I am coming back to a story I have
mentioned before. There is a national shortage of parking spaces for big trucks. The problem appears to be growing worse and is starting to create some safety issues.
The Federal Highway Administration warned of this seven years ago.
The Wall Street Journal picked up on the story this week:
On any given night, the shoulders of interstates leading into big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore are lined with long glistening strands of parked 18-wheelers.
These are the trucks that couldn't get a space in nearby rest stops or truck stops because those roadsides oases are already packed with resting big rigs.
"I have never seen it this bad," says John Taylor, who has been a trucker for 55 years, operating mostly in Kansas and elsewhere in the Midwest. "Sometimes all we can do is park on an exit or entrance ramp."
Thanks to a strong economy, more trucks than ever are moving on the nation's roads, transporting goods. But the number of places where truckers can stop and get some shut-eye during long hauls isn't expanding as fast.
And when drivers can't find a parking spot at a rest area or truck stop, many of them just keep on driving, which is dangerous.
The
WSJ said:
The shortfall forces trucks into less attractive options, such as trekking miles away from the main roads to find a place to stop, paying for private lots or simply soldiering on until they hit the legal limit of driving 11 hours at a stretch, before they must get a federally mandated 10 hours of rest. If there are no open truck stops nearby, they simply pull over to the side of the highway, even though stopping on the shoulder for anything but an emergency is against the law.
Building more parking spots isn't an easy or likely solution, says Christopher Burruss, president of the
Truckload Carriers Association, a Washington advocacy group which represents companies using trucks to move freight. For one thing, land that is close to highways or major cities, where truckers prefer to stop, tends to be expensive, and parking lots eat up a lot of land.
Some cities and towns don't like the idea of a steady stream of mammoth vehicles rumbling through their neighborhoods. Communities along California's Interstate 5 have passed legislation that essentially prohibits the opening of any new truck stops along the side of the road.
Currently, there are about 1,000 truck stops spread across the country. Unlike rest stops -- temporary pull-off spots located alongside highways and interstates and usually offering bathrooms and vending machines -- truck stops have restaurants, retail shops, repair and gas stations, bathrooms and showers, as well as dozens or even hundreds of spaces for tired truckers to park.
In 2002,
the Federal Highway Administration sent a report to Congress on the size of the problem.
The problem is especially severely
in states that border Mexico because truck traffic has jumped so much since NAFTA.
Are You Packin' Heat?Texas Governor Rick Perry said this week that people who have permits to carry concealed weapons should be able to carry those guns anywhere -- to church, work, school, the bar, anywhere. This is especially interesting
given the new gun control conversations around the country in the backwash of the Virginia Tech shootings.
The Dallas Morning News reported:
Currently, state law prohibits concealed weapons in certain places, including private property where signs are posted disallowing the guns.
But after meetings with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt about the rampage at Virginia Tech, (Governor) Perry took issue with the idea of barring weapons from campuses.
"It's time for us to have that debate in Texas from the standpoint of whether or not a law-abiding citizen in the state of Texas can take their appropriately licensed and permitted weapon anywhere in this state, whether it's on a college campus or wherever," Mr. Perry said.
The governor said deranged individuals don't pay any attention to signs that bar guns on certain premises and that citizens ought "to be able to protect themselves from that standpoint."
Asked whether such a wide- open weapons policy would include bars and courthouses, Mr. Perry said: "A person ought to be able to carry their weapon with them anywhere in the state if they are licensed and they have gone through the training.
"The idea that you're going to exempt them from a particular place is nonsense."
NFL Crimes
The San Diego Union-Tribune wanted to know how often NFL players are in trouble with the law, so the paper
looked at more than six years of media reports and found more than 300 citations against NFL players -- admittedly, media reports may not catch all the cases.
Click here for a list of all of the offenses involving NFL players.The newspaper found:
According to the
Union-Tribune review, there have been 308 arrests or citations, not including minor traffic infractions.
Of those 308 incidents:
- The most prevalent charge was driving under the influence, which accounted for almost a third of the arrests. Over half of all incidents came after traffic stops or were vehicle-related, including DUIs and searches that turned up drugs or guns.
- Almost 40 percent (122) were committed by 50 players with multiple arrests, including DUI and other offenses.
- Some teams are clearly better behaved than others. The St. Louis Rams (three incidents involving two players) might have something to teach the Minnesota Vikings and Cincinnati Bengals, who combined for at least 44 incidents since 2000.
The most troublesome positions were defensive back and wide receiver, which accounted for 130 incidents. By contrast, offensive linemen and quarterbacks combined for 41.
To analysts and those who study crime and race in society, this all adds up to one thing. They say it's a media-amplified microcosm of America, where rich young men like to party and, because of complex environmental factors, where the rate of incarceration for blacks in the United States is five times that of whites.
"You can say for sure the athletes have a problem, but athletes are not the problem," said Richard Lapchick, director of the
Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. "They are representative of society where many of these issues are epidemic."
Al's Morning MultimediaHoly cow, you should see
The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier Journal's Kentucky Derby Page.
In addition to video and photo galleries, the paper
does an amazing job using data that otherwise would be lost in the newspaper archives.
For instance, you can use
DataTrack to handicap the Derby by researching contenders and comparing horses. Search factors for
past Derby winners or for
last year's field.
Click here to read a weekly analysis.
Check out the schedule and results from the 2007 Kentucky Derby prep races.
Keep up with the contenders by
checking past performances for free here.
One of the most interesting ways to find a winner is to find out who is related to the great stallion
Raise a Native. He never ran in the Kentucky Derby, but in the past 20 years, 12 winners have had Raise a Native in their daddy's bloodline. That was the case for
five of the past seven winners. Overall, 14 winners have had Raise a Native in the male line. Eleven of the horses in this year's field have Raise a Native blood.
There are also two speed ratings -- they're sort of like using ERA in baseball or quarterback rating in football. The most commonly used speed ratings are the
BRISS rating and the Beyer Speed Figure. The BRISS rating measures how fast the horse ran from start to finish in its final Kentucky Derby prep race. Eleven of the last 17 winners had a rating of 104 or higher. As for the Beyer Speed Figure, eleven of the last 15 winners posted rating of 105 or better before their victories at Churchill Downs.
You can search every entry's speed ratings here.And then, of course, lots of people just choose according to the name of the horse.
What are the hippest names in this year's race?
Al's Kentucky Derby PicksWhen it comes to the Kentucky Derby, I am rarely right, but I am always well-reasoned. Lucky you -- even if you know nothing about the Kentucky Derby, this will give you the background you need to make predictions and sound like you know what you are talking about.
Hard Spun and
Stormello will break fast and duel for the lead. With such a large field, there will be a wall of horses six wide down the front stretch heading for the first turn. Stormello will come out of the seventeenth hole while Hard Spun will start from the eighth gate. They will blast out, squeezing the rest of the herd into three packs as they enter into the first turn. Stormello will lead the front pack.
The second and most important bunch, about three lengths back, will include Cowtown Cat,
Curlin and NoBizLikeShowBiz.
At the three-quarters-pole and beyond, this second pack will have to stay close to the frontrunners, who will begin to burn out if the pace is fast enough. They cannot allow the frontrunners to slow things down and still have a stretch kick. They also can't get caught in deep traffic 10 lengths back.
As they make the home turn,
Scat Daddy and
AnyGivenSaturday will start to move from the third bunch. Scat Daddy will have some energy for the stretch.
Then,
Street Sense will charge.
Down the stretch. Curlin, who started in the second position, will be two or three wide, but should not have to run wide on any turn. Street Sense and Scat Daddy will push hard down the stretch.
When they hit the wire at 2:01, it will be Curlin followed by a very close battle between Street Sense, Scat Daddy and
NoBizLike ShowBiz.
What could go wrong?
Curlin gets buried six or more deep on the first turn, the pace gets too slow and Hard Spun has a lot of kick left. If Street Sense is laying third or better on the home turn he will win because he is such a strong closer. If Cowtown Cat breaks to the lead he has the stamina to go wire to wire as he did in the Illinois Derby. I like Great Hunter, but he is starting in the twentieth position and I think he will either have to go too wide in the first turn or settle for getting buried in the back of the pack on the first turn.
Want better odds?
I offer my medium shot,
Cowtown Cat, who is the son of Fourty Niner. Also worth a look is Circular Quay. Keep in mind that Street Sense and Great Hunter have beat him before, but he is hot off a win at the Louisiana Derby, in which he closed from far back. He has only been out of the money once and that was when he had to avoid a spill. His daddy is the great sire Thunder Gulch. CQ beat Imawildandcrazyguy and Liquidity in March.
Who is the best of the favorites?
Curlin. I know, I know. People are all freaked out because he has only run three races and didn't run as a two year old. He is cool as a cucumber, went to sleep in his paddock with everyone going nuts around him Tuesday. He was a superstar at the Arkansas Derby and his trainer has something to prove.
Street Sense was a Breeder's Cup-winning, stellar two-year-old. Retired Hall of Fame jockey Pat Day said if he had a choice of who to ride, Street Sense would be it.
What's the bottom line?
I hate to be so predictable, but the favorites, Street Sense and Curlin, have the edge. If you have some extra money, go for Circular Quay, Cowtown Cat, Scatdaddy and NoBizLikeShowBiz. Let's hope they all get back to the barn safely.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
boy-I have to say=I had two of the top three,...
