Chili Truck House — Update

Last weekend Eric Gremm chomped on chill and crashed his lumber truck into a house in Lowell.  The news story persists, though, because the truck can’t be removed or else the house will collapse.  So it’s still there, as we learn from the perfect headline in the Sun, Truck remains stuck in house.

This homeowner, who did not speak to the press (good for her), has lost the house.  The entire structure will have to be demolished.  I hope she is getting the same support from her neighbors as she would had if her home had burned to the ground.  At least she is able to carry out her belongings and store them while she waits for a new one to be built.

By the way, I wrote a letter to the Sun and so far, two of the comments are on Mr. Gremm’s side.  I suppose either of these people would feel differently if Mr. Gremm’s lumber truck was parked in their driveway.  Nevertheless, it demonstrates how high our tolerance is for the poor driving behavior of others.  I don’t think that’s this is because, on the surface, people aren’t scared by scenes like a truck in a house.  Rather, deep, deep down, everyone is afraid that if we do raise our standards of acceptable behavior behind the wheel, they will lose their own license.  Which leads us to find ways to rationalize things like drunk driving, texting while driving, speeding, and eating a bowl of chili in the cab of a lumber truck.

Chili + Numbskull Trucker = Truck in House

Yes, that is a lumber delivery truck in a woman's living room

Eric Gremm, a 59 year-old truck driver, was hungry.  So he stopped at Wendy’s for snack.  He went with the chili.  (Did he use the drive-thru?)  Then he climbed back in the cab of his giant lumber delivery truck and fired up the diesel.  Then, while driving through the streets of Lowell, he chowed down.

Trouble is, eating a bowl of chili is a two-handed operation — at least the way I eat it anyway.  So that left Mr. Gremm with no hands remaining to steer and operate the gear shift.  Or maybe he was steering with his knees and shifting with his — never mind.

And he must have been very hungry or in a hurry because he choked on it, suddenly blacked out, and, as you can see here, rammed through a house.

Not a great weekend for this homeowner.

Nobody on the property nor the public street was hurt.  Mr. Gremm had a small cut on the bridge of his nose.  He was well enough to joke with emergency personnel and the Sun reporter, saying, “I’m glad I didn’t knock two houses down. I sure wrecked that one.”

Ha ha!  Boy, I bet you’re glad there weren’t any children building a snowman in the front yard either!

Meanwhile, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says states that have banned texting have not seen a decrease in crashes.  IIHS thinks maybe drivers are ignoring the ban or switching to hands-free, which some science shows is just as dangerous as hands-on.

But IIHS is missing the fundamental problem here.  People who think it’s OK to send a text message while operating a speeding car will make other poor choices if texting is no longer available to them.  In other words, it’s the predisposition of some people to make poor decisions while driving that is the problem.  Sure you’ve gotten them to put the phone down today, but they will just do something else just as stupid tomorrow.

Like eat a bowl of chili while hauling lumber.

While I support any law banning stupid behavior that will result in death or injury to uninvolved, innocent people, we are not taking the right approach to the problem of bad driving.

To demonstrate, I ask you: what will happen to Eric “Dollar Menu” Gremm?  Well, his employee’s insurance company will pay for the damage to the house and maybe he’ll get some sort of minor moving violation.  He’ll pay a fine, but he’ll keep his Commercial Driver’s License.  If his company fires him, he’ll get a job driving a truck somewhere else.  A year from now you’ll see him munching on a Frosty as his lumbers by.

Which puts us back where we started.

A better way to address the problem of bad driving is not by issuing fines or even jail time.  Rather, we need to take away the one thing they value most: their car.  Under the tier system I have proposed, Mr. Gremm would lose his CDL (Tier D).  I might also knock his regular driver’s license down to Tier D also.  We should hold all drivers to a high standard, to be sure, but professional drivers, such as Mr. Gremm, should be held to the very highest standard.

Because no one anywhere should have to think about being injured by a vehicle while safety on one’s own property, much less their living room.

Pedestrian at Risk

Today it was me.  I was almost hit while crossing the street in a crosswalk on my way to work in Cambridge.  The driver had a phone in her hand.  Her attitude after the near-miss was infuriating.

At about 8:30 this morning, I was crossing the south side of the intersection of Broadway at Prospect Street.  While Prospect is three lanes wide, it is only about 32 feet wide and the corners are tight.  It’s certainly a busy corner, but I’ve crossed it many times before since it is one block away from City Hall Annex where I work.

The WALK light came on and I stepped into the street.  I do not use an iPod or a phone when I walk in the city because you have to pay full attention anytime you are in the street, crosswalk or no.

In Cambridge, the green light is on at the same time, so cars can turn left or right across the crosswalk.  (I know this sounds crazy to some of you, but this is a good idea, and another day I will explain why we do it this way.)  An old red Ford Explorer started to make a right.  I looked the driver in the face — something I always do — to make sure she saw me.  But she wasn’t slowing down.  I was right between her headlights. I broke into a run and made it to the curb, but she was a few feet away from striking me.

Had I not been looking at the truck, she would have hit me.  Or if she had been turning left from the other direction, she would have been coming from behind me and I would not have seen her.  She was doing between 10 and 15 MPH, I would say.  I would have been hit by the high bumper between my hip and rib cage.  Probably a few broken bones, but I would have survived.  If she had not known that she hit me — something hit and drivers often say — she would have run me over.  If I was much shorter — say a child walking to school or the playground a hundred yards away — the crash would have been severe.

When I reached the curb, I looked at her to let her know she had done something wrong.  She stopped and rolled down the window.  She still had the phone in her hand.  The first thing she said was, “You should be more careful.”

As the law (Chapter 90 MGL) is written, I was not doing the wrong thing.  She failed to yield on the turn, and she knew it.  That’s why she stopped.   If she were a complete jerk, she would have blown the horn, sworn at me, and sped away.  But yelling at me was her way of releasing the stress of nearly hitting me.

Forgive the armchair psychology, but I have witnessed this same scene dozens of times in my career.  Working as the City’s traffic engineer, part of my job is to watch intersections.  Trust me when I tell you that these confrentations are not rare.  In Cambridge, they involve cyclists, too.  In a near miss, exchange is always the same — the motorist never admits to doing anything wrong or is sorry.

But when a crash occurs, the driver is despondent and keeps apologizing and saying OMG over and over.

Strange.

Anyway, I think she knew she had taken her eyes off the road and that was wrong.  She didn’t want me to yell at her about it.  But I did.  I was angry and scared.  I kept saying things like, “put the phone down and don’t pick it up again.  You are going to hit someone at the next intersection.  You are going to hurt someone.  You almost hit me.”

Her answer: “But I didn’t hit you.  Have a nice day.”

After she drove off, I’ll bet she felt bad about it.  She was probably shaking as much as I was, if not more, “OMG, I almost hit that guy.  What if I had hit him?  What if he was hurt?  What if I killed him?”  Later, when she calmed down, I’d wager it bothered her tremendously.

Would it get her to stop using the phone in the car?  Probably not.  And that’s why it needs to be against the law.

Did I get her plate number?  No, because it doesn’t matter.  The RMV used to have a process by which you could complain about drivers, but they abandoned the program a few years ago.  Interestingly, I do have access to the RMV database at work, so I could have pulled her name an address, but what could I do with it?  Legally, nothing.

If you think I go too far with the extreme changes I have suggested in this space about the driving laws, this is why.  You’ll think it is necessary, and necessary now, after you nearly get crushed by an SUV.

Why Speeding is Dumb

Sammy Hagar made it officially OK in 1984. His rebel anthem “I Can’t Drive 55″ blared from the stereo speakers of Camaros and IROC Zs all across the USA that summer, giving countercultural permission to all 17-year-old boys to do whatever they wanted, even with cops around.

Twenty-five years later, we are still a nation of bad-asses, even in our mini-vans and Honda Fits. We can’t help ourselves. It’s the only law God-fearing PTO mothers and mousy middle managers break every day. For some of us, it’s the only thing that makes us feel alive:

Breaking the speed limit.

Speeding is either fun or necessary, depending on your point of view. But it’s also dangerous, wasteful, and stupid. Driving the speed limit has many pleasant benefits. I can hear you snickering.  Hear me out.

The Numbers

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes that one-third of all fatal crashes are caused by speeding. This amounts to around 14,000 people killed in the US every year. By way of comparison, a total of about 5,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined since 2001.

About Speed Limits

Speed limits are not set arbitrarily nor randomly. They are not set by police to maximize revenue from tickets. They are not set by the government to annoy you.

Speed limits are set instead by highway engineers. Limits are related to the road’s “design speed.” When designing a highway, the engineer must assume a speed for all calculations. Higher-speed roads must be straighter, flatter, and wider. The speed limit is set below the design speed as a “factor of safety.” In other words, if you design a road for 70 MPH and set the limit at 60 MPH, a car that slightly exceeds the limit can still safely use the road. (Similarly, a building or bridge is built stronger than how it’s expected to be used — just in case.)

When the rubber hits the road, however, people drive at a speed at which they feel comfortable. This comfortable speed varies by driver and by road. So if we know that many people are comfortable driving closer to the design speed than the posted limit, why don’t we just set the limit higher?

Because the gap between the posted limit and the design speed is our safety net. Imagine how many more speed-related deaths we would have if we cut this safety net and pumped up all posted highway limits by 10 MPH. I don’t even want to think about it.

Speed limits on rural, suburban, and urban streets are set in similar ways. Additional factors are involved, such as population density, proximity to school zones and playgrounds, and roadside objects like trees and utility poles.

You have your reasons for speeding and why you think it’s perfectly safe.

“If I don’t speed, I will be late for work”

Does speeding save you time? Sure! Makes sense, doesn’t it? But how much time does it really save you? Let’s do the math. We’ll assume you are going to Boston from Billerica, a 20 mile trip. And we’ll also assume that all of those 20 miles are on the highway with a 65 MPH speed limit. Finally, we will assume you can sustain your speed for the entire trip. Here are the results:

Speed (MPH)	Travel Time (min.)
65	18.5
70	17.1
75	16.0
80	15.0

So under ideal conditions, driving 15 MPH over the speed limit saves you a robust three-and-a-half minutes. The real number is much lower, of course, since some of those 20 miles are not highway miles. Plus, it would be impossible to sustain 80 MPH unless the highway were completely empty — you would be constantly slowing down for other cars.

In other words, on this trip you would be saving about three minutes by speeding, and probably much less than that. Meanwhile, you are putting yourself (and others) in a greater danger for a crash — no to mention an expensive speeding ticket. Not worth it. Besides, if you get in trouble with your boss for being three lousy minutes late, you need a new job.

“If I drive the speed limit, I feel like I’m crawling”

Every car I have ever owned has been quieter than the last — and I’ve never owned anything fancier than a Chevy Celebrity. Even today’s economy cars are loaded with insulation and have excellent aerodynamics compared to just ten years ago. These features cut down on wind, engine, and tire noise. Noise is one of the “cues” that gives you a feel for how fast you are going.

If you’ve ever gone 30 MPH downhill on a bicycle — with the wind in your face and the unforgiving pavement roaring past inches beneath you — you know that feeling. And going that fast on a bicycle is not a comfortable feeling because of those cues.

Inside our cozy car, we are mostly removed from the blazing speed at which we are traveling, especially when the rest of the cars on the highway are going about the same speed and there aren’t any objects right on the side of the road whizzing by. But I assure you — at 65 MPH, you are not crawling.

How fast is 65? At that speed, you are going 95.6 feet every second. At 80, you are going 117.6 feet per second. Walking pace is a little more than 4 feet per second.

For a true feel, walk to the edge of your favorite freeway and stand as close as you feel safe doing so. Watch the cars go by at warp speed for a few minutes. Feel uncomfortable? Of course you do. Because 65 MPH is fast.

“I’m a great driver. I have great reaction time. If something happens, I can swerve or brake in time.”

Are you sure? Your life depends on it.

Highway engineers have studied human reaction time extensively. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has settled on an assumed perception-reaction time of 2.5 seconds. It’s true that your pure reaction time might be between 0.15 and 0.20 seconds, but this is when you know the stimulus is coming. Researchers call this the “alert condition.” Under normal conditions, such driving, reaction time is around 1.5 seconds. Then you must add on the time to physically move your foot from the gas to the brake. So when a barrel rolls off the truck in front of you, two-and-a-half full seconds elapse before your brakes even engage.

Then, from 60 MPH, most vehicles with brand-new tires need about 140 feet to stop on dry pavement. So the total distance required to stop from 60 mph is 360 feet, or more than a football field! And that assumes the pavement isn’t wet, your tires don’t have 30,000 miles on them, and that your eyes are on the road and not your cell phone. At 80 MPH, total braking distance is a whopping 545 feet.

So how close is that car in front of you that you are tailgating?

You may consider yourself a world-class driver, but you can’t defeat physics. Slow down.

“But I have a high performance car”

Good for you. Yes, a more expensive car might have a tighter suspension, but that does not help you in a panic stop. Anti-lock brakes (ABS) can cut down on braking distance considerably on snow, ice, or rain and a few percentage points on dry pavement. But your car can’t help you react faster. Even if your special high performance car can cut your total braking distance to 450 feet at 80 MPH (which I seriously doubt), this is still much more room than you would need with a regular car at 60 MPH.

“My car has lots of safety features”

Congratulations. You are more likely to survive a crash than if your car were not equipped with them. However, in a high speed crash, your body (including your very fragile brain) will be stopping very, very quickly, meaning you will be subjected to extremely high “G” forces. There isn’t a safety feature you can buy that will save you from a 20-G crash. And the faster you are going before the crash, the higher the G forces will be during the crash.

“Everyone else does it”

They sure do. I have a friend who says people speeding are late for their accident. “Everyone else” is going to be involved in a crash someday soon. It is only a matter of time — ten million cars are involved in crashes every year. If you choose to engage in a high-risk behavior such as speeding on a freeway among trucks 10 times heavier than you, your chance of being in a crash goes way above the average. Your best chance of staying out of the that group of 10,000,000 wrecked cars this year is to reduce your speed.

“But driving fast is fun”

Driving on a road with other people is not a video game. Your vehicle is very heavy and in one instant, it can cause injury or death to yourself, someone in your car, or a stranger outside your car. If you kill someone because you were having “fun” speeding in your fast car, you will live with it for the rest of your life.

You want thrills? Play a video game or drive a real mini race car at F1 Boston.

Advantages of Driving the Speed Limit

I drive the speed limit, and I live a fulfilling, happy, meaningful life. So can you.

Better fuel mileage

Driving 80 MPH versus 65 MPH results in much higher air “drag” — a force that pulls your car backwards. The engine must work harder to counteract this drag, using more gas. Driving the limit will save you money on gas. How much you save depends on the kind of car you have, but you will notice a difference.

Better chance of getting home alive

The safety benefits of driving slower are immeasurable. I’ve covered just a few above. The exact numbers are hard to calculate, but I can assure you that your odds of not being involved in a crash go way, way up when you are traveling at the speed limit.

Lower stress level

If you drive 80 MPH, you are constantly changing lanes to weave around slower cars, right? Changing lanes is not a cinch at this speed, either. But at the speed limit, few vehicles on the road are slower than you, except for the odd semi on an uphill. You can set your cruise control at the speed limit, sit back, and enjoy the ride. No more lane changes. Let “everyone else” pass you.

Never get a speeding ticket

So you think the police are out to get you. Or they have quotas. Or they target you because you have a red car. Whatever you believe, they can’t pull you over if you aren’t speeding. This will save you real money in fines, court costs, and insurance costs.

Before you laugh, try driving the speed limit for a week. If you feel ridiculous driving “slow” and following the law, all I can say is it takes some getting used to.

How to Reduce Car Crashes

About 40,000 people are killed by automobiles every year, making them more dangerous than guns.  A vast majority of car crashes are caused by poor decisions by the operator.  (Only a small number can be blamed purely on weather conditions, mechanical failure of the automobile, or some sort of road defect).  Experts estimate that one-third of all fatal crashes are cause by speeding and an another one-third by “impaired” driving (i.e. drunk or distracted).  All of these crashes are preventable if we are willing to dedicate 100% of our attention to the driving task and act responsibly within reasonable limits.

But we are not always willing to do either of those things.  So if we are serious about preventing crashes in the future, we must raise the standards of what we consider acceptable behavior on public roads.  That means we need to take certain people off the road — in some cases, permanently.

There are three basic areas in which a person may not be fit to drive:

• Physical.  While not as demanding as, say, rugby, driving does require adequate strength, vision, hearing, and reflexes.  Older people are at risk for all of these things, but physical deficiencies could certainly be an issue at any age.  Even with power brakes and steering, you need enough brawn to slam the pedal in a panic stop.  You have to be able to turn your head and look over your shoulder when coming out of a side street.  You need good peripheral vision.  The list goes on.  Physical abilities that we younger people take for granted deteriorate slowly as we age.
• Mental.  Operating an automobile does not require an advanced degree in aeronautic engineering.  But you can’t be a dope and drive safely.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of written rules of the road, all of which we should know.  Then there are the countless unwritten “jungle” rules that govern how the roads work.  Good drivers must know how to adjust in poor weather conditions.  They should even have a rudimentary knowledge of physics (inertia, friction, force, momentum, energy, etc.).  A driver should know as much about his car and how it works with the road as a carpenter knows his tools.
• Emotional.  You wouldn’t want a crazy person to carry a gun.  Do you want a nut driving on the roads with you?  People who have problems with anger and can’t stay calm when driving and who are subject to road rage should not be allowed to drive.  Same with people who have the wrong idea about the law, such as the belief that speed limits and other regulations are for everyone else.  Yes, most 17-year-old people are not mature enough to drive.  But there are plenty of twenty-somethings who haven’t grown up yet either.  Occasionally you’ll encounter middle-aged people who act (and drive) like children too.

I know what you’re thinking.  That I’ve covered just about every person on the road with my descriptions of possible deficiencies above.  That may be true.  But at the very least we need to be aware of the laundry list of deficiencies people can carry with them when they climb into the cockpit of their 200-plus horsepower, two-ton machines.

At work I read a few hundred crash reports taken by the Cambridge Police Department every year.  The narratives of these incidents give me a backstage pass to the poor behavior that is rampant on the roads.  After plowing through a pile of these reports, I find myself rubbing my eyes, thinking that it’s a miracle anyone of us make it home alive.

If we want to make our roads safer for us, our kids, our families and friends, and anyone else we care about, we must take bad drivers off the road.  We have to make good driving valuable by taking the privilege of driving away from people who can’t be bothered to care about being safe.

Here’s how we can do it: I propose a new, high standard of driver responsibility and penalties for failing to meet them.

Every driver should be graded, similar to the point system we have now.  There would be four tiers: A, B, C, and D.

• Tier A:  Good driver.  Full privileges.  Driver’s license does not expire; no trip to the RMV necessary.
• Tier B:  On notice. Full privileges, but license must be renewed within one year.
• Tier C:  Probation.  Regulations pertaining to young drivers apply, such as: no one under 18 allowed in the car, may not drive between 1 am and 5 am, etc.
• Tier D:  Indefinite suspension.  In order to regain license, must complete a safe driving class, anger management, a written test, road test, or any combination of the above as designated by a judge.

At age 16 1/2, you begin on Tier C.  Moving up and down tiers would work as follows:

• Without any moving violations or crashes caused, you move up to Tier B at age 18.
• Without any moving violations or crashes caused, you move up to Tier A at age 25.
• At any age, any moving violation or crash caused results in an instant 7-day suspension and moves you down a tier.
• To move up to Tier A or B after age 25, you must meet with the head of the the Traffic Division at your town’s police department and explain your moving violation or crash.  If the police are convinced, they can recommend to the RMV that you may be promoted.

Drunk and distracted driving:

• If you are caught driving drunk or texting, you move down to Tier D.
• If you are cause a crash while drunk or texting, you move down to Tier D and you may not apply for reinstatement for 10 years.

Other forms or distracted driving:

• Under these regulations, everything with a screen (cell phones, MP3 players, navigation systems, televisions, laptops, etc.) would be barred from the front seat unless a passenger is present.  The passenger would be allowed to use these devices, but a driver caught using them would move down two tiers.

Commercial Driver’s Licenses (including school bus drivers):

• A CDL would have only two tiers, A and D.  People who transport cargo or people for a living are on the roads much more frequently than everyone else.  They also drive larger, more dangerous vehicles.  Therefore they carry an even greater responsibility for the welfare of others on the road.  One moving violation or incident of distracted driving, and they are demoted to Tier D.  A CDL driver who causes a serious crash or is caught drunk or texting will not be allowed to apply for reinstatement for 10 years.  Since their livelihood depends on their CDL, professional drivers would have the ultimate incentive to drive responsibly.

No one understands the Safe Driver Insurance Plan (SDIP), but everyone knows A, B, C, and D.  By assigning “grades” to drivers, everyone will know where they stand.  If you are a “C” driver, maybe you would be a little ashamed of it and try to move up.  Maybe people will aim to be an “A” driver for their entirelife after age 25.

And maybe not.  But being a poor driver should not be accompanied with a snicker and a story about our last speeding ticket, which is our attitude now.  We should have pride in good behavior on the road, and scorn those who are not responsible drivers — at any age.

Recent Car Crashes Kill, Maim

It sickens me to report on this, but I committed to doing it.  The last 10 days or so have been very bad on our streets, both locally and around the country.  Here are some of the more recent incidents:

1. This morning, one man was killed and another lost his leg in a work zone crash on Route 3 in Chelmsford.  The men were cleaning up a fuel spill.  A vehicle left the road and struck them.  Two drivers of other vehicles were also hurt during the incident.  Police can’t say yet why the vehicle left the roadway.
2. Sunday morning a Billerica woman, Bonnie Lee Hicks, 43, struck a 19-year-old man while he was walking to his job at an assisted living facility.  He was in a crosswalk.  Hicks was drunk.  The crash occurred at 6:30 in the morning.  The man is still in a drug-induced coma.  A judge released Hicks and told her not to drive.  Hicks was driving an uninsured, unregistered car with no inspection sticker.  She has a long history of moving violations.  This crash comes one week after another Billerica woman, Leila Henry, got drunk and hit a child on a scooter near the train station.
3. A former Weston police chief, James J. McShane, 62, was arraigned yesterday on drunk driving charges following a November 16 crash.  One of the occupants of the car struck, a 82-year-old woman, was in the hospital for two weeks.  McShane also injured two others in the collision.  It is the third time McShane has been charged with drunk driving.
4. In Lousiana, a minivan stuffed with 13 children — yes, I said thirteen — blew a tire and rolled over on the highway.  The driver and five children were killed.  No one in the vehicle was wearing a seat belt.  Most of the occupants were ejected.  A witness described a macabre scene of children flying out of the vehicle as it was rolling.
5. In California, Steven Culbertson, 19, ran a red light and crashed his Mini Cooper into a minivan, killing all four family members inside.  His made contact with two other cars before hitting the van.  How fast does a tiny Mini Cooper have to be going to hit two cars before slamming into a minivan — which usually do very well in side-impact tests — and killing everyone inside?  Police estimate between 70 and 90 mph.  He had a previous drunk driving conviction, in 2007.
6. On Sunday in Fitchburg, Cesar Cedeno Jr., 35, of Fitchburg was caught driving drunk with three children in the car.  The kids were ages 11, 7, and 4.  His BAC was 0.18.  He was charged with child endangerment.

Are you angry yet?  Angry enough to change laws that allow people with poor driving records, including the people above, to continue driving on the same roads as you?  If we had tougher laws and registry rules, as I have advocated in this space, some of these deaths and injuries would have been prevented.

Part of the problem is the press itself.  Stories of crashes #2 and #3 were buried on page B12 of this morning’s Globe Metro section, hidden between obits and the weather page.  What was on the front page of the Metro section?  A story about how cool the Harvard University admissions dean is.  Second, news stories about fatal car crashes aalways include a paragraph about how bad traffic was backed up as a result.  Why?  Who cares about a little traffic when people have lost their lives in a horrific crash?  Do press outlets have no feeling at all of how serious this problem is?

The total of the above: Seven crashes, ten dead, multiple injured, dozens put at risk.  If this sounds bad, consider that on an average day, 110 people are killed by automobiles in the United States.

It’s time for the rest of us us to stand up and protect ourselves and our families from these irresponsible people.

Drunk Billerica Woman Hits Child

Yesterday I reported on three recent crashes involving pedestrians in Lowell and added that if we do not act, Billerica could have similar crashes.

I am old enough to know I should have kept my mouth shut.

On Saturday Billerica resident Leila Henry, 50, struck a 15-year-old boy who was riding a scooter.  The crash occurred at 4:40 PM  — barely dark — on Old Elm Street, which is down the street from the train station.  According to the news report, Henry struck the child and then attempted to flee, turning the wrong way down Colson Street, where she struck two sign poles.  A citizen cornered her car until the police came.

Henry blew a 0.25.  How many drinks do you need in the middle of the afternoon to get that drunk?

Under my no-tolerance policy, Henry would lose her license for life for driving drunk and injuring someone.  But in Massachusetts, I bet she will get away with probation.  Chances are she is back driving on the roads with the school buses today.

What do you think should happen to Henry?  If you live in Billerica, she is your neighbor.  She shares the roads with you and your family.  Does that make you uneasy?  It makes me scared as hell — I take the train to work.

One more note — strange reporting on this story by the newspapers.  This incident happened four days ago.  The item did not even appear in the Minuteman, and in the Sun story, it was buried halfway down in the report of an arraignment of one of the Lowell pedestrian crash drivers.  I wonder if the Sun reporters, who were in the courthouse anyway, got lucky on Henry, who was being arraigned also.

In any case, Can’t Get There from Here is the only outlet that has a headline for this story right now.  I will contunue to report this for you.

Speaking of the Lowell pedestrian crashes, crash #3 (see below) appears to have been caused by the pedestrian, an 18-year-old man.  The driver, age 84, had the green light and the teen stepped into traffic.  Cars need a lot of room to stop, even at moderate speeds like 30 MPH, and if the pedestrian stepped in front of the moving vehicle, there was nothing the driver could do.

Lowell Pedestrian Crashes

Over the past few days, three scary and stunning car crashes injuring pedestrians have occurred in Lowell.

This afternoon, a teenager was struck, according to the Lowell Sun.

Yesterday, a drunk driver struck a family walking home from the grocery store.  Chamroeun Theam, 60, failed a sobriety test.  He has another DUI on his record.  A mom (25) and her two little kids, ages 2 and 4, were walking home from the grocery store.  They were in the crosswalk when the light turned green and were rushing to finish crossing the street.  Theam struck all three people.  The 4-year-old was thrown from the stroller and is still in the hospital.

Last Wednesday, Michelle P. Medeiros, 17, of Methuen, struck a 12-year-old boy and drove away.  Medeiros had no plans to tell authorities, but was caught when police found the car at a body shop.  At first, authorities thought she was drag racing.  They no longer think that, although she was speeding and police are looking for the driver of another car that was speeding behind her.  Medeiros says she was rushing to make a hair appointment in Lawrence.

I often write in this space about how dangerous cars are to public health and how poor behavior by those who operate them will eventually lead to injury and death.  In Lowell this past week, this has happened three times, and the victims were the most vulnerable parties on the road: pedestrians.  People on foot have no crumple zones or air bags.  Crosswalks are nothing but paint and provide no protection.

Pedestrians do bear some of the responsibility, too.  The family in the second crash should have waited for the WALK signal, assuming there was one and it was working properly.  Jaywalking is a punch line to most people, but I take it very seriously and I take steps to reduce the frequency of jaywalking in Cambridge where possible via good traffic signal and intersection design.  Despite this, I constantly witness people step into traffic without looking, many times wearing headphones or blabbing on the cell.  They simply assume drivers will see them and stop, I suppose.  But crash #2 reminds us how often there are drunks behind the wheel, some of whom are so soused they can barely see three people in the crosswalk directly in front of them.

Anytime we step in the street, we expose ourselves to being struck, and it is our responsibility to look out for our own safety.

As for the drivers, the details in crash #1 are not yet known.  Theam should lose his license to drive for life.  Medeiros should lose hers for ten years, and after that she should have to start the learner’s permit process all over again.  As you know, I have absolutely no tolerance for people who behave this way while driving.  Before you say I am being to harsh, take a look at the picture of the 12-year-old from crash #3 in his hospital bed.  No civilized society should tolerate any activity that results in injuries like that.

These stories also remind us how important good road design is.  I don’t mean to pick on Lowell, but the city does have many wide and fast streets that are simply a hazard for pedestrians.  As fewer people in the future are able to afford the rising cost of driving, more folks will have no choice but to walk to run errands, commute, attend church, and visit friends.  Others of us choose to walk.  Whoever they are, pedestrians should be protected.  Every future road design should keep pedestrians in mind.

This includes Billerica Center.  There is a road improvement project on the way.  It’s now in the conceptual design stages.  I will be covering this project so that you can be involved in the process.  Do you think Boston Road is safe to cross now?  Is the Center “walkable?”  If not, how would you like to see it improved?

If you get involved, you can shape the design.  If you walk in the Center now — or would like to — make yourself heard so that the design will include safety improvements for pedestrians.  Without them, a crash like the ones in Lowell could happen here.

Chew with Your Mouth Closed

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen — possibly the scariest story you will see in the news all year.  A report — in the “g” section of the Boston Globe — about people who eat while driving.

In it, there are a half dozen people who admit — on the record — to outright negligent behavior while driving.  That includes driving with one’s knees while eating ice cream with a spoon.  One lady crashed her car eating an enchilada — and she still does it.  All but one of the interviewees gave their full name and age.  (How do reporters find these people?  How many DWEs — diving while eating — declined to comment?)

I guess we’re supposed to be entertained by this story.  “Ha ha!  Eating a sloppy burger while soiling my clothes and possibly watching for pedestrians!  I do that too!”  But it’s yet another wake-up call that most people engage in this and similar kids of stupid driving behavior, and worse, think that that it’s perfectly OK, even quaint.

I don’t care how “busy” you are.  Find 5 minutes right before or after your trip to throw down your Taco Bell valu-meal.

Once we agree that this is a problem, how do we fix it?  I have advocated for a law banning anything with a screen (including navigation systems) from the front seat unless there is a passenger.  Now I realize that is not enough.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes that 80% of all crashes are due to some form of distracted driving.  So in order to eliminate eating, my new law would have to read like this: the operator of a motor vehicle is prohibited from touching anything — while the car is in motion — except the steering wheel, gearshift, and permanently-mounted controls of the car (windows, climate control, radio, etc.).  You want to change the CD?  Wait until the next reed light.  This also means no more riding with a dog on your lap.  (Over the weekend I saw a fellow driving with two small dogs on his lap.)

Part 2 of my plan to make the roads safer and save us hundreds of millions of dollars a year is to take the worst 10% of the drivers off the road every year.  (I would start with every DWE quoted in the globe story.)  Not only would we have fewer crashes every year, saving us emergency response and health care money, the roads would be less crowded.  Less crowded roads mean we have to expand fewer highways and the pavement and bridges break down less quickly.

The carless would then need to find a bus, train, or bicycle.  Before you tell me how unfair or cruel this is, remember that millions of people do this every day by choice.  Besides, if you are among the 90% that retains you license, you get a lot less traffic to contend with.  Which makes you a winner.

In the meantime, put the sandwich down and put both hands on the steering wheel.

Clunker

Did this summer’s federal government-subsidized “Cash for Clunkers” program help you or hurt you?  That depends on who you are.

• If you sell new cars, it helped you — temporarily.  Sales of new cars surged in July and August, but most industry experts — and even car makers themselves — expect showrooms to empty out in September again now that the program has expired.  All Cash for Clunkers did, it would seem, is move up transactions that would have happened anyway in the next several months.  The projected calendar year 2010 sales numbers look bad too (about 11 million vehicles).  A few years ago we were buying 16 million a year.
• If you process paperwork in a car dealership, it hurt you.  The feds didn’t have the infrastructure ready to handle the demand.  What a mess.
• If you sell used cars, it hurt you.  Why buy a perfectly good used car when the government will pay you $4500 to buy a new one?  And what is the government going to do with the 700,000 cars — all driveable — it bought from us?  Will it put them on the market to help out people who can’t afford even a discounted new car?  No.  It will throw them all away.
• If you consume in moderation, it hurt you.  Yes, when you bought your last car several years ago, you made sure it got great gas mileage because you were green before green was cool.  Now it’s time for a new one (a hybrid with even better gas mileage, maybe?), but sorry, your car doesn’t qualify for any rebate because it’s too efficient.  You get nothing for making the right decision the first time.
• On the other hand, if you didn’t give a damn about the environment when you bought your last car (or truck), you get a $4500 gift in return for your old beast.  Cash for Clunkers really helped you.  Ka-ching!  I wonder when the government will pay people for smoking or getting fat on fast food.  (One catch, as a Forgotten Man pointed out, you will have to pay taxes on that money you just got, because the IRS considers it to be income.)
• If you are a taxpayer who didn’t buy any car this year, Cash for Clunkers hurt you.  The government took about $3 billion of your money and gave it to people to go on a shopping spree.  This is on top of the money it already gave GM and Chrysler to save their skins.  Was this part of the greater “economic recovery” package, or just “recession spin?”  Everybody feels better about a bad economy when they see news stories about people buying gleaming new cars.  Right?
• If you are an environmentalist, it depends on your perspective.  Sure, replacing 700,000 vehicles each with one that is more efficient is a gain in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.  It is a minor one, though, since there are over 300,000,000 vehicles on American roads right now.  On the flip side, all of those “clunkers” will be simply thrown away.  I’ll bet most of them had a few good years left on them.  Instead, they will find their way into a landfill where “dead car goo” — engine oil, gasoline, wiper fluid, transmission fluid, radiator fluid, power brake fluid, refrigerant, grease, and a metric tons of other junk will pollute soil and groundwater supplies.

Ideas have two critical components — concept and design.  In concept, getting gas hogs off the road is a good thing.  But in design, Cash for Clunkers had too many problems and may have defeated its own environmental purpose.

I was excited when a democrat was elected president because I thought actions to advance the environmental protection  (and science in general) were long overdue.  But Obama swung and missed on this one.  This program clearly wasn’t thought all the way through and it sure smells like a box of candy for car makers.  (An irony here is that it helped foreign makes more than the Big Three.  The Japanese had a broader lineup of small cars and it so comes as no surprise that Honda and Toyota models topped the sales list in July and August).  Companies that sell stuff in other sectors must be wondering when they will get their own version of Cash for Clunkers.

One final note.  I usually stay away from the subject of taxes and how government spends money, but there is something bothering me on the consumer end of this deal, too.  To wit, the big H award for hypocrisy in taxation goes to anyone who took $4500 (or $3500) in “free money” with Cash for Clunkers with a big grin.  These are the same folks who are first in line to protest “pork” spending bills in Congress.  That is, nothing my tax dollars are worth spending on — unless it’s spent on me.

So make fun of the line items in your next favorite “pork bill” all you want.  Whoever gets that money, think of it as “their turn” to get some “free” government money.  Cash for Clunkers was yours.