When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Courtesy, not a new law, will make roads safer First published: Monday, December 31, 2007
The recent snow in the Capital Region has raised a definite concern for drivers. There were news reports that a woman's car was damaged by snow and ice that had blown off a truck she was following. Now the question has been posed to state lawmakers whether to make it illegal when people don't properly remove snow from their vehicles.
A new law is not the answer. Such a law would be almost impossible to enforce. I have seen not only the average John Q. Public driving vehicles without cleaning them off, but also local school district buses, tractor-trailers, U.S. Postal Service vehicles and many other commercial vehicles as well with snow blowing off them. Think about it. Is the person who got behind the wheel of the vehicle at fault, or is the company, the school district or the federal or state government? I can't imagine how legislators would write this law. Why waste the time and effort of passing a law we all know will not be enforced? There are already numerous laws that local and state police departments do not enforce because of lack of manpower or because they know the ticket issued will most likely be reduced to some other infraction. Drive down the roads now and have your children count how many people they see driving and talking on their cellphones. You don't have enough fingers and toes to count that high. Why can't we all just take the time to be a little more conscientious about what exactly we are doing when we get behind the wheel of a vehicle and about to interact with others on the roadways we all share? TOM HART Guilderland
Well said Tommy...although I believe we have all said the same thing here....FIRST!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Snow can kill if it flies off your car into another’s
It’s that time of year again: the time when the fluffy white stuff starts falling from the sky. Love it or hate it, that also means it’s time once again for people to start thinking responsibly when taking their cars out. Well, that’s what it should mean, anyway. Unfortunately, this year — like last year, the year before that, and so on — it would appear that at the first sign of snow, it becomes every man or woman for themselves. One of the biggest dangers, though, occurs before people even back out of their driveways! Once again, people are driving with a pile of snow on the roofs of their cars! Now, what could be the danger there, you say? How about when you are driving down the Thruway, and the innocent driver behind you — someone who may have responsibly cleared the snow off their own car — gets a windshield full of frozen goodness, has their vision completely obscured, and crashes their car? Or worse, when that wonderfully fluffy snow turns into hard, sharp ice and flies off your roof into the windshield behind your car? Let’s forget for a moment that it is your legal responsibility to remove all the snow from your vehicle, not just that which you can easily reach. Can you live with yourself if your laziness causes the death of another person? We all know the dangers that deciding to drive while drunk can be, and we all consider that to be reckless — why do these same people who wouldn’t dream of driving drunk see nothing wrong in making the conscious, sober decision to drive with a potentially lethal weapon atop their car? Truckers can lose their jobs if they don’t clear the ice off their trailers. Perhaps other drivers should likewise lose their licenses for not clearing their cars properly. Please be mindful of others. You aren’t the only one who needs to be somewhere, and you certainly aren’t the only one with people who want you to reach your destination safely. But you can be certain that if the ice flies off your roof and hits my car, you will be the only person whose license plate I will be jotting down and phoning into the police.
I read the Dec. 11 letter [“Snow can kill if it flies off your car into another’s”] by Sean Mearns, who expressed his concern that people need to clean the snow off their vehicles. In his Dec. 16 letter [“Flying ice and snow only a problem for tailgaters”]m Larry Litwin felt it necessary to point out that the legal distance you should be behind a vehicle is at least three seconds. His conclusion was that if ice flies off the vehicle ahead of you and hits yours, you must be tailgating and, as a result, it is your own fault. Well, let me say to Mr. Litwin that with the thousands of vehicles on the road each day, it is virtually impossible to stay three seconds behind the vehicle ahead of you. On the Northway, it is hard to keep a safe distance. For not only is it a heavily traveled highway, but there also are vehicles frequently changing lanes. Even if you tried to stay three seconds behind someone, another vehicle that decides to pass the car ahead of them and moves into your lane, just took your three-second buffer away. Here’s another example. One winter I was driving northbound and ice from the top of a minivan driving in the opposite direction flew off and hit the side of my car and broke my driver’s side mirror. Was that my fault? I think not. The law is clear, Mr. Litwin, that people are responsible for cleaning the snow and ice off their vehicles. It’s that simple. Blaming the innocent driver whose vehicle was hit by flying ice because you feel they are tailgating is absurd. People need to be accountable instead of being lazy.
You don’t have to tailgate to get hit with flying ice
Re Dec. 16 letter, “Flying ice and snow only a problem for tailgaters”: Larry M. Litwin of Scotia recently wrote that flying ice from other vehicles should be a problems only if one tailgates. He is correct that tailgating can invite the problem, but that is not the only way one might be endangered. Ice and snow can fly from a vehicle in an adjacent lane, passing you or going in the opposite direction, so the problem is not limited only to tailgaters. It is, therefore, important for motorists to remove ice and snow from their vehicles, and they should be responsible if ice and snow from their vehicle causes damage and/or injury to others and their property.
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