Leave it to the Germans! It's well known how important their cars are to them, as well as their rather arcane right-of-way rules on the road. But now they've come up with a way to safeguard another important piece of property using similar ideas: luggage.
At the Munich airport, the baggage carousels appear, at first glance, to be just like any others that you'd encounter at any large airport. But there is a difference. Here there are small electronic sensors which monitor bags as they head down the arrival "chute" before dropping onto the oval carousel itself. When the sensor detects that a bag is already moving counter-clockwise on the carousel as a second bag approaches on the chute, ready to be plopped down on top of the other bag, it actually halts the incoming bag temporarily, putting it in a holding pattern until such time as there is a sufficient gap on the carousel between pieces of luggage to allow the new bag to drop safely without touching any other, earlier-arrived bag. In effect, the rule of the road is that a bag already on the carousel has the automatic right-of-way over any new bags attempting to enter the "carriageway" from the left. Just like on the roads.
Amazing...
