Driving Miss Lazy

I usually like studies…but this one sucks ass. According to the American Journal of Public Health (my second favorite magazine) crankin’ up the speed limit led to more than 12,000 deaths on US roads between 1995 and 2005. Now the chuckleheads are lobbying the Government-Cheese to re-lower the speed limit because they say it’ll save gas and save lives. Aye caramba!


-- First of all, everyone knows speed kills. But people were flyin’ around the freeways long before the Red Rocker expressed his inability to drive the speed limit…so it can’t just be speed.

-- In 1995, no one drove while talkin’ on a celly. Now, everyone does it. Hell, people these days even drive while Twittering! It’s so bad that a couple of states have made it illegal to drive while talkin’ on your cell. You think inattention had anything to do with the death spike? I do. BTW…”Death Spike” is an awesome name for a heavy metal band!

-- How ‘bout size? In 1995, people were drivin’ ‘round in Yugos, Saturns and Toyota Tercels. Nowadays, people are drivin’ ‘round in humongous SUV’s, monster trucks and Hummers so gnarly that the only thing missin’ on ‘em is the .50 caliber machinegun mounted on a top turret. You get hit by one of those bad boys and it’s sayonara sucka!

-- What about longevity? These days people are living (and driving) longer. And senior citizens think they’re just as invincible as teenagers! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been cut off and flipped off by blue hairs with their blue plates, rollin’ ‘round in their hoopty wagons. SHEESH!

-- And lastly, what about sheer volume? In 1995 the population of the USo’A was roughly 263 million people. In 2005 we rounded out to 296 million folks. That’s an increase of thirty-three million Americans. Hell, there are so many people on the road nowadays; you can’t help but to hit friggin’ something (and if Lou Dobbs had his way, you'd hit a brown-skinded brother)!

So, the AJPH wants to reduce the speed limit to save lives. I say, the speed limit has very little to do with it. As a matter of fact, reducing the speed limit would actually increase freeway deaths. How do I know? Take the drive from the RNO down to the 702. Keep your speed to 55 miles an hour on that long hump. You are gonna want to kill yourself. Personally, I usually make it to Tonopah before I contemplate the cyanide pills. True dat.

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What's the Frequency Kenneth?

FULL DISCLOSURE: Every time you turn on your television, we here at PTB make one MILLION dollars.



For the last couple of days, RGJ/KTVN weather-dude Mike Alger has been lamenting the loss of the region’s NEXRAD radar site. Y'all know NEXRAD...it's the 21st century version of grandma's arthritic knee. Seems the little buggar was made out of toilet paper, scotch tape and bobby pins…NEXRAD…not Mike Alger or grandma. ANYWAY…


Alger tells us that the National Weather Service is getting together parts and pieces and probably won’t have NEXRAD fixed for “several weeks.” Here is the crux of today’s biscuit…


At the little T.V. station we work at, there’s an engineering department consisting of three guys whose only tools are a ball peen hammer, several rolls of duct tape and a couple of different lengths of bailing wire. When our signal goes off the air, the phone lights up like downtown Reno and people raise holy hell. “My T.V. went dark and I’m missing my stories,” shout the blue hairs. “My T.V. won’t work and I was right in the middle of watching American Idol,” say the young’uns. So our engineering boys hustle up the mountain to our transmitter and fix it with the instruments at their disposal…usually within a couple of minutes.


Question is…if the “Little Engineering Department That Could” can fix a multi-million dollar transmitter using a hair dryer, dental floss and Jello…why can’t the National Weather Service fix our NEXRAD in a timely fashion? Your guess is as good as ours but we figure that the only thing the Government-Cheese does quickly is bail out fat-cat Wall Street banker-types. The little guys? Yer on your own. Good thing we have plenty of duct tape!



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