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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > August > 10
Monday, August 10, 2009
Editorial: Drive and type? That’s legal?
The practice of driving and texting is insane.
If there was a documentable trend of people tying their shoes and driving, or reading books while going 65 mph, or anything else that required them to take their eyes off the road for an average of five seconds at a pop, the outcry would be overwhelming.
How, then, texting and driving has become socially acceptable is hard to explain. Mostly, it tells you how ridiculously hooked on cell phones we are.
Several proposals have been introduced in the Ohio legislature to outlaw the practice.
The disagreements are not so much about whether a ban makes sense, but whether the law should allow drivers to be pulled over and ticketed just for texting, or if they have to be stopped for something else.
Waiting for an offender to hurt or kill himself or someone else is too forgiving. If an officer sees someone texting or dialing, that’s worth a stop, a citation and a fine. Too much is at risk.
Some studies have found that truckers who text travel the length of a football field while they’re typing on their telephones. Do you want to be in the car that a semi comes upon quickly and unexpectedly?
An AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety poll last spring found that 87 percent of people consider motorists e-mailing or texting to be threatening, which is just shy of the 90 percent who think drunken drivers are a menace. Nonetheless, 21 percent had recently offended.
That’s pretty compelling evidence that a law is necessary, that much-needed education campaigns won’t be enough.
Not shockingly, the number of self-confessing texters was highest among drivers between the ages of 16 and 24, about half of whom said they had sent text messages from behind the wheel.
Oh good. The youngest, least experienced drivers who are confident nothing will ever happen to them are glued to their screens the most frequently.
Maybe those who want to make texting only a “secondary offense” — requiring that the driver be stopped for, say, running a light or bobbing and weaving — will think twice about their reasoning if they can imagine young people picking up a habit that they may well practice all their lives.
Think of how dangerous the roads could become if texting and cruising at highway speeds increasingly becomes the norm.
Banning any form of texting is so much easier than regulating cell phones and driving. The great bulk of people who would draw the line at texting have before, or do regularly, drive and talk. Increasingly, though the research on even that is becoming more alarming.
Some studies have found that drivers using a cell phone increase their odds of crashing by four times; the loss of reaction time is equal to that of someone who has a .08 percent blood alcohol level, which, in Ohio, is the legal threshold for being intoxicated.
One safety researcher says:
“We’ve spent billions on air bags, antilock brakes, better steering, safer cars and roads, but the number of fatalities has remained constant. Our return on investment for those billions is zero. And that’s because we’re using devices in our cars.”
Seventeen states have banned texting. Ohio should do the obvious, too.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: New shopping outlet a good use of I-75 corridor
In the late 1990s, there was talk of a “mega-mall” just south of where the new Cincinnati Premium Outlet center is on Interstate 75 in Warren County.
An entrepreneur wanted to develop a mall that he said would draw four times the people that Kings Island draws. He had nearby government officials on board.
But the plan generated little public enthusiasm and some outright opposition. People worried about traffic, sprawl, pollution and a lack of planning.
Some also worried about the well-being of existing malls.
Also, there was much criticism of the call for an expensive new I-75 interchange a mile south of Ohio 63. The plan died.
Perhaps the same idea today would get a different reception, given the economy. People everywhere are slower to look into the mouths of gift horses.
True, that stretch of I-75 between Cincinnati and Dayton is still seen as having a great future, almost no matter what. Still, you don’t want to take too much for granted.
At any rate, now comes the opening of a new shopping center. It has generated more enthusiasm than it otherwise might, precisely because it comes in the middle of hard times.
The difficult times would not have been apparent to anybody noting only the big crowds in the opening week. But a lot of those people might have been looking for the bargains that come with big openings.
The opening is good to see. The project is of a scale that fits reasonably well into the prevailing approach to the I-75 stretch. It doesn’t redefine the whole area, as a mega-mall would have. It builds on the idea that the interstate strip itself is the best part of Warren and Butler counties to develop commercially. That leaves open the possibility of other parts of those counties retaining a fairly peaceful feel.
And if the strip is to be developed commercially, then retail itself is a particularly good use, serving so many people. An easily accessible shopping center can even attract people from outside the region and some who are just passing by.
What happens along I-75 is a subject the entire Dayton-Cincinnati region must focus on. In recent years, both Montgomery and Hamilton counties have lost population, while Warren County has been one of the fastest growing in the state. At least until gas prices go through the roof and stay there, the growth — the movement of assets — seems likely to continue at one pace or another.
Meanwhile, the people and authorities in the “bedroom communities” between the two metropolitan areas have a stake in the bookend urban areas that define their roles and identities.
The arrival of a shopping center isn’t necessarily the greatest kind of economic development news. It brings new jobs, of course, but they aren’t particularly well-paying. A shopping center doesn’t have the kind of positive impact of, say, a manufacturing center or big high-tech company, which brings in money from outside the community.
There’s also the reality that consumers have only a certain amount of money to spend, especially in a stagnant overall economy. So new stores may end up undermining old stores (and old jobs).
Still, quality of life matters. If the I-75 strip develops in a way that improves the attractiveness of the region as a place to live, that can’t hurt.
Anyway, these days, it’s good to see any kind of new economic activity.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Economy, Editorials, Local Business, Martin Gottlieb, Suburban Communities
