Common Sense about Seat Belts
The legislature went at it again, doing its best to make the world a better place. This time, they were going to improve the existing seatbelt law by making failure to buckle up a primary offense. (Right now, you can be cited only if you are first pulled over for another violation.) Although the measure is dead for this year, it will probably be resurrected one day. If this day comes, we would be better served if our lawmakers would consider a different approach to this matter.
APPENDIX ANALYTICAL TABLES
Table 1 Traffic Count: I-25 at Hampden – August 1996 (3 lanes each direction)
Table 2 Configuration possibilities
Table 3 Capital construction cost of all configurations
Table 3A Capital construction cost of all configurations
RTD vs. Reality
The problem with any all-or-nothing approach is the very real possibility of getting nothing. There is no better example than RTDs attempt to build out rapid transit in all directions all at once. Heres the simple story: RTD has within its own means the ability, without a tax increase, to build one rapid transit line at a time. In order to do this RTD must decide which corridor goes first, which goes second, etc. Sounds like what we all have to do with our own major investments.
More Taxes and Less Free Speech
Synopsis: House Bill 99-1208 imposes overbroad and unconstitutional restrictions on cartoons of all types, and on tobacco advertising. It raises taxes on the false theory that smoking costs the State money. What the Bill Does: This bill extends the principles of the tobacco settlement. It empowers the state will collect an additional tax on each […]
Mandatory Seat Belt Laws Cause Dangerous Driving, and Invade Privacy
Synopsis: House Bill 99-1212, which makes driving or riding in a car without a seat belt into a “primary” traffic offense, is yet another attempt to control peoples own decisions about risk taking. Research shows that when reckless drivers are forced to buckle up, they drive even more recklessly. Thus, careful drivers (who wear seat belts by choice) are endangered. Moreover, mandatory seat belt laws also increase the risk that minorities or other groups will be victimized by pretextual traffic stops.
Visiting Nurse Programs: A Good Idea, but Not with Tobacco Loot
Senate Bill 132 contains many provisions for what to do with the revenue from the new tobacco Asettlement@ (really, a new tobacco tax). The most worthwhile of these is for a visiting nurse program for at-risk new mothers. Such programs have an established record of success. In the long run, visiting nurse programs save the government a great deal of money, including reduced welfare and criminal justice costs. Any Visiting Nurse or similar program should be carefully structured to avoid civil liberties problems.
Mandatory Seat Belt Laws Cause Dangerous Driving, and Invade Privacy
Synopsis: House Bill 99-1212, which makes driving or riding in a car without a seat belt into a quot;primaryquot; traffic offense, is yet another attempt to control peoples own decisions about risk taking. Research shows that when reckless drivers are forced to buckle up, they drive even more recklessly. Thus, careful drivers (who wear seat […]
Three Bills on the Charter School Front: Some Important Tweaking, and a Major Survival Measure
House Bill 1113 makes major improvements in charter school finance. SB 52 helps charter schools take advantage of computers; and SB 100 frees charter schools from the grip of anti-consumer school districts.
Charter schools prove to ardent education reformers the oft repeated aphorism that politics is the art of the possible. While some in the reform camp would have much preferred vouchers and others the embrace by the education establishment of a rigorous, coherent, cognitive based mission, it is the Charter Schools movement that has caught on. It is Charter Schools that represent the best, most realistic hope of shifting the balance of power away from education providers to education consumers.
RTD's Competitive Contracting Program: Cost Savings Produce More Service, Attract More Passengers
The competitive contracting program, which requires RTD to contract out 20% of its services to private contractors, has reversed RTD’s previous trend of increasing costs. The cost savings from competitive contracting has enabled RTD to improve service, resulting in the largest ridership gain of ant of the nation’s largest 25 bus systems. If the legislature raised the percent of RTD services which can be competitively contracted to 35% or more, the benefits to metro Denver mass transit users would be all the greater.
Safe Storage Is Unsafe Regulation
Colorado State Senator Pat Pascoe wants to make gun owners criminally responsible for the unauthorized use of their guns. As is the case with much of the rest of the plague of legislation that seeks to micromanage what people do and when they do it, this, too, is for the children. Fourteen children shot to […]
Illegal Textbook Fees in Jeffco Schools
The voters in Jefferson County, in the latest election, soundly rejected the Jefferson County School Boards plea for the largest school tax increase in state history. Why? One of the most important reason was voter anger over much smaller taxes that the Jeffco School Board had imposed illegally. These taxes are the infamous “textbook fees” which have generated so much controversy.
Give a Dollar to the Man on the Corner?
What about the guy with the cardboard sign? Should you give him a dollar or feel guilty for not doing so?
First, let’s consider why he is out there. The sign usually announces he is hungry, and wants money to buy food. The street people who ask for spare change usually say they want to buy a sandwich or a cup of coffee. We don’t trust politicians or used car salesmen. Should we trust the guy on the corner?
