Dakota Today

**Pseudo Road Photo from near Winner, SD April 4, 2009

Winner, South Dakota, seems to be in kind of a radar hole. It can be raining or snowing like crazy here and it may not show up on KELO or KSFY radar. South Dakota Safe Driving site has photos from cameras on highways and interstate, but none from Winner or Tripp County.

 Below is a road photo of the kind we need from here. Note the extra data from the airport weather. That kind of info should also be a part of the actual road photos. Click on the image for a larger version. It is however mostly just more snow.

 I haven't checked any sites for road conditions here, but my guess is "No driving recommended" would be appropriate. Even so, I have to slog through it for some groceries. My back has not recovered from shoveling the previous foot of snow that was finally cleaned and melted off most roads, driveways, and sidewalks. This is a generous resupply that I don't think we really needed today or tomorrow.

***Stay tuned and let powers that be know we need a real highway camera near Winner, SD-- Doug Wiken

**Wrecks-- Nissan 300ZX and SD Vehicle Titles and Registrations "system"

57FIND  Below are a couple photos indicating what happens to a neat 1986 Nissan 300ZX when a pickup truck or stock trailer with 8 cattle in it rolls over the top of it. Following the photos are a couple observations on the "improved" SD Title and registration system. First from the front driver side: And from the rear driver's side: Both drivers were very unlucky to find an unsanded highway over-pass several hours after it started to become slick but also very lucky to both walk away from the crash. We are also now finding out that if you own a car that is becoming a collector or classic vehicle, you want to check current values and consider collision insurance updates. We have been more than a little surprised by what has happened to prices of the 300ZX vehicles since we started working on this one.

 More significant perhaps is an update on the apparently still troubled new vehicle registration and title system. My son was driving back to leave the Z car here for the winter and return with a Jeep which works a lot better in snow and ice. I went in to local court house to get vehicle stickers on several vehicles. No matter what the progress reports on the system are, this system is still very slow compared to the old system and apparently if comments from other court houses are to be believed is no where close to being capable of using online registration which was one of the reasons claimed for the change.

 Licensing that used to take a few minutes can now drag into something closer to an hour. One very agravatiing change is that if you have not licensed a vehicle in the previous year and the full year has not elapsed, the new system will not prorate and add on the days before a full year registration. It will charge for the whole previous year even if only 10 days remain until the new licensing year. I was not really going to pay $94 to license a jeep on Friday when a couple weeks from now, the registration would be $47.

So, we did not have a licensed Jeep for my son to drive back to Rapid City so he took back a cold-blooded diesel best suited for winters in southern Arizona.

 Legislators need to consider making vehicle registration prorated by the day. Surely a computer system can divide the total yearly cost by 365 and generate a system that can bill for 375 or 450 days without tacking on a whole year of charges for vehicle parked for work until repaired.

The desire to grub out extra dollars without regard to fairness or logic is more of the upside-down inside-out tax and squander logic of South Dakota Republican administrations who then turn around an claim they have "no new taxes".

**Stay tuned for a post on the wheel tax backwardness-- Doug Wiken

** Highway crash deaths.. counts versus rates and NPR with Robert Reich

Robert Reich on NPR August 20, 2008 noted that the number of US traffic deaths is down. He also noted that roads and cars are not a lot better because both highway funding and money available for new vehicle purchases are down because of the dreadful US economy. He predicted that next year with an even more rotten economy would be the "safest year yet" or something much like that.

 Much as I usually appreciate former Labor Secretary Reich's comments, he was using the wrong kind of statistic for his comments. There are several ways to look at crash fatalities, but a simple count is probably not the best and as used by Reich almost misleading if not irrelevant. Using rates such as crash deaths per million miles of vehicle travel or crash deaths per registered vehicle, etc. provide more relevant and explanatory information. A declining economy may also influence the rate of crash deaths, but I would guess that measure would not change in the same way the raw count data has or will.

 Factors which might produce an actual statistically significant change in the rate are more likely to involve increased and more effective enforcement of drunken driving laws, reduction of the speed limit to 55 or 60 miles per hour, uniform and better highway signing, increased seat belt use, etc.

 More useful information than that presented in the way Reich did today can be found at the links below:
 Wikepedia general information on Road Traffic Safety
 Governors Highway Safety Officers Association on Historic crash data
The GHSA has an agenda, but the information is useful anyway even if it is aimed at showing these officials may actually earn some of their income.

 And below thanks to John is a link to a story that only relates somewhat to the story on crash data in a way that shows the need for separate data on intentional and unintentional injury.
 Hell hath no fury like a drunken woman in a car

 

**Meanwhile, stay tuned and remember a slogan I wrote for the SD Highway Safety program about 40 years ago, "Good Neighbors Drive Sober"--- Doug Wiken

** Hell Not Frozen Over, but Paradise is Ablaze

Not much of a post, but "Hell not frozen over, but Paradise Ablaze" seemed like an interesting title for a post.

Fires in California and elsewhere are not a joke however.

Paradise to be Evacuated because of Fires

We might perhaps wonder if the US might be in better shape to stop, control, or prevent such fires if the National Guard units were in the US instead of Iraq. We might also wonder if the cheapest form of terrorist destruction might be a match and a strong wind on a hot dry day in a forested area.

 But, don't telephone any discussion of that idea, because FISA has been changed compliments of our gutless wonders in Congress ready to sell out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in their appeal to the most mindless parts of the population which those same Congress critters are unwilling to meaningfully educate or inform on actual issues that go beyond 15 second sound bites. Your telephone is a long-distance recording device

And, parts of the Bush administration are advertising for contractors to scan the internet for terrorists.  That way government activities that are normally forbidden in functioning democracies can be done anyway by private contractors.  Not sure how they can handle all the information since the administration was unable to put together a dozen or fewer FBI reports which indicated a terrrorist strike was immient.

. *** Stay tuned even if it is too hot and humid to actually think for very long--- Doug Wiken