There has been a revolution in supermarket checkouts over the past 12 months or so. Supermarkets are demonstrating a hitherto unprecedented level of trust in their customers by allowing them to check out their own shopping. This saves on wages and potentially saves the customer time.

There is a risk that some customers will take advantage of this idea by not checking items out, or by committing card fraud - however, these risks can be mitigated against to some degree with random checking, and any rise in theft must have been shown to be less than the benefits to the supermarkets.

There are a few systems in place right now:

Scan at checkout

Seen in Tesco, B&Q

The idea here is that the customer shops as usual, and then proceeds to an automated checkout where they scan each item. Once scanned, the item is placed into a ‘bagging area’ where a scale checks the weight of the item matches what was scanned. As bags become full they can be removed.

Advantages

No special training is needed. A voice gives instruction. The customer can decide to use the system after shopping.

Disadvantages

Some items don’t scan well - and there isn’t an obvious way to type in the number from scratch. Some light items do not register as being placed in the bagging area. Once the system has been used a few times, it is easy to ‘run ahead’ of the system and scan faster than it can cope with. The insistence that every item is placed in the bagging area adds delay. There is no obvious way to tell the system ‘here is one pot of yoghurt, I have 5 more just like it’.

Verdict

I will use these systems, but for more than a few items I find they’re more trouble than they’re worth. I find the voice nagging and slow. It’d be better if I could scan my clubcard at the start and it’d remember my preferences ‘expert user, no voice’ - these could be adjusted online.

Handheld Scanner

Seen in Sainsbury

The idea here is that as the customer shops as usual, they scan the barcodes of the items. At checkout, there is a ‘fast’ lane, where the customer’s scanner is checked. Occasionally a random ‘rescan’ is done (I am guessing that the probability of a rescan goes up if previous scans were in error - and that some level of error will cause them to revoke the fast-track rights). The ‘Electric Death’ site suggests two errors lead to always rescanning. This seems too absolute to me, as wait long enough and virtually everyone would have two errors. There would have to be some ‘aging’ to this, i.e. an old error is ‘worth less’ than a new - and correct rescans improve the customer’s rating (with new rescans counting for more than old). I’d like to know how this has evolved since the system was introduced.

Advantages

A very fast checkout most of the time, and a running tally of the shopping bill.

Disadvantages

Not every item is ‘in the system’, so occasionally there are ‘problem items’. I assume this is because the scanner doesn’t connect to the main database each time. These items must be kept separately and rescanned at checkout. Most of the time, if I get a problem item it’ll remain on the shelf.

Why not record the barcode of the ‘problem item’ on the scanner and pass this to the checkout for checking on the main database?

The scanner does not adjust for offers in the running total. These are corrected for at checkout. Also, at checkout, the system has sometimes allowed a tagged item to go home without the tag being removed - this is a pain.

Some customer training is needed to use the scanner.

Verdict

I like this system a lot - it operates as fast as the user and drastically reduces time at the end of the shop when you just want to ‘get out of there’. The rescan is a pain when it happens, but seems intelligent (i.e. to reduce in frequency with accurate rescans). They will sometimes not have a ‘fast track’ lane open, but what’s really nice is that if you approach the checkout with a scanner, and there are queues then they’ll rush to open a ’scanner only’ lane for you.

The big problem is that so far I’ve only seen it in Sainsburys. Also, the system is not connected between stores - if I register for the system at Store A, and go into Store B then I need to register there as well. This is rather daft in this day and age - the stores should be able to communicate this information.

Universal Problem

One big problem with all checkouts in the UK is the Chip and Pin device. This is usually mounted in an easy to see location, so the customer can’t miss it. Unfortunately they were not designed in such a way that when the pin is entered, the keypad is obscured. Thus one can stand and read pin numbers as people type them - a recipe for muggers.(*) Why weren’t they designed with a deeper ’shield’ -so that if you needed to look you had to remove the hand - but with the hand in, the keypad couldn’t be seen?

Ah well, as things stand right now - I’ll shield my pin, and the mugger skimming numbers will focus on the easier targets all around me. An ex-colleague had his pin cloned by an oik who had the cctv trained on the card reader, they got the card number by freeze-framing the card as it went in, and the pin by watching the fingers - if the handheld is detachable, detach it to avoid this issue!

(*) I once decided to be helpful to a friendly-looking lady in a queue by saying that she should hide her pin for this reason, that she entered it in a way that the number could be read (I knew it by standing behind her). I got back ‘if I get mugged in a minute I’ll know who to blame then!’… yeah, muggers forewarn their victims! And they wonder why people aren’t helpful any more?

More Daily Mail Knife Crime Hysteria! (via Bruce Schneier)

The Met have ‘circulated the information’, and all of a sudden this changes to ‘Britain on alert’!

Nice to have balanced reporting.

A Mr. Atkinson of Sheffield commented on the Daily Mail article: ‘What better advert for this knife could there be? I had never heard of it until today, and now, every self-respecting nutter will be after one’

Quite so - there is no reason for this article in the Mail except to promote fear in it’s readers… what paper was this again? Ah, right. (I know that I could be accused of the same by mentioning it here, but who has the higher readership, me or a National newspaper?)

I’ve made two previous posts on the ‘knife crime epidemic’ which we keep hearing about in the UK, the original and the update.

Following my previous post on the topic of knife crime, I see that the BBC has an article entitled ‘Is knife crime as common as we think?‘

Unfortunately, most of it seems to be opinion based, from people at the ’sharp end’ (if you pardon the pun) who therefore see much more than average.

The first objective part in the report says:

According to the British Crime Survey (BCS), overall violent crime has decreased by 41% since a peak in 1995.

Knives are used in about 8% of violent incidents, according to the BCS, a level that has largely remained the same during the past decade.

Unfortunately, it then moves onto the usual subjective viewpoints.

The report then says:

Richard Garside, the director of the Centre of Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London, said: “If you look at the figures for the last 10 years the number of knife victims has remained relatively stable - although there have been spikes - at 200 to 220 a year.

“But there is some evidence the demographic has changed. The average age of homicide victims overall has been going down, with younger and younger victims.”

Other objective pieces of data look at changing demographics and geographical differences - unless I’ve missed something, the above seem to be the only objective data points regarding changes with time.

Each day it seems that we are being told about an epidemic of knife crime. We’re told that stabbings are reaching unheard of proportions.

Without wanting to minimise the personal consequences for anyone involved in an incident, I do wonder what the true situation is - the objective view, without the national media hunting out every story which fits the zeitgeist.

Is knife crime really more prevalent than it used to be?

It wasn’t long ago that we were lead to believe that there was a paedophile on every corner, that children were at a massive risk of abuse from anyone. This lead to vigilantism - and a massive problems. The truth of the matter is that statistically children are more at risk from people who know them than from strangers, and that children were much more at risk in the sixties, seventies and eighties than today. I well remember going out in the morning, exploring with my bicycle miles from home and coming back in the evening having told nobody where I’ve been. Even the best parents I know would have kittens at this thought today!

Is knife crime the same? Has it been blown up out of proportion? I would like to see the stats.

Meanwhile, with each new story that appears, politicians compete to be ‘tougher’ than each other; to be more draconian. “Let’s lock ‘em all up!”, they say. Whilst I agree that carrying something that can only be classed as a weapon needs to be dealt with, it’s not as clear cut. One of the things boys do is do carry a penknife from time to time - I used to be a cubscout, and on my pre-mentioned bike rides I would find a quiet spot and take sticks and whittle them (badly). If I had been stopped by the police, would this result in an ‘expectation of prison’? No, it seems severe. (Oddly, I hesitated over this paragraph… did my parents know I had a penknife? Yes, I seem to remember my Dad getting me an odd penknife-shaped object with sticky out bits and a corkscrew - still got it somewhere - it wasn’t the most useful of things, the sticky out bits meant it wasn’t very portable).

Most of the time, my penknife would stay at home, stored in a drawer. I have one in my bedside table now, and there is one in my toolbox - they’re very useful.

The very popular and recently published ‘Dangerous Book for Boys’ lists a Swiss Army Knife as essential gear. I know there is a world of difference between the world of conkers and whittling, and with the streets of Hackney - but any new laws will need to be carefully drafted so as not to criminalise kids who cycle to the nearby woods and whittle. I can’t think of a good way to do this - the phrase “without good reason” is cited, but this is open to interpretation.

If there truly is an epidemic, then I’ll need to rethink, but the whole topic does feel like a media storm with politicians jumping on the bandwagon to me…. what are the hard statistics? Is knife crime really more prevalent, or is it a just more reported? If there is a change, is it statistically significant?

(I refer the reader back to one of the opening paragraphs: “Without wanting to minimise the personal consequences for anyone involved in an incident, I do wonder what the true situation is - the objective view, without the national media hunting out every story which fits the zeitgeist.” )

Swiss Army Knife

Still the best small penknife. It can be carried in luggage on planes, though not in hand luggage. It is worth saving up for a high-end model, with as many blades and attachments as you can get. That said, there are good ones to be had for around $30. They are useful for jobs requiring a screwdriver, removing splinters and opening bottles of beer and wine, although this may not be a prime consideration at this time.

Leather holders can also be purchased and the best ones come with a few extras, like a compass, matches, pencil, paper, and Band-Aid.

Quoted from the US Edition of The Dangerous Book for Boys

Update: See this post.

A guy, who I can only think of as a total wanker (pardon the language, but it is justified) took it upon himself to lean out of a moving car to apparently try to knock a cyclist from his bike.

He hit his head on a parked car.

I have no sympathy.