It's The TSA, Not CSI: Actions Limited To Security, Not Crime Investigation

from the about-time dept

I'm actually writing this post just minutes after passing through TSA security at JFK, where I was stopped to investigate the fact that I have a candle (a gift) in my carry-on luggage. I'm not sure if this sort of thing makes us any safer (I have my doubts about this kind of "security theater"), but the overall experience was fine and the TSA folks were perfectly nice and professional and let me go on my way (yes, with the candle) in less than a minute. However, apparently some TSA agents have decided that they should serve a purpose well beyond their assigned domain of air travel security. They've been investigating other crimes as well, sometimes going on pure fishing expeditions if they think something looks suspicious, even if it has nothing to do with air travel safety. For example, people have been detained for traveling with large quantities of cash. However, after being sued multiple times, the TSA recently agreed to change its rules to limit its agents actions, so that they are no longer allowed to investigate random crimes and are officially limited to just focusing on air travel security.

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Schaumburg Dumps Redlight Cameras After They Show No Safety Benefit

from the good-for-them dept

We've seen it in a few other places, but reader Don Gatza let's us know that Schaumburg, Illinois is the latest city to dump its redlight cameras. The city found that, despite promises to the contrary, the redlight cameras did not decrease accidents (not even the "t-bone" accidents that proponents of such cameras insist they help combat). The city claims that even though a single intersection generated 10,000 tickets and over a million in revenue in just a few months, it's going to drop the cameras, because "It was not our intent to use them as a revenue generator." If only other communities were so enlightened.

Of course, there was a second potential factor in the decision as well. Apparently pissed off ticket recipients had been complaining and promising to stop shopping at Schaumberg businesses -- leading local businesses to fear a loss in customers and revenue. Of course, this is the same thing that towns with notorious speed traps have found: people avoid going there, harming local businesses. Hopefully more local businesses start recognizing that giving out automated tickets that do nothing to improve safety also tend to harm local businesses as well. In the meantime, if officials want to improve safety in Schaumburg intersections, studies have shown that the best way to do so is rather simple: increase the timing of yellow lights, and then add a longer pause between one direction turning red, and the perpendicular traffic's lights turning green.

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Why Won't Local Governments Just Increase The Length Of Yellow Lights?

from the start-a-campaign dept

We've seen that, thanks to the economy, states like Maryland and New York are ramping up programs for speed and red light cameras. However, that's not true of all places. Mississippi recently went the other direction and banned such traffic cameras, following a similar backlash in Arizona. A recent Wall Street Journal article takes a look at all of this (including the fact that some of the bigger traffic camera companies are based in Arizona) and raises the key question: why won't local governments just increase the length of yellow lights on traffic signals. That, alone, would save numerous accidents (and lives). Yet, many governments have been doing the exact opposite: putting lives at risk, just to bring in more revenue (often to pay off those private companies that installed the cameras). On top of that, there are still plenty of locations that don't leave any pause between switching lights between cross traffic. Here in California, for example, it's quite rare for there to be any pause between a light turning red in one direction, and the perpendicular traffic light turning green. Studies have shown that a slight pause -- where all directions are red -- decreases the number of accidents as well. And yet... governments focus on using traffic cameras solely to increase revenue.

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Maryland Ramps Up Traffic Cameras... But For Safety Or Revenue?

from the gotta-be-the-revenue dept

While other states are banning traffic cameras after realizing that they're entirely about revenue, and tend to be less efficient as a way of improving safety, it looks like Maryland is going in the other direction. Tim DiPaula points out that Maryland is planning to increase the use of both speed and traffic light cameras, using the overall "better safety!" claim to get it approved. Of course, the fact that some towns in Maryland that already have such cameras brought in more money from them than the entire town budget seems to also be an important factor.

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Shocker: No Easy Tech Fix To Keep Kids Safe Online

from the surprises dept

After spending a year (and who knows how much money) researching the topic, a study commissioned by 49 state attorneys general has determined that there's no simple technological way to protect kids online. They needed a year to figure out that there's no magic bullet, or piece of software, that could keep kids out of trouble? Other shocking conclusions from the report, according to the WSJ: the things kids have to deal with online, like bullying and harassment, are -- gasp! -- pretty much similar to the things they have to deal with offline in the real world; and "a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social-network sites and service providers, may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online."

The paper says the report is a boon not only to common sense, but also for sites like MySpace, which have contended throughout the scrutiny they've received from the attorneys general that it was impossible for them alone to make kids safe. So the politicians got to grandstand, but now hopefully they'll listen to the report and grasp the fact that several different parties -- including parents, of course -- have a role to play in helping to protect children, and it's not simply these evil social-networking sites putting our kids at risk. It's also worth noting the report came from the Berkman Center at Harvard, which previously noted that as internet use has grown, the number of sexual offenses against children has fallen, providing a nice voice of reason to counteract the politician- or media-induced moral panics that don't do anything to actually protect children.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Nuclear Power 2.0

from the can-you-say-nu-cle-ar? dept

For a long time I held a fairly unpopular view: I thought that the United States had made a big mistake by tabling its nuclear power industry in the 1970s. Surely, I thought, researchers and operators would have found ways to make nuclear plants clean and safe by now, had the industry continued its growth. Building new nuclear power plants was never made illegal, but it became unpalatable. A new nuclear plant has not been developed in the U.S. in more than 30 years. While interest in building additional nuclear power capacity has recently reemerged, I have found myself with a complete change of opinion: not only has the 30-year hiatus not dampened hopes that nuclear power might yield a safe and secure energy source, but the effective prohibition has actually provided incentives for innovation in the industry. A number of other nations have continued their nuclear power programs and, while there hasn't been a major nuclear accident in more than 20 years, nuclear plants built in recent years share the same basic design as the last plants built in the U.S. Now, to win over nuclear skeptics, a number of companies from upstarts to multi-nationals are developing the next generation of nuclear power technology. These new technologies are intended to address concerns over plant safety, nuclear waste, and security through innovative new designs and materials. Thus, it appears the hiatus actually drove more innovation in the space as innovators had to design around the worries from people. These firms are hoping not only to compete not against wind, solar, geothermal, etc. for a share of alternative energy investment capital, but also to go head to head once again against coal and natural gas power plants as a primary source of new energy. With the opposition to nuclear power forcing companies to explore innovative new designs and materials, they stand a good chance against a legacy energy industry that has had very little incentive to innovate over the past three decades.

Daniel DiPasquo is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Daniel DiPasquo and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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University Requires Students To Buy GPS-Enabled Phones

from the overkill? dept

When I was in college, the campus safety system consisted of a series of emergency telephone poles with blue lights on top. The deal was that from any place on campus you were supposed to be able to see at least one emergency blue light phone, and in the event of an emergency, all you needed to do was knock one such phone off the hook and campus police would arrive quickly. It appears that some universities are getting a more modern update on this idea, as Montclair State University apparently requires students to buy a special GPS-enabled mobile phone that can be used to report emergencies to campus officials. The phones come with special software, including a special timer system. A student can set the timer before walking home, and if he or she does not turn off the timer by the time it is up, the police will be alerted to the location of the phone. It's an interesting feature -- but is it really worth requiring all students to buy one? Apparently very few students actually use the system at all. It's certainly for a good cause, but it sounds like it's a bit of overkill that is resulting in very little usage. There's nothing wrong with offering such a deal to students who want it -- which will make it naturally appealing to those who are safety conscious and, thus, more likely to use it. However, forcing everyone to buy in seems unnecessary.

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Can Cars Ever Be Too Safe?

from the i-want-a-giant-spike-on-my-steering-wheel dept

Whenever technology begins to take over, there are those who worry about what's "lost" in relying too heavily on technology. Remember people who said that kids wouldn't understand math if they used calculators? Or those who are now afraid that kids won't be able to write because they spend so much time typing? Or those fears that we're all so used to Google being available all the time, that we're letting our memory go? Along those lines, Wired is asking if all of the next generation of safety features in cars means that we're becoming too complacent as drivers. After all, with new technologies that effectively take over for a driver if it looks like a crash is about to happen, or at the very least try to alert the driver of that possibility, perhaps people will start relying on the technology too much. When it comes to driving, we've certainly seen a few too many examples of drivers trusting their GPS devices over their own eyes. So, it's not out of the realm of possibility (especially with technology being as unreliable as it often is) that people will become so reliant on these technologies that they'll become somewhat more careless, but that hardly seems like a good reason to stop this type of technology from moving forward. After all, you could take it to the extreme, and note that if everyone drove around with giant spikes on their steering wheels instead of airbags, everyone would drive a lot more carefully -- but no one wants that to happen.

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Yes, I Know Biking And Blackberrying Don't Mix

from the i-can-take-care-of-myself-thanks dept

We've been told that driving while on a cell phone is bad, so is blackberrying while biking worse? Given how legislators are finding it necessary to pass laws forbidding cell phone use while driving, perhaps it's only a matter of time before we start seeing anti-berrying-while-biking laws as well. But, what's wrong with just leaving it to common sense? Back in the 80s, I remember reading about the Winnebiko, a recumbent bike fitted to the gills with electronics, in Popular Science. The Winnebiko was fitted with a chord keyboard on its handlebars, so its driver could type out magazine articles while he biked across the country. He seemed to be able to do that quite safely, so thank goodness nobody tried to tell him that it was unsafe. Let's leave some safety decisions in our own hands, please. I have faith that our my self preservation instincts will stop me from riding a bike while juggling chainsaws, so there's really no need to pass a law telling me that.

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