08:22 – The lead story in the morning paper is about a guy who’s being tried for involuntary manslaughter. He’s accused of passing a stopped school bus, striking and killing an 11-year-old boy. The driver claims that the school bus had its yellow lights flashing, but had not yet extended the stop-arm and started flashing its red lights. At least one witness confirms the driver’s story. At least one other witness disputes it. Given what information the news stories have provided, if I were on the jury I’d vote to acquit based on reasonable doubt.
Regardless of what actually happened in this case, there’s no question that many drivers think nothing of passing stopped school buses. Barbara watched it happen earlier this week. She said the driver didn’t even slow down, just blew past a stopped school bus. That happens in North Carolina thousands of times every year. In the US as a whole, probably thousands of times every week. I told Barbara I was surprised that school buses don’t have HD video cameras installed front and rear as standard equipment, set up to start recording video and GPS data every time the yellow caution lights are turned on. When a bus driver finishes the run and reports an incident, that video should be provided to the police for investigation and prosecution.
I’m trying to cut down on the inventory of labeled but empty bottles. Right now, I’m working on getting bottles filled for another batch of 60 biology kits. Next up is filling bottles for 90 more chemistry kits, followed by 60 forensic science kits. Then it’ll be lather, rinse, repeat.
14:27 – Hmmm. One of our upcoming kits is for AP Chemistry, so I was out looking around the web to see what else is out there. I came across a supposed AP Chemistry kit from one of our competitors that included the following in its contents list:
Apparently, this kit contains a dilute solution of … water.
16:03 – This isn’t good. Barbara called to tell me that her mom’s caregiver had called to say that her mom had stopped eating and stopped talking. The most she could get out of Sankie was an occasional grunt. Barbara and Frances are going to meet the evaluator from Hospice over at their mom’s apartment at 5:30 to see what the evaluator thinks. If the evaluator thinks Sankie belongs in Hospice now and if they have a room available Barbara says they’ll transfer her tonight or perhaps tomorrow.
Around here if the bus has students crossing the street the driver gets out and acts as a crossing guard along with the lights and swing out stop sign. And the fines here are steep. You’re looking at at least $500 plus.
Plus the cop beat down if you are on a cellphone. Tasering if you are texting. BTW, on the phone around here in a active school zone is a $200 fine.
I was surprised that school buses don’t have HD video cameras installed front and rear as standard equipment
Some of the busses here have video cameras and drivers are issued citations. Such citation being enough to cause their insurance rates to almost double if they are able to keep the same company. Some people are getting dumped and the only place they can get insurance is in the high risk pool. In my opinion they deserve it.
Then there are others who are totally ignorant of the rules. You CAN pass a school bus stopped with flashing lights as long as you are going the other direction on a divided highway. I have seen some people come to a complete stop on a four lane divided highway when the bus is stopped in the opposing lanes.
And then I have personally waited for five minutes behind a bus with it’s lights flashing. The bus stopped for little Johnny but little Johnny was not ready. So the bus waited for him with the lights flashing the entire time. I called to complain and was told by the school that the driver waited no more than 30 seconds. I then asked them what the bus number was that only waited 30 seconds as I had not told them the bus number. The school then stated policy is that no bus waits more than 30 seconds and the driver followed policy. I then asked how they knew that if they did not know the bus number and had not talked with the driver. The phone went dead.
“The phone went dead.”
Of course. You are a well-known gadfly and irritant down there. I bet your pic is all over the place. The board lit up when you called.
If I’m on a regular ol’ town or city street and a skool bus slows down in front of me with the yellow lights, I slow the hell down and stop anyway, regardless whether or not red lights and flags and signs and cameras are operating. I’m not gonna take a chance of hitting a kid, period. Ever. No matter how stupid or crazy they are. What the fuck is so important that that guy just HAD to get past the bus? Plus you’re supposed to be in control of your vehicle anyway; did the driver even slow down at all???
I support the involuntary manslaughter charge. And if it was my kid, I’d be seeing that dude around later, too.
From the reports, it seems the driver did not slow down. The State Police accident reconstruction guy estimated he was going 46 MPH when he hit the kid. I don’t know what the speed limit is, but that 46 is suspiciously just over 45.
Apparently, the kid missed the bus on its regular stop. The bus driver turned around at the end of the street and came back the other direction and stopped again. The kid was hurrying to catch the bus and stepped out into the road.
I think 30 seconds is far too long for a school bus to sit, let alone five minutes. The rule should be that the driver picks up all the kids waiting to get on and then rolls immediately. No waiting for late kids. Let their parents get them to school themselves.
When I encounter a bus that’s turned on its yellow flashers, I take my foot off the gas and proceed with caution. School bus drivers around here often turn on their yellow flashers literally several hundred yards short of the actual stop.
I just won’t take the chance nowadays; too many kids hopped up on various meds or dope or whatever be-bopping all over the place, unpredictable bus drivers and other motorists, etc. There is never any place I have to be in such a hurry that I can’t slow down and wait for a couple of minutes; that driver deserves the manslaughter charge.
Sure, the bus driver may turn on the flashers way short of the actual stop but I don’t know for sure where and when they’re gonna actually stop and some kids jump out and start running across the street. And depending on the speed, it can take a while to hit the brakes and stop myself, especially if I’m in the truck.
WTF is it that people are in such a terrible hurry for these days??? Gotta race everywhere, like it’s the end of the world. I used to see it at IBM; they park their cars in the lot and then practically jog toward the buildings, backpacks and all, like errant skool kids, and during the day they’re fast-walking everywhere. You won’t see us sys and net admins racing everywhere in there. The problems will wait. And we will fix them at our own good speed.
Another phenomenon I’ve noticed over the decades is how people actually *speed up* in crummy weather and road conditions. WTF???
We have a “special needs” private school up the street here and people coming down from there have a stop sign; good luck with that at 4:30 on weekdays; they routinely blow through it and our street here has a 10-MPH limit, marked with signage at both ends yet they race through here like it’s the Daytona 500. Our neighbors on one side have toddler grandchildren over constantly, playing in both front and back yards. The other side has the neighbor guy’s 200-year-old midget mom. There are cats and dogs on the street. I’m thinking of mining it. Ditto the road (state highway) that runs between our back yard and the town park, which is also used as a speedway. We see a town cop cruiser down here maybe once a month, if that. Never the sheriff deputies, whose HQ is a mile up the road, but to be fair they cover the whole county.
So I guess it’s up to me: mines, booby traps, and sniper details.
A short article on the SWATification of America:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund
This robocop mentality has infected a host of “law enforcement” and “security” organizations and agencies for decades now; I was all over it a long time ago, after I left the field, utterly ridiculous shit; SWAT going after overdue library cards, a couple growing hemp on their own farm, a store owner who didn’t clear his sidewalk of a winter morning, etc. I would be ashamed to show my face on those calls as a regular patrol officer let alone as part of a paramilitary bunch of clowns. Meanwhile our troops overseas pull cop and security guard duty. Everything in this country is upside-down now, Mirror World, Bizarro World, the opposite of what it should be.
Prayers, FWIW, Bob, for Sankie, Barb, Frances, and you. Can’t hurt, right? Hoping things turn out as well as can be for you all.
“It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet”
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/https/
“The Heartbleed bug crushed our faith in the secure web, but a world without the encryption software that Heartbleed exploited would be even worse. In fact, it’s time for the web to take a good hard look at a new idea: encryption everywhere.”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/04/18/peoria-mayor-calls-out-police-to-track-d
I seem to recall something about a famous revolutionary spouting off about “The tree of Liberty …” . This mofo needs to be on the top of the list.
Well, maybe not the top of the list; there are hordes of mofos ahead of him in that line.
He oughta quit whining; the day is coming when it won’t just be tweets and parody sites that people do anymore; it will be the contemporary equivalent of tarring-and-feathering and being run outta town on a rail. Or worse. But for now ridicule works just dandy, so let’s have lots more of it for these pissant, tin-horn, dick-tater wannabes.
“In fact, it’s time for the web to take a good hard look at a new idea: encryption everywhere.”
I read 5-10 years ago that under IPv6 e-mail at least would be encrypted end-to-end, so to read my e-mail you have to be inside my computer. Bring it on.
If the cops need information they can get it the old fashion way.
Ditto others on the school bus issue. Being around attorneys a lot, I heard from someone who should know that the Indiana law is that cars must stop 500 feet from the school bus in question, both front and rear. No mere 50 feet like following a fire truck around here. Of course, no one obeys either of those laws. Law here is that you must stop for the flashing yellow school bus lights, whether the stop arm is out or not. Same rule as Ray for stopping across a divided median. But school bus regulations require drivers to let kids off on the proper side of those road so the kids never cross the median. A lot of people do stop across divided roads, however. I never have bought this idea that time should be made up on the road, if you leave late. When one is 20 minutes late, is shaving that to 17 is a real difference?
Oh, it is also illegal to pass a school bus on a 2 lane road or street here. But nobody obeys that one, either. Except me.
Indiana drivers are nuts. I have lived in St. Paul, Chicago, Boston, Berlin and a couple other places for short times, but everyone around here drives like they were racing at the Indy 500: everyone just HAS to be first in line. People will drive at breakneck speeds, causing hard braking, just to be first at the next stoplight.
Had a lot of driving to do yesterday. Came up to an intersection where the light is a long one, and I needed to turn right. I was first in the right lane as I approached with the light changing to red. But a guy in one of those light pickup trucks zipped past me in the left lane and quickly pulled in front of me, so he could be first in line. He was not turning right, so I had to wait for a 2 minute light. Had he not sped in front of me (and believe me, that was a tight maneuver for him), I could have made a right on red at that intersection. Everybody around me here has this ‘I gotta be first’ attitude. Suck the gas by standing on the accelerator, then wear down those brakes by having to haul it back down not more than a thousand feet later at the next stoplight.
Some of the busses here have video cameras and drivers are issued citations. Such citation being enough to cause their insurance rates to almost double if they are able to keep the same company. Some people are getting dumped and the only place they can get insurance is in the high risk pool. In my opinion they deserve it.
How is this not just the equivalent of a red light ticket which is assessed against the owner of the vehicle, not the driver, with no points or insurance impact, since there’s no proof of who was actually driving?
That’s why I suggested HD cameras, to be able to identify the actual driver.
Let’s look at it from another perspective: a noticeable minority of school bus drivers drive more aggressively than they ought, considering they’re toting around a bunch of helpless chi-i-i-i-i-ildren, the true wealth of the nation, blahblahblah. And a fair number, possibly a majority, show no consideration for other drivers on the road. Stopping with flashing lights on for longer than the minimum is one example already mentioned, but there’s also camping out in an intersection to make a left turn and still sitting there after the light changes, blocking traffic in three directions. And tailgating. (At least some of) the drivers of one school bus company in this area tailgate something wicked as they book down one of the it-city commuter freeways, going well over the speed limit.
So how about we start putting dashcams in every car and forcing the government to deal with evidence of bad behavior? In practice, in my experience, complaints to the school districts have no effect whatever. Complaints to the police have no effect because a cop didn’t see it.
And if video evidence of poorly-behaving school bus drivers doesn’t result in any changes, then it might be time to start shooting at the school buses. But that’s a topic for another day.
How is this not just the equivalent of a red light ticket which is assessed against the owner of the vehicle, not the driver, with no points or insurance impact, since there’s no proof of who was actually driving?
I really don’t know.
When you get the citation it is against the owner of the vehicle unless the owner of the vehicle wants to disclose who was driving and have the citation placed against the driver. How it is legal to force you to fink on another person is beyond me. If it was my wife driving it would be even more mysterious as the courts have clearly stated that a spouse cannot be forced to testify against another spouse.
In Knoxville where they have red light cameras they have cameras that will photograph the back of the car and the front of the car so you can see the driver. They have your mug shot. So if you want to complain they take you to court and now the citation is much more expensive and goes on your driving record. It is a scam, extortion. Pay me $50.00 or if you challenge me we go to court and I get a lot more money and penalize your driving record.
This brings up an old article that was again brought to my attention, but is evermore relevant
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/12/hsbc-prosecution-fine-money-laundering
What we really have is a 2-tiered justice system — one that imprisons ordinary citizens and the poor waaaay disproportionately than the rich and powerful. To wit: the Harry Reid affair and Peoria mayor, who are judge and jury and MANDATE action before due process is invoked or a crime to prosecute is even formulated.
I’m telling ya, Marx predicted everything that is happening now. You can pooh, pooh him as irrelevant, but I don’t. You may not like his expositions, but he has been more right than wrong. Conservatives may be riled by him, but note that they have been the very first and foremost advocates for abandoning civil liberties that they only pretend to revere, and they were the instigators of trickle-up economics. If you are a friend to conservatives in this era, you are a great help to the super-rich as they use their power strip us of both our own wealth through inflation and subsequent loss of the purchasing power that wealth had when we earned it, and the loss of our once-sovereign rights.
Complaints to the police have no effect because a cop didn’t see it.
I called the police sergeant to complain about an Oak Ridge police offer that was tailgating, changing lanes without signaling and exceeding the speed limit by a significant amount. It did no good.
Me: I like to report an officer driving dangerously.
Sergeant: The officer was on a call and needed to hurry.
Me: Then why did the officer stop a two red lights and wait for them to change?
Sergeant: Out of courtesy and regard for safety.
Me: OK. The officer was on a call. Since I have not told you which officer or vehicle how do you know they were on a call.
Sergeant: What is your license number?
Me: Not relevant, I am complaining about an officer.
Sergeant: You will need to file a written complaint and produce your license for identification.
Then he hung up. I wrote a letter to newspaper to embarrass the sergeant. Two weeks later I was followed the entire length of the west end of the turnpike by an officer, a distance of several miles. I stayed below the speed limit and never changed lanes. I made the turn to head towards Oliver Springs and the officer stayed behind me. I then took a detour through some back streets and the officer stayed behind me the entire time until I got past the city limits. I think he was just waiting to pounce. I gave him no reason so it must have been very disappointing.
As I said earlier, government workers don’t get mad, they get even.
Speaking of the state of things, my conversations with construction and renovation people leads me to believe the housing bubble is reviving. Two guys who bid for work on Tiny House have mentioned to me that the price of building materials has soared. “How anybody can afford to build a house these days is beyond me,” one said. “I have not seen anything like it — even before the crisis started in 2007.”
Low interest rates on mortgages are not helping what appears now to be the bubble growing back.
The younger guys are wanting more for the same work; I guess the older guys probably do not have a system to keep up with raw materials price increases. My projects are small and their price includes all materials.
Did I mention that my insurance company will no longer insure the Tiny House roof, because it is more than 15 years old? Mentioned that to a lawyer who deals only in insurance issues litigation, and he said he had never heard of refusing to insure a roof because of age. But he said that the practice with insurance is not just to increase rates for losses, it is to stop insuring losses in their tragic loss areas altogether — like the hurricane damage in Florida, and flood plain damage along the Mississippi in northern states.
Did I mention that my insurance company will no longer insure the Tiny House roof, because it is more than 15 years old?
My insurance is the same. They will pay for labor but not for materials. Seems to be a normal practice on policy renewals.
Can I assume that the premiums go down because the insurance company is providing less coverage?
He’ll no. Premiums went up. This area had a major hailstorm about three years ago. Lots of new roofs, even for some that we’re not damaged. Insurance company profits dropped, CEOs were in danger of not having enough money for their 23 million bonus. Solution, raise the rates, lower the coverage.
Well, of course. I was being sarcastic in my previous comment.
I’m convinced that insurance is generally a bad deal for the insured. Bottom line, the insurance companies make money, which means their clients lose money. I’ve gotten a lot of insurance agents upset over the years by asking them to demonstrate, with real numbers and not hand-wavey assurances, how I’m not better off self-insuring.
Buying catastrophic insurance might make sense, for cases in which the loss would truly be a catastrophe. In my case, that would include only my death or inability to work. So long as I’m able to work, nothing else is a catastrophe, not one that can be fixed by money, anyway. Insurance companies are so chincy about paying out for covered losses that it decreases the value of the policy, making it even less worthwhile to insure against any loss that you can recover from.
I read 5-10 years ago that under IPv6 e-mail at least would be encrypted end-to-end, so to read my e-mail you have to be inside my computer. Bring it on.
If the cops need information they can get it the old fashion way.
Depends on your email program. But I doubt the IPv6 would do encryption automatically. I am listening to Tom Clancy’s _Dead or Alive_
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Alive-Jack-Ryan-Clancy/dp/0425263533/
audiobook right now in my truck. The book claims that the NSA can break all 256 bit encryption used for anything. And that the NSA reads all email, especially outside the USA, and looks for code words. I wish that I doubted this.
Never put anything in email that you are not willing to read on the front page of the Houston Chronicle or the New York Times tomorrow.
Buying catastrophic insurance might make sense, for cases in which the loss would truly be a catastrophe.
I tried to go with two percent deductible insurance on my house but my mortgage specifies one percent deductible. One percent is $2200 per year for me, two percent is $1400 per year.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about mortgage insurance. That was actually the lawyer’s first question when I told him about the issue. “What about mandated mortgage insurance?” were the first words out of his mouth. I have checked with a few other people around me and they have no such exclusions regarding roofs on their houses. I doubt that anybody on this block has a roof newer than mine. Thirty years is closer to normal roof life around here. My insurance company is headquartered out-of-state, so I should probably move to one in-state.
I called the police sergeant to complain about an Oak Ridge police offer that was tailgating, changing lanes without signaling and exceeding the speed limit by a significant amount. It did no good.
Oh, that is a brotherhood, just like attorneys and judges ganging up on people who try to represent themselves. I would never imagine that complaining about police behavior would have any effect whatsoever, except to get me harassed or jailed as a result. The recent case in Indianapolis of a drunk officer running over and killing motorcycle riders doing exactly what the law required when a police vehicle is making an emergency run, was nothing but a litany of stonewalling and denials. Jury found him guilty and he is spending significant time behind bars, but police and lawyers are still foaming with PR that it was a miscarriage of justice. Even the judges involved could not cover up the obvious, although the police department tried by messing with his blood and urine samples taken immediately after the accident.
The actual fact came out during trial that, although he appeared to be making an emergency run, he was told by the dispatcher NOT to go to the scene to provide assistance, but he decided to do so anyway. More brotherhood stuff.