I just ran across this story and it seems a little fishy to me. Let me first preface the quoted article below from the New York Times by saying, this is the first time I’ve EVER heard this happen…let alone used as a defense in court. Read the article and tell me your opinions, I curious.

Many drivers enjoy the so-called “new car smell,” a mix of volatile organic compounds that rise from the plastic, leather, cloth, wood and other interior components of cars fresh off the assembly line. The aroma is so popular that some companies even sell new car smell air fresheners.

But does new car smell have a dark side? More specifically, is it intoxicating?

That appears likely to be an element of the defense of a Colorado driver charged in a nighttime hit-and-run accident, according to court documents filed this week, The Vail Daily News reports. The driver, Martin Joel Erzinger, a financial manager, allegedly fled the scene of a crash with a cyclist in July.

The new car smell from a month-old Mercedes-Benz may have contributed to Mr. Erzinger’s losing consciousness before the accident, his lawyers say.

Really? Maybe Mr. Erzinger was tired and fell asleep, maybe he had been drinking or under the influence of an inebriant…He certainly had the presence of mind to flee the scene of the accident after being rendered incapacitated. Now, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but I wonder if this will hold up in court? Has anyone ever experienced a loss of consciousness while driving due to your New Car Smell? I haven’t and I’ve been in 1,000’s of new cars…literally.

It’s really easy to complain about traffic. It’s really easy to complain and whine about construction. In fact it seems like Freeman Grapevine is in the epicenter of construction central. One thing that we have to try to keep in mind is that, for all of the inconvenience, our “problems” with traffic and construction are actually because improvements are being made. So that got me thinking, What are some of the GOOD things about improving the safety and conditions of our roads.

Some of these, I’m sure you haven’t even put second thought to as being developed for your benefit.

1.    Divided Highways

2.    Median dividers and barriers engineered to turn vehicle wheels back into the proper lane of traffic.

3.    Improved and increased lighting for roads and highways

4.    Energy absorbing crushable barricades around fixed objects

5.    Small grooves or buttons down the side of the highway to alert drivers drifting off the road.

6.    High speed, multi-lane interchanges (instead of intersections or traffic circles)

7.    Improved signage and use of reflective materials.  (If the buttons down the middle of the road in front of you are red reflectors, you are going the wrong way.)

8.    Expanded use of improved guardrails

9.    Brighter LED traffic signals with pedestrian control lights.

10.  Improved reflective paints for highway lanes, crosswalks, and directional arrows.

I know we’ve all noticed these improvements, so it’s not just our vehicles that are safer these days.  Highway safety engineers have been working overtime for years to improve both traffic flow and highway safety.  Improving traffic flow contributes to safer roads as well as getting you to your destination more quickly.

Before the Interstate Highway program began very few highways were divided.  Roads were one solid strip of asphalt divided only by a line painted down the middle. Learning to pass slower vehicles by moving into and back out of the on-coming lane of traffic was a very important part of driver training.

Short wooden poles, strung together by a single strand of steel cable, were all that separated drivers from the road and a deep ditch or sharp curve.  The guardrails and barriers of today weren’t yet invented.

There was much less street and road lighting and some of the light bulbs were always burned out.  Halogens and LEDs have been a huge improvement.

One of the big killers in the past was drivers dozing off while driving and drifting into on coming traffic or bridge supports. The addition of median dividers, crushable barricades, and road shoulder grooving has significantly reduced head on collisions.

Highway safety engineers will continue to make improvements, but we shouldn’t take all the improvements we have now for granted.  Despite all the traffic, our roads and highways are built to be a lot safer for us than for our parents and grandparents.

Let’s say something good about highway and road development! Leave me a comment if you can bring yourself to do it.

You know what? I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of hearing all of the DWI related accidents and injuries that we are bombarded with on our evening news channels. Let me rephrase that a little. I’m tired that the news continues to have DWI stories to report. I mean, what will it take for people to learn that the combination of alcohol and driving is not just stupid, it’s deadly…and guess who has to pay the price seemingly all of the time? Is it the intoxicated driver? Nope, it’s the family he just sideswiped. It’s the 16 year old who just got his license he t-boned at an intersection. It’s the bride and her parents on the way to her ceremony he ran off of the road.

You see, you don’t just affect your life when you lose control of your vehicle while under the influence, you affect others as well. You affect their family, their friends, their teachers and their employers. You destroy lives of people you’ve never met. You’ve change their futures with your short sightedness. You change your future because of your selfishness.

The “Think before you drink” campaign, or the “know when to say when” have been literally flooded into our brains, so much that I think we’ve become desensitized to the reality of Driving while impaired.

How many of you notice the memorial markers along our interstates and highways? How many of you think about what happened there? How many of you realized that the family of those memorialized had to erect that memorial and live with their loss daily for the rest of their lives?

It’s time for a change Dallas. It’s time for a change Fort Worth. It’s time for a change America.

Drunk drivers do not belong anywhere near a vehicle unless it is a cab and it is taking you home.

What’s a consequence of having one too many?

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX4ZZqW790s

We here at Freeman Grapevine take the hard line in regards to this very serious and ever growing epidemic.

Let me know your thoughts and tell me your stories.

After reading an article recently about the Vice President of American Traffic Solutions Inc., based in Scottsdale, Ariz misrepresenting himself to the public by posting supportive comments as a “general citizen”, it makes me wonder about the entire red light camera program itself.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viKQQIShquY

Here are a few excerpts from an article in The Spokesman

Bill Kroske, the vice president of business development at American Traffic Solutions Inc., based in Scottsdale, Ariz., also posted comments on The Spokesman-Review’s website. The Herald, of Everett, Wash., reported that it tracked posts made by Kroske to the company in Arizona, and that he had signed up for the Herald’s website using his real name and work email.

A reporter covering a popular debate over the “Photo Red” program noticed that one person with the screen name “W Howard” had been commenting frequently, and discovered the account was linked to a company that appeared to be using the comments to promote its business, Herald editor Neal Pattison said. The user never identified himself as an employee of American Traffic Solutions.

After several people posted comments criticizing the cameras, Kroske said their response “is just why we need the cameras.”

“It is that same lack of common sense and emotional control that is found in aggressive and dangerous driving,” Kroske wrote.

…and this is the point that was running through my mind while reading the rest of the article

“Employees need to understand that as companies we are held to a higher standard and that posts, tweets, and blogs not only reflect on the individual but also the company that they work for,” he said.

So what does everyone else think about red light cameras? I can appreciate his drive to promote his product, but at the expense of misleading the public is just not right. In fact, this is the exact reason why I question the ethics of the cameras to begin with. If the advocates are lying, what about the cameras: are they accurate, are the ethical, are they really helping a problem, is there even a problem to begging with?

What does everyone else think. I think I’m secretly obsessed with this topic, so I may be way off base here, but my gut says I’m ok to feel this way. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think…and no, Bill Kroske, you aren’t allow to comment as someone else.