Need money? Fine drivers using phones

2/9/2009

So Governor Strickland wants police to able to pull people over for not wearing a seat belt, and he's not even hiding the fact that it's mainly for revenue income.

While I will not at this time get into the ticky-tacky conversation of whether or not this is a rights violation, I will however suggest this instead.

While I was waiting at a stop light at Wernert's Corners yesterday,I decided to count20 vehicles that went by, and checked whether the driver was wearing a seat belt. Good job, you Chosen 20! You scored 100 percent.

I also counted, in those same cars, the number of drivers who were yakking on a cell phone. Oops. Fourteen out of those same 20drivershad a phone stuck to the side of their head. That's 70 percent. Three of them went through a full red light, by the way. Good thing they had seat belts on.

Now if the governor wants to tryto hidebehind the buzzword "safety," I'll ask this: Can not wearing a seat belt distract you from the responsibilities you have while you're behind the wheel of a moving vehicle? A cell phone can, and trust me, I've seen several rear-end accidentsat intersections and have been personally run off the road several times byoperators too busy gabbing on their phones to notice the other vehicles around them.

I now have a full understanding of where road rage comes from.

Governor Strickland, you want a revenue source while saving money and lives?

Make it illegal to operate a vehicle while talking on a cell phone, and have the police pull people over for that.

You'll get your revenue stream, and you'll save money by reducing police and fire runs to accidents. Just hang up and drive, Ohio.

Beau Ruetz

Lima Avenue

The Jan. 28 Page 1 headline "Joblessness exceeds 10% in region" should not come as a shock to anyone who lives in Lucas County.

The citizens in this region need to really look no further than themselves and the Democratic city and county politicians they elected, along with their union brothers, to see why this region continually leads the state in this dubious distinction. This region has been sliding for years, yet we keep electing the same politicians time and time again, expecting different results. Rather than making this a business-friendly region, where businesses can come, grow, and prosper, this area has continually made it more and more difficult for business to do anything but look elsewhere.

I own a small business and for about five years I was asked by the chamber of commerce to visit small businesses in the area to do a survey on what the challenges were in trying to run a business in Lucas County. Every year it was the same: Electric rates were too high (highest in the state), the red tape in dealing with local government was burdensome, and the union mentality here stifles any business from wanting to expand. I finally said I didn't want to do this anymore because the answers were always the same and nothing ever changed.

Until the people living in Lucas County get fed up with being at the top of the state's notorious joblessness list and begin voting for people who can actually turn this around, we will be the laughingstock of Ohio. Take a look: We even beat Youngstown, and you know what people think of Youngstown.

Ken Lauerer

Holland

With the new year comes change. And it's only the beginning. Like most senior citizens, I hate change. First the trash and then not salting the side streets.

My gripe is that we were told that there was a shortage of salt, and then on the news I see that Toledo sold Swanton some salt because they had extra.

Now wait a minute. I pay my taxes. Do I get a rebate? My leaves are still piled high on the side of the road - at least the ones that haven't been plowed to the end of my dead-end street, along with the snow.

These streets are a mess. We are told that we will be cited if we don't shovel and salt our sidewalks. But what about the side streets? Come on, Toledo. We who live on side streets pay the same taxes as those who live on the main streets, so treat us the same. Plow and salt us too.

Judy Schuster

Cyril Street

I don't know if you noticed, but we had a very historic prayer service on Jan. 18 at the Valentine Theatre.

Our mayor came together with many pastors from our area and each of them said a prayer for all of us and for the economics to turn around in our great city of Toledo.

I too have been concerned about everything and spoke with a lady a couple of months ago about the economy and she said to me, "We're all in this together."

That really has stuck in my mind. It's not about us individually, but it's about all of us together.

During the close of the prayer meeting, one of the speakers raised a very good point. He said something like, we've all come together now to pray, but what happens after this meeting? I believe that is the question that should be on everybody's mind. We should ask ourselves what we can do to help our neighbors in need. Whom can you help? If we would just do one good deed, for a neighbor in need, I believe this simple act of kindness would have a domino effect and would help everyone. You see, you just never know if you might sometime be that neighbor in need.

So, I'd like to say thank-you from the bottom of my heart to our mayor and all the preachers who were there that night and for each of them who said a prayer for us, because to me they really care and they too are our heroes.

If you see a neighbor in need, please see what you can do to help them.

Remember, "We're all in this together."

Billie Engelmann-Kotulski

Sylvania

The new administration has been making a big deal about citizens taking responsibility for America, a sentiment that I share.

So what was one of their first acts? To delay the conversion from analog to digital TV for four months.

This is not something that was sprung on the public all of a sudden.

I have watched ads on TV for nearly two years telling people to upgrade or watch a blank screen on their TVs come Feb. 17.

Instead of proceeding with the conversion, the government is now going to pander to the millions who put off dealing with this issue until the last minute by using the lame excuse that they couldn't get a voucher for a digital converter.

So much for responsibility. If this is any indication of the future, it's going to look a lot like the past.

Tom Sorrell

Sylvania

The comments of the Jan. 27 writer in regard to cars show the misconception that some Americans have about the auto industry.

The General Motors Volt will also run on gas. It will run 40 miles initially on the electric battery, then after that the four-cylinder engine will kick in and work with the battery to give the vehicle about 640 miles on one tank of gas, in one day, not two.

Also, cars built today do not have a carburetor and the final comment about the computer industry being light years ahead of the auto industry is not really true. If our cars crashed or locked up as many times as our [home] computers have over the years, we would all be in serious trouble.

We should be further ahead than we are, but when we had cheap gas we kept buying the gas guzzlers. That's our fault, not the auto industry's.

Neil Getz

Sylvania

Thank you so much for publishing the uplifting picture regarding the Toledo Public Schools Super Bowl activity on your Jan. 31 front page. It brought a smile rather than an Oh, no, how much worse can it get? feeling to my morning.

Joan E. Tomczak

Goddard Road