Friday May 31, 2002
Road Debris
Here is a great "everyday Joe" topic: Where did all of that stuff come from that you see every day on the Interstate? KXAS Dallas reports, "TxDOT has full-time employees, like William Baker, who do nothing but clean up the roadways. And when it comes to road debris, he's seen it all: Tin, metal, pipes, mattresses, and more. 'If the United States will make it, it'll eventually be out here on the roads,' said Baker.
"Recently, Baker was called to retrieve a seemingly harmless piece of rubber on Central Expressway. And while it may be harmless just lying on the ground, it could quickly turn into a dangerous projectile.
"Because of this threat to property and human life, TxDOT spends millions each year to prevent debris-related accidents. In Dallas/Fort Worth alone, the transportation department spends $3 million on litter education and removal.
"But who foots the bill for damage done by road debris? TxDOT gets calls daily from people who want the state to pay for something they hit on the road. However, if you hit something in the road, you're stuck with the bill, unless you can find whoever dropped the debris."
The LA Times looked at this topic a few weeks ago and said, "Delivery trucks have spilled bottles of beer and tipped tankers have spewed thousands of gallons of gasoline. 'You name it, we've seen it along the roads. We've even found dead bodies,' says California Highway Patrol public affairs officer Scott Ellison."
It's so worrisome that the CHP has stepped up efforts to spot vehicles carrying unsafe and improperly secured loads. Officers also are looking out for trucks and cars that are driven recklessly, particularly vehicles that pose a danger when they cut in front of big rigs on the freeways.
A frequent problem, he says, is people who load their vehicles with sheets of plywood or other wind-catching items and don't tie them down properly. Or worse, they load their purchases into the bed of a pickup without securing them at all, thinking they are heavy enough they won't blow out.
Often, they discover the load isn't as secure as they thought. It comes loose on the freeway and falls out into traffic.
Debris poses a special hazard for motorcyclists.
Beware of Rubber Bullets
Some types of rubber bullets used by police to restrain unruly protesters kill and maim too often to be considered a safe method of crowd control, new research concludes.
Rubber-coated bullets are intended to inflict superficial painful injuries to deter rioters. But a study of their use by Israeli security forces has found police often fire from too close and aim poorly. Even when fired properly, it said, the bullets are so inaccurate that they can cause unintended injuries.
The study, published this week in The Lancet medical journal, examined the effects of rubber-coated bullets used by the Israeli police force during riots by Israeli Arabs in northern and central Israel in early October 2000.
smh.com says "Other variations of rubber bullets are used in several countries, including the United States. These include rubber-coated metal bullets, rubber plugs, plastic bullets called baton rounds, and beanbag rounds -- fabric beanbags about the size of a tea bag filled with lead pellets.
Story idea: How often have the robber bullets, bean bags and other non-lethal methods been used in your community in the last year? What injuries have resulted? Do police use the same sort of internal review policy when a bean bag gun is used as they do when a service weapon is used?
Don't forget to look at how these devices are used in prisons too.
ALS and Suicide
May is ALS awareness month.
Reuters reports, "One in five people facing a slow death from Lou Gehrig's disease ask to have their doctors kill them by lethal injection or request drugs so they can end their own lives, a study from the Netherlands has found.
The survey by a team led by Dr. Jan H. Veldink of the University Medical Center in Utrecht was described in last week's New England Journal of Medicine. It found that the patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, who were euthanized by their doctors tended to seek death in the final stages of the disease. Those who opted for taking a fatal dose of drugs were more likely to do it earlier in the course of the disease.
In contrast, the rate of physician-assisted death is 10 percent among cancer patients and 22 percent for people with AIDS. Although euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in the Netherlands, there is no penalty for doing it under special safeguards.
Summer Video Game Wars
I was at the electronics store this weekend and the crowds around the video games were bigger than I have seen since Christmas.
On May 14, Sony announced that it would cut the price of its highly successful PlayStation 2 game console to $199, from $299. Archrival Microsoft, which had been expected to announce a price cut for its Xbox console at E3, matched Sony's markdown the next day. Then Nintendo chimed in, reducing its GameCube platform $50, to $149.
Time is Money
How much is your time worth? There are several online calculators to help you figure it out:
