NATIONAL MOTORISTS ASSOCIATION


NMA Seal MASSACHUSETTS PAGE MA Seal


Studies in Contrast

Case #1:

Those of you who PAWD (Pay Attention While Driving) might have noticed a remarkable difference between the level of enforcement during the Click It or Ticket campaign in November 06, and the You Drink & Drive. You Lose campaign one month later.

The difference in enforcement cannot be in the campaigns' names, because police always stop cars for speeding, no matter what the slogan is. So what was it about the November campaign that kept the boys in blue in their station house? The answer is revealed in the Governors Highway Safety Bureau (GHSB) announcements of these events:

"Due to a delay in federal funding, GHSB will be unable to provide funds for the November 2006 Click It or Ticket Mobilization. We ask that departments conduct enforcement on a regular patrol basis no overtime details, no four-hour blocks - voluntary, non-GHSB funded, display Click It or Ticket banners, cruiser signs, and distribute informational cards as an in-kind contribution to this effort. No GHSB-funding will be available for overtime enforcement in November 2006.

First Funded Mobilization: You Drink & Drive. You Lose. December 15, 2006 - January 1, 2007."

And from reading their document, there was another interesting detail that emerged: By making the Governor's Highway Safety Bureau a division of the Homeland Security and Programs Division, the government is telling us that looking for people who don't buckle up and looking for terrorists is the same thing.


Case #2:

Salesmen of red light camera systems approached both Saugus and the neighboring Swampscott, and both towns formed committees to investigate the possibility of installing automated enforcement at some of their intersections.

Although the red light camera systems and the driving conditions in both towns were very similar, the two committees came to opposing recommendations. In the more affluent Swampscott, the committee concluded that the risk of increased injuries due to motorists rear-ending each other at these monitored intersections is not worth any possible extra income for the town. However the cash-strapped Saugus decided that any possible injuries due to motorists rear-ending each would be worth the extra income for their town.


Case #3:

On the same day in December, a younger driver died in a head-on crash in Dracut and an older driver set a gas station on fire in Watertown. Predictably, the authorities speculated "speed may have played a role in the crash" that killed the teenager, while the older driver "accidentally set his car and the attendant's booth on fire when his foot got stuck on the accelerator."

Both accidents are still under investigation, but the legislators got busy again on how to keep teenagers from speeding and continued to do nothing about problems associated with older drivers. In other words, while they have already given us plenty of rules for people who shouldn't be driving yet, there simply is no strategy for people who shouldn't be driving anymore.

By the way, there was another accident on that very same day, this one in Jamaica Plain. State police were investigating the cause of a single vehicle crash that claimed the life of a Boston woman, when her vehicle 'left the roadway and struck a tree.' The driver was 77 years old.


Case #4:

In 1998, the Insurance Institute for Highway $afety decided the most dangerous vehicles on the road are the SUVs. In fact the IIH$ stated, "its often claimed that lighter vehicles have higher death rates primarily because they are at an disadvantage in collisions with heavier vehicles. Wrong." Pick-ups and utilities have higher death rates, because "of a greater likelihood of these vehicles being in rollover crashes." (IIH$ Status Report, Vol. 33, No.1.)

So size doesn't matter, right?

Well, this report started a war on big SUVs, until 2006 when the same group of experts discovered, "Driver death rates in minicars are higher than in any other vehicle category. People traveling in small, light cars are at a disadvantage, especially when they collide with bigger, heavier vehicles. The laws of physics dictate this." (Status Report, Vol. 41, No. 10).

So does size matter or doesn't it?

And according to IIH$, while minicars weigh about 2,500 pounds or less, the best minicar of them all was the Nissan Versa - even if it weighs more than that. Go figure.


Finally, in the 'What Else Is New' department:

Channel 2 in Baltimore filmed cops speeding in residential areas all day long for no apparent reason, and the Boston Herald reported Massachusetts state police are pressured to dole out speeding tickets instead of warnings, in a cash-grabbing mandate cops say is the closest the department has ever come to setting quotas.

So Happy New Year to all, and watch out on March 23 - April 8, May 14 - June 3, July 2 - 15, and August 17 - September 3, 2007. Unless of course the bureaucrats once again find ways to squander our tax money away before that.

Ivan
MA State Chapter Coordinator


P.S. Here is note from John Carr, our State Chapter Activist:
An engineering study for Route 20 in Charlton -- not done until I wrote a letter recommended 60 and 65 mile per hour speed limits. The MassHighway Boston office cut these by ten miles per hour, and the 55-mile per hour speed limit approved in August still wasn't posted as of the end of December.

John
MA State Chapter Activist

12/06

BACK TO Massachusetts News