CAUTION: Road Work Ahead

In a typical year, the state of Texas has more than 1,000 highway projects under contract. As a result, drivers are likely to encounter a variety of work zone conditions, including uneven pavement, narrow lanes, concrete barriers, slow moving equipment, and loose gravel.

About 100 people, most of them motorists, are killed in work zones across Texas each year.

If you’re traveling in Texas, here’s the law regarding driving in work zones:

Texas law requires you to obey all signs in work zones. Fines for moving violations can be as much as $400 in construction or maintenance work zones marked with signs indicating that fines double when workers are present. You should always see a “Begin . . .” sign at the start of such zones. Enforcement of rules while in the ‘zone’ ends when you see the “End . . .” sign. (Note: I have noticed that the wording on ‘zone’ signs sometimes varies. For instance, the ‘end’ sign may say, “End Road Work”, or “End Work Zone”. Regardless, you should look for and pay particular attention to where a construction or work zone begins and ends.)

TRAVEL TIPS:

• Plan ahead by checking the web at www.dot.state.tx.us for state construction sites where travel may be delayed.
• Allow extra travel time, and be patient. Reducing your speed from 60 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour in a two-mile work zone delays your journey by only ONE minute!
• Observe all work zone warning signs; and, pay attention to flaggers in orange vests directing traffic.
• Merge at the first notice of a lane closure or change.
• Keep a safe distance between your vehicle, other vehicles, traffic barriers, construction workers, and equipment. Extra caution is required when driving in an active work zone at night!
• Avoid distractions! Don’t use your cell phone or send text messages. Don’t fiddle with the radio controls or your MP3 player.

Drivers can get tickets or even go to jail for going too fast on the roads, but one local sheriff in Rogers, Arkansas was able to get off without being ticketed even after being pulled over for speeding.

Benton County Sheriff Keith Ferguson was pulled over for going too fast on May 1 at North Second and Easy streets in Rogers. He was going 60mph in a 35mph zone at around 1a.m. That was enough for Rogers police Officer Aaron Dildy to make a traffic stop.

Police dashcam video showed Ferguson producing his ID and registration just like anybody else. But Dildy only issued the sheriff a warning citation, which Ferguson actually refused to accept.

Ferguson told us he never identified himself as a police officer, so that couldn’t have influenced the traffic stop. Ferguson said, “If he would have wrote me a ticket I would have paid the ticket but I wasn’t going to ask him to write me a ticket.

Rogers Chief of Police Steve Hamilton told us the situation played out exactly like it should have. Hamilton said, “Receiving a warning is pretty much a standard practice. I think what an officer is looking for is compliance.”

This isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2006 Ferguson was pulled over by Bentonville police. That time Ferguson drove away from the officer before he was even told he could leave. Hamilton also said there’s a possibility Dildy didn’t know who Ferguson was at the time of the stop.

Hmmm… Driving 60 mph in a 35 mph zone at night warrants a warning?! Yea… Right!

Just one of the interesting things you can find on Google’s Street-View.

Here’s the original, live link to the Google Maps webpage.

French policemen along a street in Paris. Check out the funky tricycle motorcycle, with the single wheel in the BACK!

Protest Red Light Cameras in Austin, Texas!

Call : http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/default.htm
E-Mail: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm
Agenda: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council_meetings/public_meetings.cfm

Red light cameras present several constitutional issues (due process, privacy statutes and possibly the 14th Amendment/equal protection clause) and they are ineffective.

• Studies nationwide show rear-end collisions have risen anywhere from 8-81% where implemented, and the drivers who cause the worst collisions are shown to be the least likely to account for the cameras’ presence.
• The programs are open to corruption: private vendors profit from fines levied spawning illegal and unethical measures to increase fines; they have access to private information without any public accountability.
• Prevention is easier and less expensive: instead of lowering yellow light times to increase fines, upping them one second can decrease collisions by 40%!

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A study of red-light cameras in Houston showed that traffic accidents doubled at those intersections in the first year after they were put in.

Mayor Bill White defended the use of the cameras, which he has favored, saying they prevented even more wrecks. Critics, however, said that the city-financed study supports their contention that the cameras are more about generating revenue than making streets safer.

Violators photographed running red lights at the 50 intersections monitored by cameras get $75 tickets in the mail. Since September 2006, the cameras have led to at least 387,000 citations and generated more than $20 million in revenue.

“There is no scientific, documented proof that collisions are reduced with the red-light camera program,” said Mike Sullivan, a Houston city councilman who opposes the cameras. “I’ve maintained all along that the program was flawed.”

White said a 40 percent reduction in citations in October compared with the same month a year ago is “proof in the pudding” that drivers are heeding the cameras.

“Our goal is to reduce the number of people who are running red lights,” he said in Tuesday’s online edition of the Houston Chronicle.

“Collisions are going up all over the city,” Bob Stein, a Rice University political science professor and one of the report’s authors, said Monday. “But red-light cameras have held back that increase at approaches where they have been installed.”

The mayor and the study’s authors are recommending more cameras at some intersections for additional research but acknowledged that comprehensive citywide vehicle crash data are not available.

Stein also acknowledged that Houston police figures show that the accident rate is down since 2004 but said those data are unreliable because police don’t file reports on every crash.

Researchers plan to look at insurance industry data to bolster their findings. Those results are expected sometime next summer.

Austin has seven red-light cameras. Police statistics on four of the cameras show that accidents increased at two locations and remained the same at two. Accident information was not available for the other three cameras.

Source: Austin American Statesman