Tag: blockheaded

Blocking traffic is a felony? Really?

As a former professional driver (messenger/courier), I’ve dealt with my share of traffic. I know first-hand it’s not the job to take if you’re trying to reduce your blood pressure from an unhealthy level, or if you’re trying to quit drinking, smoking, or swearing. (I was mostly guilty of the last of these, and I’ve joked that all couriers in Houston are fluent  in two languages: clean English and profanity.) For those and other reasons, it’s a job I will probably never take up again. I’ve learned a lot from the experience.

Nevertheless I was a bit dismayed to learn that over in Los Angeles, the DA is filing felony conspiracy charges against a rap group (the Imperial Stars) that blocked a freeway for a publicity stunt (laweekly.com). My rationale is this: there are all kinds of traffic accidents that result in a freeway getting shut down in major cities across the US (and elsewhere). The driver at fault rarely gets cited for a felony for the accident unless it results in serious injury or death and even then it is only for that and not the consequential traffic tie-up.

I don’t approve of what the Imperial Stars did. It’s inexcusable. However, I feel making it a felony is a step too far. Appropriate relief would include misdemeanor charges, and an injunction forbidding them from repeating this stunt. That, combined with the civil liability as suggested by one of the commenters on the LA Weekly story, is enough of a deterrent. Actually, the civil suits alone and resulting bad PR should be plenty to ensure that not only do the Imperial Stars not repeat this ill-advised stunt, but that nobody else tries this.

Please, let’s reserve felonies for the truly serious crimes. Not blocking traffic.

A call for sanity on speed limits

Yeah, I’m in a bit of a “stupid traffic law tricks” mode. This draft has been sitting in my drafts folder for about a month, and the article dates from July of this year. However, the issue at hand is still very current as Michigan is not the only place this happens.

Car and Driver recently reported on a situation in Michigan where local governments continue to enforce outdated speed limits which are set much lower than the prevailing speed of traffic, despite a specific state law to the contrary. This is a practice which happens to line the pockets of small “speed trap” towns at the expense of the motoring public.

Now, I agree in principle with reasonable speed limits being set on public roadways. However, all too often I see limits clearly set for revenue, such as the stretch of Jones Road through Jersey Village posted at 35 which, surprisingly, jumps to 45 as soon as you leave city limits. A post to survivalistboards.com also mentions Jersey Village and speed traps, and I know I’ve seen many others out there, including a post mentioning a ticket for 38 in a 35 (yes, three over the limit, when usual tolerance is five or ten) which I conveniently can’t find at the moment.

And it’s not just the small towns. A stretch of  Briar Forest between Gessner and Beltway 8, well inside Houston city limits, was posted 30 for years and was a frequent speed trap. However, in a rare move of actually doing something that made sense, the limit was raised to 40 briefly before being dropped down to 35. I haven’t been through the area recently (moved away) so I’m not sure if it’s still a “speed trap” now.

With speed limits frequently set too low on purpose for revenue, it’s a wonder that the violation rate is so high. It is simply not right for a government to create a dangerous situation by setting artificially low speed limits, then taxing the drivers that drive at a reasonable speed. (Yes, I am using the word “taxing” instead of “fining” on purpose.)

Starting them off young: school’s insistence on brand name supplies

I’m writing this one based on a tip from a concerned friend of a parent of a Copperas Cove ISD elementary school student, and based on some replies I got on Twitter when I asked about this. I’m not mentioning the specific school for privacy reasons, and because it really doesn’t matter (I looked at the school supply lists for all of the district’s schools and they are all like this).

At issue here is the practice of mentioning brand names on school supplies. There are tons of examples like this, but as a random example here’s the Martin Walker elementary list for pre-kindergarten (this is a screenshot of my PDF reader edited only by cropping; I have made no attempt to correct misspellings of brand names):

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I count at least four brand name mentions: “Ziplock” bags (the brand name is actually spelled Ziploc without the “k”), Crayola crayons, Elmer’s glue, and “Playdough” (the actual brand name is Play-Doh). (Don’t worry, I’ll get to the spelling issue in a moment; it’s tangential to the core reason for my post.)

Now, the rationale one of my Twitter followers gave in the specific case of crayons is that the colors change between Crayola and, say, Rose Art or a store brand. I would assume this applies to colored markers or other colored art supplies as well. As true as this may be, while I’m a fan of good marketing and branding, I find this a bit disturbing in two, possibly three different ways.

The first is that not all parents can necessarily afford to pay a premium for name brand products. I will admit at one point I was one of those kids growing up: I was called among other derisive names “the K-Mart kid” (this was before Wal-Mart’s dominance, in fact, this was when we still had K-Mart in Houston, years before K-Mart bet the farm on Martha Stewart prior to her legal difficulties in 2004). However, there is an amusing anecdote here: with some help we (my mom, grandmother, and I) did find a pair of Nike Wimbledon tennis shoes at a discount clothing outlet (Weiner’s) that all the kids thought we bought at Foot Locker for $70. (To my former classmates out there reading this: Fooled ya!) Anyway, kidding and humorous anecdotes aside, I think it’s a bit over-the-top for schools to insist upon brand names from parents pinching pennies for school supplies.

The second, which may be somewhat related to the first, is that we already have enough jealousy among school kids about clothing, shoes, and other fashion-related items such as backpacks. This adds to the “uneven playing field” when little Johnny or Jane are making do with Rose Art crayons while the better-off kids are showing off their set of Crayola. As much as the schools would like to make it so, asking for brand name items does not magically put money in the pockets of parents who have to buy them. It means maybe more of the kids will show up with, in this case, Crayola crayons, but the poorer kids will stand out that much more as a result.

The third, kids are impressionable. There are strict limits on advertising during children’s television programs for a reason. Now this is where my admiration of branding and marketing is really put to the test. I’m not opposed to marketing towards kids, but I think the first years of elementary school are a bit too young to surround kids with the insistence on name-brand items. There will be plenty of time for kids to learn consumerism and the nuances of branding and advertising from a consumer point of view. I’m pretty sure they won’t get it in kindergarten or first grade.

Now, the least the school districts can do, if they must put brand names in the school supply shopping lists, is spell them correctly. This is first and foremost, respect for the companies and their trademarks, and second, it’s also an example for the kids that will get to see these lists as well (they see them more often than school administrators think). Usually the school supplies change little from year to year, so it should be a simple matter of keeping a list of the name brands and how to spell them to refer to when late July/early August rolls around (or whenever the list comes out). Really, what does it say about our public school system when the school supply lists are published with mistakes such as these? What kind of confidence does it give the kids that know better and may even say “look mommy, they misspelled Ziploc” when they find it?

Above the law: HPD officers told to ignore subpoenas

A recent Houston Chronicle story outlines the deserved low public opinion of a new Houston Police Department court appearance policy. Specifically, HPD officers are instructed not to show up in court until 1pm on trial days, even if the subpoena says 8am or 10:30am.

Unlike the police officers, defendants (the citizens on trial) are not allowed to leave the courtroom except for bathroom breaks or to put money in the parking meters. (Or possibly for lunch at noon, though the story does not mention this in particular.) Of particular note is this part of the story (emphasis added):

[Mark] Adlam [a defendant awaiting his speeding ticket trial that day] said that under the previous policy, his lawyer would quickly know if the complaining officer was available to testify. If an officer did not show, Adlam said, prosecutors would have no choice but to dismiss the ticket.

[Gary Blankinship, t]he head of the Houston Police Officers Union said the new policy — which was distributed late Friday and took effect Monday — will lead to massive gridlock of the municipal court system, as well as exposing officers to possible arrest for ignoring a lawful subpoena.

Normally I do not so readily concur with someone representing law enforcement, But when the HPOU leader sees the potential for officers to be arrested for ignoring the subpoenas, it’s obvious the policy is on its face illegal, in addition to being bad for the public opinion of Houston’s government.

Specifically, that opinion is that the potentially five-hour-long wait now encourages more citizens to just plead guilty so they can go back to work. Note that if a defendant does not show for trial, they are subject to an immediate citation for failure to appear (class C misdemeanor). Not surprisingly, the cops can come and go as they wish.

To his credit, the HPOU president, Gary Blankinship, has told officers to do what the subpoena says and disregard an “illegal order” by the chief. I admire and respect that, but at the same time, I recognize that an unwillingness to back down to Mayor Annise Parker and Chief of Police Charles McClelland is bound to come with its own share of consequences. Indeed, doing the right thing is against one’s best interests so often it’s not funny.

In case anyone’s wondering, this kind of thing is why I did not vote for Annise Parker for mayor. I would like to think Gene Locke would have handled this better.

A black mark on La Marque

The Houston Chronicle recently reported on perhaps the biggest failure by a Houston area suburb to foster a better police-citizen relationship in recent memory. La Marque’s police chief, Randall Aragon, has instructed the city’s officers to use a “pro-arrest” policy when dealing with littering violations. From the article:

The new get-tough policy aims to cut violent crime in La Marque by eliminating the petty crimes, Police Chief Randall Aragon said.

“When you take care of the little things, the big things start falling in place,” Aragon said.

If there is a littering problem that needs to be addressed, that’s one thing. However, the story goes on to mention in the previous six months, only one littering ticket has been written. Count it: one. Also to note is that littering is a class C misdemeanor, meaning it is not eligible to be punished with a jail sentence (that being reserved for class B misdemeanors and higher).

Is it any wonder why the reputation of so many of Houston’s suburb city police departments is so low? La Marque is only the tip of the iceberg. Ask around what people think of the police departments of Jersey Village, Bellaire, West University, Tomball, Conroe, Katy, Pasadena, Baytown, and Humble. Just to name a few. Hopefully most of them, and Houston itself, will not so eagerly adopt policies like this one doomed to tarnish the reputation of La Marque’s police department for years, and make “La Marque’s finest” impossible to say with a straight face.