Using fatal crash data released last week by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and figuring in each state’s total number of drivers as well as the average miles driven, The Daily Beast website has concluded that Louisiana drivers are the fourth-worst in the nation behind motorists in Kentucky (No. 3), Montana (No. 2) and North Dakota (No. 1). The states with the best drivers were Rhode Island (No. 1), Virginia (No. 2) and Connecticut (No. 3). The ranking also finds that Democrats drive their sub-compacts better than Republicans handle their SUVs.
Of the more than 30,000 fatal crashes in the U.S. last year, more than 5,000 were attributed to distracted driving related to such factors as cell phone use, according to the NHTSA. The Daily Beast’s number crunch also found, not surprisingly, that 18- to 20-year-olds are the biggest menace on America’s roadways.
The website used the following criteria in establishing its ranking (Louisiana’s numbers follow in parentheses): fatal crashes (726), number of driver’s licenses (2,998,162), most dangerous age (18), driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs (10 out of 50), failure to obey traffic signs/signals (33 out of 50) and careless driving (4 out of 50).
Interestingly, the ranking also find that drivers in so-called blue states drive better than their counterparts in red states, based on the Electoral College map for the 2008 presidential election: Nine of the 10 worst-performing states voted for John McCain while nine of the 10 best-performing states voted for Barack Obama. As The Daily Beast puts it: “While this ranking won’t single-handedly end the stereotypes about ‘California drivers’ or ‘New York drivers,’ it should help: ‘Louisiana driver’ or ‘Kentucky driver’ would be a more apt critique.”
To see the full ranking of the nation's worst- and best-driving states, click here.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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