Legislators everywhere have gotten tough on drunk drivers.
But
The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer
found that speeders, not drunk drivers, cause the most deadly car
crashes. And yet the court systems are full of ways for speeders to catch a
break, plead to lesser charges or have no record of their speeding at all.
In fact, the paper says its in-depth analysis of state data shows that 80 percent of
speeders get off easy. In addition, the number of speeders caught going more
than 100 mph has risen by 79 percent compared to 2000.
And yet only about one in five people ticketed for going 100 mph were
convicted as charged. If you go less than 10 mph over the limit, you
almost never will get a ticket in the Raleigh
area. Ninety-nine percent of tickets the paper examined were for 10 mph or more over
the speed limit.
The paper says:
Speed-related accidents kill about 10 people a week in North Carolina, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. That's far more than are
killed in accidents involving alcohol. But while state legislators and court
officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up on speeders.
Legislators have created major loopholes in laws designed to slow
drivers down. Traffic courts are so crowded that district attorneys and judges
have thrown up their hands, a News & Observer investigation shows. They are
letting almost 80 percent of speeding defendants -- well over half a million a
year -- get off easy.
Most speeders are not convicted as charged, especially those
ticketed at high speeds; in the most recent fiscal year, only 2.4 percent of
those accused of driving above 55 mph and more than 15 miles over the limit
were convicted as charged. The overwhelming majority saved their driver's
licenses and avoided any increase in their insurance rates.
Loopholes aren't merely free passes to drive fast. They drive up
the cost of auto insurance for everyone else, and they keep unsafe drivers on
the road.
Al's Morning Multimedia
Look
at all of these sidebars The News &
Observer produced for the project above:
Of course
there is a
bulletin board for people to react to the newspaper and online material.
Armed Forces Day
Saturday is Armed
Forces Day.
Brass players will perform "Echo Taps" at every national
cemetery in America as well as state cemeteries and national battle
monuments. If
you click here [PDF], you will see the people who have signed up to play at 190
locations around the country. These will all be live players, not the DVD
versions that cemeteries have had to use because there were not enough buglers
to play at vet funerals. Here
is a short video that tells you about a previous "Echo Taps" event.
Background on Armed Forces Day:
President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for
citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic
service in support of our country.
On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an
Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force
Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed
Forces under one department -- the Department of Defense.
Sunglasses: More Than Fashion
Newsweek points
out:
Summer heralds fun times in the sun, but
it also triples the intensity of ultra-violet (UV) rays, in comparison to
milder winter beams. Exposure to this harmful radiation spurs the onset of
macular degeneration (changes to the part of the retina that is responsible for
sharp vision), as well as cataracts -- a condition that causes vision loss for
some 20 million Americans over 40 and is a leading cause of blindness in the
world.
Children are the most susceptible to sun damage, since their eyes are
not fully developed. So head to the store and look for glasses that block at
least 99 percent of both UV-A and UV-B light (that information is usually
available on the price tag). The better the lenses wrap around your eyes, the
more they prevent radiation from spilling in around the sides. Tints that are
gray, green or brown are ideal for blocking out visible light.
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.
As I was reading about Armed Forces Day in Al's...
