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December 2007
Don’t Drink And Drive, Tow To Go
‘Tis the holiday season and time for good cheer.
That means parties and celebrations with family and friends.
But everyone needs to remember one thing. There’s absolutely no excuse to be on the road after you’ve been drinking.
If you find yourself in this situation, just call Tow to Go.
The free service is sponsored by AAA and Budweiser. Dial 1-800-AAA-HELP and a tow truck will come out to take you and your vehicle home safely.
This is AAA’s 10th anniversary of providing the service. Since 1998, more than 7,000 drunk drivers have been removed from the road.
The number of impaired drivers goes up significantly during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
An average of 36 fatalities occur daily involving drunk drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The number jumps to 45 fatalities a day around Christmas and to 54 deaths a day over New Year’s.
The Tow to Go program is available throughout Florida until Jan. 1.
Two Hands On The Wheel
While sitting in traffic at a busy intersection this morning, a strange thought crossed my feeble mind.
In front of me, behind me, to the left and to the right, the drivers were all talking on their cell phone.
What did we do years ago, before cell phones, palmtops, personal digital assistants and all of these other handheld gadgets, when we were behind the wheel?
Did we actually pay attention to what was happening on the road around us?
Like I said, just a stupid thought.
Wildfires Threaten Highway Travel
It’s going to be a very active wildfire season here in Florida.
That’s the word from Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles Bronson.
“Unfortunately, it does not look like we will see any significant improvement in drought conditions anytime soon,” Bronson says.
Why risk getting delayed for hours if the highway you’re traveling has to be shut down because of drifting smoke or raging flames?
Before you head out, call 511 to check on highway conditions.
Palm Beach County’s traffic incident management team recently met with representatives of the Division of Forestry to talk about the best ways to keep the lines of communication open between the two groups.
Getting out timely information on road closures due to wildfires will be a priority over the next few months, team manager Bob Murphy said.
Why not take advantage of it?
So far this year, more than 582,000 acres of state and federal lands in Florida have burned. Some of the “hot spots” are the areas along Florida’s Turnpike near U.S. 27 and Alligator Alley.
“Lake Okeechobee is still near record-low levels and drought conditions plaguing the entire Southeast are contributing to lowering water levels in areas of northern Florida,” Bronson said.
Residents also need to be careful with any outdoor burning. Because of the widespread dried out vegetation, any fire can quickly spread, he said.
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How’s Your Car Rank
U.S. News & World Report’s annual car rankings are out.
And once again, Honda is King.
The rankings cover the best and worst cars, trucks and SUVs, based on a consensus of the nation’s top automotive experts.
Honda occupies the top spot in seven categories, including the top three on the Economy Car list.
Showing the greatest improvement from the 2007 rankings is General Motors, with several new or redesigned vehicles near the top of their classes, including the Chevy Malibu, Buick Enclave and Cadillac CTS.
Other making their debut high in the rankings are the Infiniti G37 and Mazda CX-9 as well as the redesigned Honda Accord, BMW 5-Series, Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan.
Some of the new cars that fall a bit short are the Dodge Avenger, Nissan Rogue and the redesigned Toyota Highlander.
Among the hybrids, the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic and Toyota Prius held down the top spots. New American hybrids, such as the Saturn Aura, Chevy Tahoe and Ford Escape, do not offer the combination of fuel economy and driving performance exhibited by their Japanese counterparts.
Here’s the #1 ranked automobiles in the most-popular categories:
Economy cars: Honda Fit
Midsize cars: Honda Accord
Upscale small cars: Volkswagen GTI
Upscale midsize cars: BMW3-Series
Luxury cars: BMW 5-Series
Compact SUVs: Honda CR-V
Midsize SUVs: Honda Pilot
Large SUVs: Chevy Tahoe
Luxury midsize SUVs: Lexus RX 350
Full-size pickups: Chevy Silverado 1500
Affordable sports cars: Mazda MX-5, Honday S2000 and Mazda Speed3.
The methodology used to determine the rankings took into account automotive experts’ opinions, safety ratings and reliability stats.
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Major Turnpike Delays In Homestead
If you’re headed to the Keys or other destinations way south this weekend and you’re using Florida’s Turnpike, Plan B may be in order.
Beginning Friday night and running through Wednesday morning, there will be major delays at the Homestead toll plaza.
Work crews will be tearing down the tollbooths, gates, equipment and toll plaza roofs over the existing SunPass-only lanes to create open-road tolling lanes.
Here’s what is going down:
Three of the six northbound toll lanes will be closed from 8 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Three of the six southbound toll lanes will be closed from 9 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Wednesday.
During these periods, just three toll lanes will be open — one SunPass-only lane, one cash lane and one combination SunPass/cash lane.
After this work is done, drivers with SunPass will be able to pass through the toll plaza at 55 mph. Cash customers will still have to stop and pay at the tollbooths, which will be separated from the SunPass express lanes by a concrete barrier.
To help alleviate delays, tolls will be suspended at these times:
Northbound from 6-10 a.m. Monday and southbound from 3-9 p.m. Tuesday.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers will monitor the traffic and can lift tolls at other times if necessary.
Still, backups are expected several miles north and south of the toll plaza during the construction. So anticipate delay
House Committee Hears Seat Belt Bill
The House Committee on Infrastructure is slated to hear two important highway safety bills Thursday.
The first, if adopted by the Legislature next year, would amend the state’s seat belt law to provide for primary enforcement for all drivers.
Now police can only issue safety belt citations to motorists 18 and older if they’re stopped for another infraction. The law was changed a couple of years ago to allow for primary enforcement for drivers under 18.
Studies by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that the stricter law would prevent 192 fatalities and 2,792 serious injuries annually, as well as save $589 million a year in economic losses from highway crashes.
Florida also would be in line to receive a one-time $35.5 million federal grant that could be used for safety programs.
Currently, there are 22 states with primary seat belt laws and 27 with secondary laws. New Hampshire has no safety belt law.
The other bill to be aired would further tighten the “graduated licensing” restrictions on beginner drivers.
Now, there are no limits on the number of passengers that underage drivers can have in their cars.
The proposed measure would prohibit drivers under 18 from having anyone under 18 in the car for the first six months after obtaining a driver’s license. After this initial six-month period, and until the driver turns 18, no more than three underage passengers are permitted.
The bill would exclude siblings or children of the driver. It also makes the enforcement of the restrictions a secondary offense.
According to NHTSA, half of all crash deaths involving 16-year-old drivers occur when they have teenage passengers.
So what do you think? Should these measures be law?
Cuts Looming For Transit Security?
Catastrophic.
That’s the reaction of local transportation officials to reports that the Bush administration may eliminate all federal funding for transit security in the budget for fiscal year 2009.
Tri-Rail, for example, has received considerable sums over the years to implement security initiatives to guarantee the well-being of its passengers.
“The funding we previously received also enabled us to work with the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) to help ensure a safe operation,” said Joe Giulietti, executive direction of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority.
If it’s true, it’s an outrage, said William Millar, head of the American Public Transportation Association.
“Transit security is a national security issue and national security is the responsibility of the federal government,” Millar said. “Why should public transportation riders, who take public transportation 34 million times each weekday, be treated as second-class citizens?”
Not only should federal funding for transit security be maintained, it should be increased, Millar added.
“Zeroing out public transit security funding would be a reversal of public policy that would put millions of citizens at risk,” he said.
If this happens, would you feel comfortable using public transit?
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Some Improvements On Southern
Good news and bad news, as it relates to traffic on Southern Boulevard.
The county made several changes to the signal timing at Benoist Farms Road to improve the flow through the intersection.
Sansbury’s Way, however, will remain a bottleneck until construction is completed and the new lanes open.
That’s life in the big road construction zone known as Palm Beach County.
Ever since the Southern overpass at SR 7 opened to two-way traffic late last month, motorists report the drive has actually gotten worse.
Construction officials say part of the problem is the additional traffic merging onto Southern from the SR 7 ramps that’s causing congestion further east at the Fairgrounds Road, Sansbury, Benoist Farms and Pike Road intersections.
Another idea being looked at is converting one of the two through lanes on the westbound off-ramp at SR 7 into a left-turn lane. That would provide two left-turn lanes and help minimize delays and backups. It would require some tinkering with the signals to add a turn arrow.
Drivers tend to forget that the new road is still operating at half of its capacity.
In other words, things will get better when the orange barrels disappear.
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Traffic Snarls Still Plague Southern
Talk about bad timing.
No sooner did the new Southern Boulevard overpass at SR 7 open for two-way traffic last week when motorists found themselves in long backups east of the flyover.
“The road has become a parking lot since the DOT shifted traffic on the flyover,” complains one driver. “Yesterday, we left at 7:20 and the backup started on top of the flyover going eastbound. Today, we left at our usual time, 7:40. Same back up.”
Says another unhappy motorist, “After spending millions of dollars and subjecting commuters to long construction delays, the long awaited opening of the Southern Boulevard overpass has resulted in….nothing. It still takes morning eastbound commuters 20 minutes or more to travel between Forest Hill Boulevard and the Turnpike interchange, which is basically what it took prior to beginning the multi-million dollar, multi-year project.”
Transportation officials blame the problem on a combination of factors.
Northbound Benoist Farms Road over the Palm Beach Canal closed Nov. 27 for approximately two weeks. Drivers heading to alternate routes are flooding the turn lanes on Southern, causing traffic to spill into the through lanes.
This issue should fix itself next week, when northbound Benoist Farms reopens, officials say.
Another problem is that only two lanes are open in each direction. Eventually, Southern will be four lanes in each direction. So there’s a lot of traffic in a little space.
The solution will come early next year when construction is completed.
A third factor is the traffic signals which have not been retimed to adjust to the new traffic patterns. Again, help is on the way.
Roadway engineers are looking at other interim measures that can be taken to help ease the crunch while construction wraps up.
Ah, the pain we must suffer for progress.
New Railroad Crossing Barrier Tested
It’s hard to believe any sane person would drive around the gates at a railroad crossing to try to beat an oncoming train.
But it happens all the time.
In fact, accidents at railroad crossings occur every three hours in the United States.
That’s the motivation for the Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Highway Administration to get behind the testing of a new type of crossing barrier.
It’s taking place in Michigan, at the Denton Road crossing in Wayne County’s Van Buren township.
The new technology was created by Intelligent Perimeter Systems, a Dublin, Ohio-based developer of traffic control systems.
The retractable barriers are housed in self-contained, modular cartridges recessed in the ground. They electronically rise up when a train is approaching to discourage motorists from going around the crossing gates.
They are implanted in the road in an L-shaped pattern on both sides of the tracks and the centerline. They work in conjunction with the gates to provide an impassable barrier.
The federal agencies, along with the Michigan DOT, will monitor the test system with cameras for a 17-month period, through the spring of 2009.
“We believe the barriers have great life-saving potential for those motorists who make a quick, poor decision and attempt to drive around lowered gates,” Michigan DOT Director Kirk T. Steudle says. “This may be the solution to discourage ‘gate running’.”
In South Florida, a 72-mile section of the state-owned CSX Transportation railroad is equipped with four-way gates at all of its crossings. The South Florida Regional Transportation Authority — the agency that operates Tri-Rail — secured a federal grant to install the barrier in conjunction with the double-tracking of the corridor.
The four-way gates allow communities along the tracks to apply for “Quiet Zone” protection.
As part of a study to return passenger service to the Florida East Coast Railway, the state also is looking at ways to making crossings safer and quieter.
Do you think the IPS Model 100 retractable delineators, as the system being tested in Michigan is called, is worthy of consideration?
Some Drivers Are Real Morons
Just a week ago, a story in the Post reminded us of the tragedy at Golden Lakes Village.
It was Nov. 16, 2006, when a fully-loaded sewage truck ran a red light on Okeechobee Boulevard and broadsided a community minibus.
The crash led to four deaths among the 11 elderly passengers on the bus.
Sunday morning, I was headed west on Okeechobee, coming up on the intersection of Golden Lakes Boulevard. The light turned yellow. I slowed down to stop. The car next to me didn’t.
If the car made it through the yellow light, it was just by a hair. There was no doubt, however, about the driver behind us.
A blue compact car, driving at least 60 mph, weaved into the left lane and blew through the intersection, a good two seconds after the light turned red. Thankfully, the traffic coming out of Golden Lakes was not in a rush.
The driver probably has no clue about what happened at the intersection.
Probably doesn’t even care.
Some drivers don’t belong on the road.
Some drivers are real morons.
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