to protect against. Presumably that is because most people don't even consider the risk or dismiss it out of hand.
However…while I take your point, I think it overlooks some realities. Attacks on transport systems have been few. Yes, the ones we have had have been devastating for all concerned but still few. The interesting thing is to look at the response. I know airlines have beefed up security but buses and tubes remain unchanged. You can still travel on the whole rail and bus network with no security checks at all. And this is despite a demonstrated risk.
There are many soft targets - supermarkets and diy stores actually stock potential weapons but customers are free to enter the stores with no checks.
Why not? I think that it is because although there is a risk, it is really low. Thousands shop, travel, go to workplaces and have leisure time everyday without having to go through security because the risk is so small.
If ferry companies wanted to address a potential threat to passengers, they would do better to look for firearms or explosive devices but they don’t. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said they were basically needing to be seen to do something. It’s a shame they did this. I can remember coming back from France with my rucksack, a baguette and some smelly cheese and happily making my sandwiches with a sharp knife. Ah. halcyon days!
Re: Ferries
What makes ferries a much more tempting targeting is the large number of people who would effectively be trapped on the vessel, and the time one or more attackers would have to run amok before a helicopter reached the vessel with armed police/soldiers and before those forces would have worked their way through the vessel.
Even though the British and French counter terrorist forces will be prepared for such a scenario, and there will presumably be teams on permanent stand by for such attacks, I think it could easily be more than a couple of hours between a mayday from a ferry and forces being lowered onto the vessel from a helicopter. To begin with the police/military will not want to board the vessel until they are confident they have enough information about what they are facing.
In the Sydney shopping mall one man killed six and wounded ten others in 4 minutes. A few determined men with knives on a ferry could probably kill dozens before they were stopped. I have no expert or inside knowledge, and maybe I am quite wrong about this, but I doubt it. The British and the French security authorities will have done their threat assessments of various scenarios, and I would bet that those assessments contain similar sorts of estimates of the potential number of victims.
Security measures are almost invariably reactive to past incidents. I've suggested that ferries are a soft target, but I suspect that we might be disturbed and alarmed if we knew the extent of what the security authorities have identified as highly vulnerable soft targets with potential for mass casualties, and there are probably just far too many to take a pro-active approach and adequately protect them all.
As for firearms, they are difficult for potential terrorists in the UK to get hold of: sellers of firearms in the criminal underworld are less likely to be caught if they restrict their dealing to drug dealers and the like in the known criminal fraternity, and would probably have nothing to do with anyone outside the criminal fraternity, least of all anyone they thought might want the gun for a terrorist attack. I suspect that in the criminal underworld anyone trying to buy the quantities of ammunition that a terrorist would want would probably ring alarm bells, since from the little I have read I believe most guns sold amongst criminals are supplied with only a small quantity of ammunition, and often only 'hired out' rather than sold. Importing a gun and ammunition from places like the USA probably carries a high risk of detection, otherwise guns would probably be much more readily available in the criminal underworld.
Explosives would probably be less effective on a ferry with multiple decks and sub-division of the decks, as opposed to public venues like Manchester Arena. A few men with knives systematically working their way through the public areas on a ferry could probably cause worse levels of carnage. A genuine or dummy suicide vest would probably be more useful, because it would deter passengers from attempting to tackle someone with a knife, as well as possibly affect and delay the police/military response.
At the end of the day the risk for any one of us is, as you say, really low - the likelihood of being caught up in a/the first rampage attack on a ferry is probably infinitesimally small, and that's why so much of the security measures is performative and intended more to reassure the public, rather than actually effective.
That said, I am reminded of the character roles in Jaws:
- the mayor
- the police chief
- the shark
- the people in the water.
Of those four, only one did not know what the real risk was.
Even though the British and French counter terrorist forces will be prepared for such a scenario, and there will presumably be teams on permanent stand by for such attacks, I think it could easily be more than a couple of hours between a mayday from a ferry and forces being lowered onto the vessel from a helicopter. To begin with the police/military will not want to board the vessel until they are confident they have enough information about what they are facing.
In the Sydney shopping mall one man killed six and wounded ten others in 4 minutes. A few determined men with knives on a ferry could probably kill dozens before they were stopped. I have no expert or inside knowledge, and maybe I am quite wrong about this, but I doubt it. The British and the French security authorities will have done their threat assessments of various scenarios, and I would bet that those assessments contain similar sorts of estimates of the potential number of victims.
Security measures are almost invariably reactive to past incidents. I've suggested that ferries are a soft target, but I suspect that we might be disturbed and alarmed if we knew the extent of what the security authorities have identified as highly vulnerable soft targets with potential for mass casualties, and there are probably just far too many to take a pro-active approach and adequately protect them all.
As for firearms, they are difficult for potential terrorists in the UK to get hold of: sellers of firearms in the criminal underworld are less likely to be caught if they restrict their dealing to drug dealers and the like in the known criminal fraternity, and would probably have nothing to do with anyone outside the criminal fraternity, least of all anyone they thought might want the gun for a terrorist attack. I suspect that in the criminal underworld anyone trying to buy the quantities of ammunition that a terrorist would want would probably ring alarm bells, since from the little I have read I believe most guns sold amongst criminals are supplied with only a small quantity of ammunition, and often only 'hired out' rather than sold. Importing a gun and ammunition from places like the USA probably carries a high risk of detection, otherwise guns would probably be much more readily available in the criminal underworld.
Explosives would probably be less effective on a ferry with multiple decks and sub-division of the decks, as opposed to public venues like Manchester Arena. A few men with knives systematically working their way through the public areas on a ferry could probably cause worse levels of carnage. A genuine or dummy suicide vest would probably be more useful, because it would deter passengers from attempting to tackle someone with a knife, as well as possibly affect and delay the police/military response.
At the end of the day the risk for any one of us is, as you say, really low - the likelihood of being caught up in a/the first rampage attack on a ferry is probably infinitesimally small, and that's why so much of the security measures is performative and intended more to reassure the public, rather than actually effective.
That said, I am reminded of the character roles in Jaws:
- the mayor
- the police chief
- the shark
- the people in the water.
Of those four, only one did not know what the real risk was.
Re: Ferries
Oh, that's just what they want people to think, else attackers would be ready for it and take more weapons so they'd have to employ more marshalls(!)
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Re: Ferries
It's not the risk on ferries that is relevant here, it's the unfairness towards cyclists.
I asked earlier if foot passengers or maybe coach passengers are frisked. I doubt it.
Can you imagine if businesses class passengers were allowed to bypass airport security.
I asked earlier if foot passengers or maybe coach passengers are frisked. I doubt it.
Can you imagine if businesses class passengers were allowed to bypass airport security.
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m-gineering
- Posts: 299
- Joined: 23 May 2015, 12:01pm
Re: Ferries
it's the stupidity. Why bother bringing a knife when you can just borrow one from behind the foodcounter