respublica

On a lighter note

Two ladders fell off two different vehicles on two separate St. Louis highways this morning.

Mattresses 26

Ladders 18

They're still falling

No virus shut down is going to stop people from attaching a ladder or mattress to their cars or trucks. Update:

Mattresses 26

Ladders 16

The jump in mattresses may have something to do with college students leaving town.

Hurray for UPS

I have nothing but good things to say about UPS. They have never failed us as opposed to FedEx which failed us big time more than once. As I related in this post yesterday Dale forgot his phone while heading for Phoenix. I was able to pack it in bubble wrap, put it in a small box wrapped tightly with heavy duty packing tape and then take it to UPS to overnight it.

I wasn't altogether sure it would get there overnight and be delivered by 10 or 10:30 this morning. But by gosh, he got his phone by 9:30 this morning. It is a huge relief. I did forget to put a charging cord in, but he can get one of those or borrow one. Such a relief.

A day when just a mattress or ladder seems bearable

Lots of things fall off vehicles, especially mattresses and ladders, but we occasionally see a lone garbage bag flying off a truck and into traffic, a lone dresser on the shoulder and on and on. But yesterday was the piece d' resistance in road fall. A semi overturned in the eastbound lanes of 64/40 right under the overpass downtown. It as a mess to clean up since the soybeans got coupled with diesel fuel.

It took hours to get it cleaned up and instead of grousing about how drivers (especially big trucks) drive around the curves in and out of downtown, I have to mention how surprised I was to see the tv news close-ups of the soybeans. It may have been the camera angle, but each individual soybean showed in the video and they looked huge, if not golf ball sized, at least as big as marbles.

I never knew soybeans were rather big.

They keep falling

Mattresses 22

Ladders 11

Seems more people seem to think driving with mattresses unsecured is going to work.

20 and over, get pulled over

Now this new speed enforcement effort is one for the books. Police have begun an effort to cut down on speeders on 270 mainly because of a coming road work project. They want drivers to get used to the idea of slowing down in the work zones.

Here's the weird part of all this though. They will put most of their efforts into stopping people doing 20 miles over the speed limit. If you're going over 80mph you'll be stopped. If you ever drive on 270 or even 170 on the Missouri side you know cars are flying. So they want to slow people down and will still allow you do go 80?!

Get clocked at 81 and you'll be stopped. Isn't 80 much too fast in a 60mph zone? This seems out of whack to me.

A click bait story

This rather ridiculous story comes from CNN.

"If you drive an expensive car you're probably a jerk, scientists say."

The science is looking pretty unanimous on this one: Drivers of expensive cars are the worst.

A new study has found that drivers of flashy vehicles are less likely to stop and allow pedestrians to cross the road -- with the likelihood they'll slow down decreasing by 3% for every extra $1,000 that their vehicle is worth.

 

Science. How did they come to this conclusion? They came to this conclusion after asking volunteers to cross a sidewalk hundreds of times, filming and analyzing the responses by car drivers.

 

I don't know if this is true or not, but plenty of drivers in all sorts of vehicles no matter the price don't slow down for pedestrians..in my non-scientific experience.  I might be better if scientists spent more time looking into this Carona Virus thing. On an other note, is it spelled Caronavirus, or Coronavirus? I see both throughout the day.

 

I also saw this last night. The virus is not funny, but this is kind of clever.

Gloomy Tuesday

Mattresses 20

Ladders 11

Catching up on the tally

I got behind recently in adding to the tally of mattresses and ladders which fall on St. Louis highways.

Mattresses 19

Ladders 9

I have no idea why mattresses are falling so frequently at this point in the year.

About the hands free driving law

It has been some time now since the new Illinois law prohibiting the use of a cell phone while driving went into effect. In essence this law which took effect this year makes it illegal to have a phone in your hand while driving. Even touching your phone while car is in gear can get you a ticket. That's right, even while stopped at a red light you better not be holding your phone or checking anything on it. 

You can use the phone if it is hands free. 

I have no problem with any of this because I see way too many close calls and distracted drivers. But, it must be difficult to enforce because the most common offenders these days are drivers of the big semi trucks. Sharing the road with them I see way too many of these guys with the phone propped up on the steering wheel while they are reading or typing. Be a passenger in a car while on the interstate to and from Illinois to Missouri or anywhere else and just look up at the truck's driver and you'll see it too.

For this law to work it has to have vigilant enforcement.