Al's Morning Meeting

The (Daytona Beach, Fla.) News-Journal says there are more big trucks on the road and, nationwide, fewer rest stops for truckers to catch up on their mandated sleep.

Some states, like Florida, say rest stops are too costly to maintain.

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration published an article that said:

For example, the trucking industry firmly believes that there is a serious shortage of places for drivers to stop and rest. They cite last year's survey of 2,000 truckers, conducted by the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) Foundation Inc., in which:

• More than 90 percent of the respondents reported that they have difficulty finding a parking space in a rest area at least once a week.
• More than 25 percent said they have problems about three times a week.
• About 10 percent said they have problems five times a week.
• More than 36 percent reported that they have difficulty finding a parking space every night.

"To most in trucking, the shortage of safe places for truckers to park is quickly reaching epidemic proportions," according to an OOIDA report on its February 1999 survey. "[This is] causing drivers to modify driving schedules; violate hours of service regulations; and drive at times when, for safety reasons, they would rather be sleeping."

The survey also found that drivers often resort to parking in unsafe areas, such as along the shoulders of highways and on highway on-ramps, if they can't find a place at a rest area. Nearly 60 percent of the surveyed drivers admitted that they do this.

Back in 2001, The Kansas City Star found:

A 1996 Department of Transportation-financed study found a shortfall of more than 28,000 parking spaces for trucks at public rest areas. [Read the study here. (PDF)]

And when the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association surveyed 2,000 of its drivers in 1999, it found that more than 90 percent of them had encountered difficulties finding a parking space in a public rest area at least once a week. One-fourth reported having problems three times a week.

Even when truckers are lucky enough to find parking in rest areas, they can't always sleep there. Two out of five of the country's 1,500 public rest areas restrict the amount of time truckers can park, sometimes to only two or three hours, one study shows.

Extra-Extra-Extra-Large Players

The (Fort Myers, Fla.) News-Press has an excellent story on the growing trend of huge high school football players.

The story says: 

As NFL players have grown larger during the past quarter-century -- running backs and receivers today often weigh more than the linemen of yesteryear -- players in Pop Warner, high school and college have grown larger, too.

The effort to add pounds leads to heavy weightlifting and heavy eating for most.

"I think we're to the point where the pressure to be big is too big," Fort Myers High coach Sammy Sirianni said. "That's one of the things that's happened in college. Kids are labeled, like if they're not 6'5" and 300 pounds, they can't be offensive linemen."

The undefeated 1975 Fort Myers football team had one player on its roster listed at 200 pounds. The 2005 roster includes 16 players listed at 200 or more.

A few years ago, The Christian Science Monitor took on this topic.  

Social Security Increase

Forty-eight million senior citizens and others who get Social Security benefits will see a 4.1 percent increase in their monthly checks next year. That is the biggest increase since 1991, and it will add nearly $40 to the average retiree's income. 

Who gets Social Security, and how important is it? See these demographics. 

Live Organ Donors May Pay a Big Price

There is a project I have wanted to share with you for some time from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It is an interesting special report on the plight of living organ donors -- those 71,000 good-hearted people who have tried to help other folks out. Almost 7,000 living donors gave someone else an organ last year alone. That is close to 20 a day. Many, maybe most, came through it just fine. But the newspaper found that many more had no idea about the troubles they were heading for. The story said:

Healthy people who donate organs to those desperate for transplants enter a world of unknowns.

Even the medical community does not know how big a risk they face.

Some get hurt. Some die. Some need transplants later.

The Post-Dispatch spent a year examining living donations. The newspaper interviewed about 200 donors, family members, transplant surgeons, hospital officials, government officials and scholars, and studied medical records and transplant research.

The newspaper's investigation found:

No one knows how many donors have died or suffered serious injuries or complications, because donors are not systematically tracked.

The lack of comprehensive data makes it impossible for donors to assess the risks of what is portrayed as an ultimate altruistic deed.

There is no agreement on who can donate an organ or how to evaluate potential donors. Those approved to donate include children as young as 10, drug addicts, mentally ill people and people who might be selling their organs, which federal law prohibits.

The government does not regulate organ donations from living donors. Each hospital that performs transplants makes its own rules, which vary widely.

"There is no system and there is no accountability," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "Congress never created an authority. Transplantation has grown up as a mom-and-pop business with centers developing their own rules, and centers can do whatever they want." 

---

Needle-less Flu Shots

This is interesting. The Salt Lake Tribune has a little piece on how their local clinics there are using an injection gun that uses no needles. A lot of needle-phobic people will like that.

Dog Flu

I know there are some who keep saying that the canine flu scare is unwarranted and overblown. Maybe it is.

USA Today reported:

The dangers of a newly discovered influenza in dogs that is a mutation of an equine flu are being blown out of proportion by pet owners, fueled partly by rumors spread online, veterinarians and researchers say. "It's all over the Internet. The rumors are rampant," says Gail Golab of the American Veterinary Medical Association in Schaumburg, Ill.

Researchers say dog flu is spreading, but is apparently seldom fatal. Still, there are some worries that as people start leaving their pets in kennels during the approaching holiday travel season, the virus might spread faster. The best advice is the same that you would give to people you work with: "If you are sick, stay away." Don't take a sick dog to a kennel.

The Associated Press reported that the dog flu has been found in pets, with cases documented in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia. The story said:

Cynda Crawford, a veterinary immunologist at the University of Florida, said researchers are getting 30 to 40 percent positive readings on the blood and tissue samples sent in by veterinarians who think they might be treating a dog with influenza. The symptoms include a cough, low-grade fever and nasal discharge.

Exactly how many dogs have died is unclear. Crawford said many of the animals were young and otherwise healthy.

Many pet owners and veterinarians have been fooled because some of the symptoms mimic a common, less dangerous bacterial infection known as kennel cough.

As with human influenza, dog flu is most easily contracted in gathering places -- kennels, dog shows, animal shelters, even dog runs in parks.

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.