Ostriches and Center Lane Left Turn Only

    Many years ago when two lane highways expanded to three lanes, the center lane was used as a common passing lane for traffic in either direction. It was assumed, apparently, that drivers would be certain before attempting to pass that there would NOT be another driver approaching from the other direction also passing.

    Well, that was a bad assumption. Untold numbers of head-on crashes, many of them fatal, convinced the appropriate traffic agencies that a more reasonable use for that center lane would be to use it only for left turns. Still commonly used by drivers traveling in either direction but at a much slower speed if not stopped and at many fewer places since left turns are only required or possible at intersections or at an entrance to a business.

    Not a bad solution, actually. However, when municipalities and school districts decided that driver training in high school was too expensive or not pragmatically justifiable whole generations of young drivers grew up not being completely sure of the meaning of the sign “Center Lane Left Turn Only”.

    Which brings us to the ostrich. For years, people have been talking about escaping danger like “ostriches hiding their heads in the sand” in the supposedly mistaken belief that with their head out of sight, the rest of their body was, too.

    Today I saw a driver wishing to make a left turn into a driveway from a center lane and only the front wheels of the car were in the turn lane. The whole REAR OF THE CAR was still fully in the travel lane from which it had come. That driver seemed totally oblivious to the rear half of the car remaining prominently in harm's way. Immediately I thought of the ostrich story.

    The belief that ostriches actually bury their heads in the sand is only a myth. According to Karl S. Kruszelnicki (Doctor Karl of ABC Science) Dr Karl's Great Moments In Science, Pliny the Elder wrote (of ostriches) “…they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of the body is concealed”. Historians assume that this single sentence is the root of the myth.

    Since humans are not ostriches and since such ostrich-like behavior is only a myth, GET YOUR WHOLE CAR into the left turn lane. (And don’t turn your wheels until you can completely make your turn. If you get hit from behind while waiting to make the turn and your front wheels are already turned, a hit in the rear will push you into oncoming traffic.)

Accidents or Crashes?

    During a recent deluge of such intensity and duration that I started counting down from 40 days and 40 nights I was amazed at how many drivers failed to turn their headlights on. I was carefully proceeding at nearly the posted speed -- faster than that would have been foolish. The rain was so heavy it created a nearly “white-out” condition yet drivers in virtually invisible white or gray cars, without headlights, insisted in pushing the envelope by passing repeatedly and with seeming disregard for any semblance of safe following distance. After passing me they disappeared into the evanescent unknown never to be seen again.

    Yet, if a car they were passing moved into their lane because they didn't see the unlighted car, a major crash could have occurred. The same would have happened if the car they caught up to and persistently tail-gated would have braked suddenly for an animal or other unexpected obstruction.

    The news of such a crash would have been covered by the local media and talked about as “an accident” on route 30 or wherever. After the initial spectacularity of the event in the news little more would be heard about it. Either the news people are not approaching the police agencies afterwards to learn about the post-crash findings or the police are reluctant to share with the media such information.

    For years, crashes have been referred to by almost everyone as “accidents” when, in fact, almost all such crashes could be avoided by a combination of common sense, defensive driving and patience -- emphasis on patience. If you have to arrive five minutes earlier, begin your trip ten minutes sooner. Don’t drive 80 miles an hour ten feet behind another car in the pouring down rain! You’ll only get there five minutes earlier -- if you get there. And turn your lights on.

    There’s nothing accidental about most crashes. Referring to crashes as accidents as though some Divine Puppeteer was pulling strings from above can lead one to believe in the inevitability of such occurrences. When people accept that they’re going to have an accident sometime, they probably will. They fail to realize that they DON’T have to have an accident; that their behavior can forestall such a tragedy.

    If post-crash follow-up information was publicized as thoroughly as the details about the occurrence, people might be able to learn how to avoid being involved in crashes. If you refuse to learn from what you see, you will become a victim.

    A company specializing in driver safety training doing business as the Smith System

                            http://www.smith-system.com/

                 touts five key points to assist in crash free safe driving:
           
    1) Aim High in Steering -Look at least 15 seconds ahead of you.
   
    2) Get the Big Picture - 360 degree panoramic awareness

    3) Keep Your Eyes Moving - Scan your mirrors every 5 to 8 seconds

    4) Leave Yourself an Out - Control the Space around Your Vehicle

    5) Make Sure They See You - When All See Each Other Conflicts are Avoided

    If you drive with the Smith System Key Points, you will actually be driving rather being a mere helpless passenger behind your own steering wheel.

    A note about following distance. The old guideline of one car length for every ten miles per hour is seriously out-dated. Better now to judge your following distance by the number of seconds you are behind another vehicle.

    If a car is 15 feet long, a following distance of 6 car-lengths at 60 mph would be 90 feet. At 60 mph you are covering 88 feet in one second. Do you really want to have only one second to see, to think, to react, to brake and to slow before crashing into the poor guy in front of you because he didn’t want to hit the dog that just ran out in front of him? I think not.

    If, however, you allowed a three second (minimum) following distance, you’d have a cushion of 264 feet. Even at slower speeds say 50 mph the old method would give you 75 feet of cushion, 73 of which you would cover in one second. Three seconds would give you 220 feet of cushion.

    It’s easy. Just watch the car in front of you. When it passes a mark in the road or a sign alongside the road or goes under an overpass start counting, “one-thousand one, one-thousand two, one-thousand three” and so on. If you reach the same spot, mark, shadow before you reach one-thousand three, you’re too close. In bad weather, five seconds is better.

    Of course, if texting or talking on the phone are more important to you than safe driving, you won’t have the time to follow any of these suggestions. Have a nice day.

Flash Mobs, Tea Dances and Noise Violations

    On the evening of Sunday, September 30, Don Blyler, event planner extraordinaire, foisted upon Lancaster’s downtown residents a Provincetown-like “Tea Dance” called Sunset Sundance from the top level of the Prince street parking garage.

    The featured music was presented by one of Washington D.C.’s finest DJ’s, David Merrill. A check of his Facebook page reveals that his specialty genre is Fire Island-inspired cutting edge beats as in “House, Progressive, Tribal, Trance and Electro-House” sounds.

    Unbelievably, as a practitioner of “cutting edge sounds”, David Merrill is cheeky enough to credit Nietzsche with the comment, “Without music life would be a mistake“. I seriously doubt that Nietzsche would have included the insistent, persistent, throbbing gay disco beat as required listening for a music lover.

    This “Happening” (as used to occur during the Beat generation years ago) was engineered like a Flash Mob occurrence of this generation -- the location was Secret until it was announced via Tweet or Facebook or eMail the morning of the event.

    Even if hobnobbing elbow to elbow with a dance floor full of men is your thing (this was a gay-ish event for the benefit of the LGBT community,) you had to be prepared with money. General admission was $55. VIP admission was available for $110. And for that Special VIP, “Priority” VIP admission could be had for $1100.

    Have you ever tried to listen to quiet music in the privacy of your own home? Have unwanted, unwarranted sounds invaded your home for more than a minute or two? Or ten minutes? Or FOUR hours?

    Well, thanks to our city officials, Lancaster has a noise ordinance designed to prevent invasive sounds from penetrating into your private, quiet space. Like the sounds emanating from the roof of the Prince street parking garage for the entire downtown neighborhood.

Yeah, sure.

    A police officer ticketing cars parked in a No Parking space nearby said when asked if the sounds crossed property lines, “I think they’re crossing half the city”. The officer called in and asked for information about the LOUD event and learned that a “variance” had been authorized for this event. With a variance you can make any noise you want to without fear of prosecution.

    A variance, when sought, has to be applied for and a notice of application must be published far enough in advance for affected people to express their feelings about the request. However, with a one-time event, a variance can be granted by a police officer appointed by the Chief of Police.  What seems to be missing here is that even a streamlined “express” variance MUST COMPLY with the stipulations set forth in the basic noise ordinance.



        Chapter 198 Noise Subsection 198-7 A(5) (pertaining to Variances)

        “In determining whether to grant or deny the application,                        
        the Board (Noise Control Review Board) shall balance
        the hardship to the applicant versus the adverse impact to the public health, safety and welfare
        and shall consider at a minimum the following conditions:

            (a)  The physical characteristics of the emitted sound;
            (b)  The times and duration of the emitted sound;
            (c)  The geography, zone and population density of the affected area;
            (d)  Whether the public health and safety is endangered;
            (e)  Whether the sound source predates the receivers; and
            (f)  Whether compliance with the standards from which the variance is sought would
                  produce hardship without equal or greater benefit to the public.



        “The Chief of the Bureau of Police or his designee may, upon application and guided by the
        standards for use as set forth in Subsection A(5) hereof, grant special variances
        for infrequent events or activities, including but not limited to band concerts,
        block parties, church carnivals or other performances or similar activities,
        publicly or privately sponsored and presented at any public or private space outdoors.”


    It seems in the case of this event, the Hardship requirement was never even addressed. The burden of proving hardship is on the applicant. The applicant has to prove that denial of the request would create a hardship on him.

    “Hardship” is defined as privation or suffering.

    “Privation” is lack of what is needed for existence.

    “Suffering” is enduring death, pain, or distress.

    I don’t understand how being denied the authority to make music loud enough to permeate an entire neighborhood disturbing the peace of all who wish to hear their own music in their own home could be considered a hardship.

Liberals and Conservatives

When I was young and much more naïve I thought of myself as an intellectual liberal (a description, not a label).
I didn’t really consider all the unintended baggage that would attend such a description. To my way of thinking while label-ignorant, an Intellectual Liberal was a thinking person who would consider the entire spectrum of possibilities before taking a position or making a stand.

A Conservative on the other hand was a person who wished to be thought of as a thinking person but who denied the existence of a spectrum having already decided what should be.

Labeling is easier than thinking and demonstrates an absence of rational thought. Just tell me what you THINK. Leave the labeling to the grocery store clerk.


        “If by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind,
         someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions,   
         someone who cares about the welfare of the people
        -their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights
         and their civil liberties
        -someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions
         that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal‘,
         then I'm proud to say I'm a ‘Liberal.’”

                                                                                    —John F. Kennedy
                                                                                                    Profiles in Courage
                    

Customer Service

The demise of customer service seems an evolutionary stage in the dumbing down of America. From the cash registers programmed to tell a high school dropout cashier how much change is due the customer to the computerized “receptionist” in the Customer Service office which spews forth a menu containing ALL the possible reasons a person might call to discuss.

The register calculates the change due after the amount of cash tendered is entered. The result is in dollars and cents. That’s the way the cashier returns the change to the customer -- first the cash (because that’s what the computer said) then the coins. The cashier now tries to balance 94 cents worth of change on top of flat paper money. Many times the coins go sliding off the pile and hit the drive-thru pavement and roll under the car.

Before computers did the thinking for humans, making change was by the “counting up” method beginning with the coins first, then the bills. The coins nestled comfortably in the cupped palm. The thumb and forefinger were readily able to secure the bills -- no muss, no fuss, no errant coins. These logical computers have interfered with and oftentimes have destroyed human logical thinking.

In customer service call centers where people have been replaced by computers it seems the menus are designed by those who expect only the unenlightened to call. If the caller is one who can formulate a question, the presumptuous list of possibilities in the menu will rarely include the specific reason being called about. One experienced, dedicated human call taker can redirect to the appropriate authority with much greater efficiency than a “guessing” machine. I am reminded of Kathryn Hepburn’s character in Desk Set. She was the “expert“ about to be replaced by efficiency expert Spencer Tracy‘s computer.

I worked, for a short time prior to early retirement, in the AAA Emergency Road Service call center. It was an ideal position for me. A medical difficulty forced me out of the tractor trailer I had been driving into a non-driving job. I brought years of driving experience to AAA along with thorough knowledge of the geographical area. I could “find” motorists with car trouble who themselves didn’t know where they were.

The company decided, however, to computerize the Road Service function and they moved it to another office a prohibitive distance away thus ending my Road Service tenure. Their thinking was that a computer would allow them to employ minimally skilled people who would not need extensive training. Essentially, the Road Service workers would have only to enter the membership number of the motorist-in-distress and a rudimentary location and a service truck would be on its way.

Needless to say the computer could not ask the customer where they began their trip, where they were headed and approximately how long they were driving before they got into trouble so that no educated guess about their location “across the road from a red barn with a couple cows in the field next to it” could be made.

I love computers but they can’t read between the lines. People can.

Theme Music

I grew up in a small town in an era when in-home entertainment was limited to the piano if you had a piano and someone who knew how to make music rather than just sounds, or the radio. Television had not yet migrated from the laboratories into working class living rooms.

Among the favorite radio shows of my elders were The Lone Ranger, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and for my mother, The Romance of Helen Trent and Our Gal Sunday. Others usually listened to included  
The FBI in Peace and War, The Green Hornet, Doctor Christian, The Shadow, Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club and a host of others.

During school days I listened with my grandfather to the evening shows, The Lone Ranger, and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon before supper, homework and bed. It was during sick days home from school being nurtured with apricot nectar, apple juice and tasty soft foods that I could enjoy the daytime offerings not the least of which was Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club.

Midday is when my mother’s favorite soaps came on. Captive audience that I was I listened to those, too. I don’t believe the story line grabbed me. I doubt it. I don’t remember. What started getting my attention was the music. Especially the themes. It was over the ensuing lifetime that I started learning what music was being used for which theme -- it became a kind of musical crossword puzzle.
It was not until many years past that time that I finally learned the theme used for The Lone Ranger was not ONLY from Rossini’s William Tell Overture but also from Franz Liszt’s Les Preludes.

Driving across the desert one night in Arizona or New Mexico I  heard a piece of music I remembered from my youth but never knew its name. Now, I know the name. It was the overture from the opera Donna Diana by Emil von Resnicek which was used as the main theme for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Not that I had any taxonomic fixation about naming every tune I had ever heard but, more simply, if I want to hear a tune that’s no longer being used as a theme, I can find it whenever I want to now that I know the name.

Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion seems to be a modern day variation on Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club. And the Breakfast Club march around the breakfast table is approximated on WRTI’s, (Temple University Public Radio) Sousalarm at 7:15 A.M. with a tribute to the late great John Phillip Sousa.

The musical crossword was gradually being filled in. Now with more answers than questions I find myself just enjoying the sounds and noting connections here and there.

Thus began my life long association with music. It was only the beginning.

On Glass Half full/Half Empty

The process of filling or emptying a glass or any other container is simply that -- a process. Nothing more. To attempt to impart psychological or philosophical qualities to an inanimate physical process is ridiculous. If the container is being filled and the filler reaches the half-way mark, the container is half full. If the container is being emptied and the level reaches the half-way mark, the container is half empty.

According to the Chemistry Cat: "The optimist sees the glass half full. The pessimist sees the glass half empty. The chemist sees the glass completely full, half in the liquid state and half in the vapor state."