Posted on 02/17/2007 7:43:22 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
If he had a shred of honor he would. Of course that means, we're stuck with him.
Wow. Sounds horrible. So what's the take home message? To me, it's that government generally makes things worse rather than better, especially in "unusual" conditions. Thing is that "unusual" conditions are pretty common.
In recognition that your story is worse than mine, I'd like to add my own recent tale of police interference with travel. Just a month ago, I drove from Orange County, CA to Big Bear, CA. I drove there on a cold day, in the early morning. No police in sight. There was snow and ice on the road, but only a little, so I went uphill to Big Bear with no problems.
That afternoon, I drove back down. By that time, the ice and snow on the road had melted. The road was completely clear, and remarkable for minimal traffic going uphill. What sparse traffic there was was generally going slow, with chains on the tires, clunking over the bare asphalt.
Got down to the bottom of the hill, and saw the reason for the light traffic and chains. There were a couple of cops at the bottom, stopping people from going up the hill without chains in place. Had traffic backed up for miles. Again, this was well after the snow and ice had melted, and well after there was any even marginal need for chains.
Bottom line? Police harassed people, slowed travel on the roads the taxpayers had already paid for, increased damage to those roads, and all for nothing. Well, nothing but probable overtime payments to those police that were doing all this.
What happened to the guy who was buying the wine. He seemed to know what he was doing. Fat Eddie replaced him with a politician.
"I haven't gotten an acceptable answer and that ticks the heck out of me," Rendell said.
Acceptable answer? You're in charge Ed. Put on your overcoat and get out there with your snow shovel.
From reading news reports, you would think that I-78 was the only road affected. These Philly reporters need to realize that there was just as much, if not more of an impact on I-80 and I-81 being closed.
I live 4 miles from the one exit that was closed (Berwick/Lime Ridge), and with the closure, Route 11 effectively became Interstate 80 for the past several days. It paralyzed the town, as it was bumper to bumper traffic at a snail's pace for MILES. I've seen storms that were worse, and yet we never had problems like this.
The real problem was that PennDOT was not out in force PRIOR to the storm (like they USED to be) laying down chemicals, and the number of snow plows DURING the storm was noticeably less. Yes, the sleet was bad, and some people are idiots, but lack of preparation was what caused most of this mess...
They stayed home.
During the storm I witnessed snowplows driving down the street with their blades raised and not spreading salt/sand to wherever it was they were driving. Where is the efficiency in that? Regardless of where the plow was needed, it should be driving with the blade lowered to the pavement at all times. My only guess is that it was raised to save fuel. Heck, don't worry about saving a few ounces of diesel at that point...every snowplow on the road has to be contributing.
~ Blue Jays ~
I know,I live just north of Millvile but I travel to Scranton must every day.
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