Armageddon

In a sign of the imminent end times, The Fountain Square South parking garage will be closed temporarily. This, of course, comes on the heels of the street parking rate hike forced on us by the dreaded and maybe not so human, John Cranley.
A master stroke, carried out with Illuminati like precision. No doubt parking rates will quintuple when the garage reopens later this spring.
Who knows how many people will vanish, lost, searching in vain for a parking spot for eternity like so many Parking Dutchmen. How many will succumb to the ghastly cravings of C.H.U.D. as they shamble from remote parking lots to their places of employment?
oh, the humanity
OTOH, it might be a good opportunity for folks to acquaint themselves with Metro.

For more of the apocalypse, check out the Fishwarp

Open Season on the Funeral Industry

Not content with crashing into hearses and terrorizing funeral processions, motorists are taking their genocidal hysteria up a notch by slamming their vehicles directly into the funeral homes in Middletown.
The mad blood lust of the homicidal auto-cyborg has acquired a taste for formaldehyde, too.

If you have cars, you just can't have nice stuff

In response to the guy taking his wife & kids on a kill crazed joyride through a parade, scattering and injuring people, the organizers are calling off their Halloween Zombie Walk.
Here's hoping the next time this jerk gets tired of waiting, he's stopped at a railroad crossing.

More at Mashable

Leadership or Tribal Ideology

After the state cut funding for County, Township & Municipality service - funding put in place when enacting an income tax, safety became an issue. The local governments lost money that went to pay highly skilled, highly paid personnel.
One of the changes in law enforcement & public safety that's come about over the years is the use of relatively inexpensive electronic surveillance devices.
The state who in their great wisdom forced local safety agencies to tighten their belts has decided that using inexpensive tech to augment their services is a non starter. They want to outlaw traffic cameras completely.
Wouldn't it make more sense for Seitz, Mallory & the rest of the unholy cabal in Columbus to regulate rather than ban these modern systems?
When Cincinnati looked at red light cameras, they made an effort to not make the mistakes other cities had made before. The fear mongering lies spouted by COAST & the NAACP put the kibosh on one of the best planned systems in the country.
But the state of Ohio could demand:

• All citations must be issued by a local police officer
• Service providers cannot profit from issuing more tickets - flat fees only
• The presence of cameras must be announced via signage
• Only traffic & Police can pick the locations of cameras to avoid politicizing their use

I'm sure there's all sorts of other crap they could do and, with their disdain for the local governments of Ohio, they could easily wipe out any local bans on the use of this cost saving, life saving tech.

Four in one turn

Here's an idea - blow through a stop sign at a fairly blind intersection & see what happens!
Well, when the approaching truck nails you & pushes you into 3 pedestrians…
There's easier ways to meet people, folks.

Fishwarp story about the latest dumbass Cage Jockey's wake of destruction here.

Asphalt Abattoir

We need to face facts, the experiment has failed. The idea of the average citizen rolling around in a ton of steel wielding the power of hundreds of horses on city streets might have sounded great - but it doesn't work.
Besides the astronomical death rates, the maimings & crippling injuries, there is also the physical costs of obesity, heart disease, diabetes & such. Add to that the psychological cost of social isolation and the damage of talk radio taking advantage of that isolation. The automobile experiment has been a colassal failure & can probably be blamed for much of our society's ills.
They don't work - we need to remove them from America's roadways.
The damage in the picture above happened when a motorist cavalierly turned left in front of an oncoming cyclist who crashed int o the passengr side door face first.
While she will require extensive reconstructive surgeries, she is lucky she didn't lose her eyes or get her neck broken. The motorists inattentativeness also resulted in injuries to the passenger. A driver is responsible for his passengers.
Get cars off the road. Lets bring roadway deaths back to the 100s, away from the current tens of thousands.

Fishwarp article here

Get a Horse

If you have cars, you can't have nice things. Motorists careen into themselves, pedestrians, cyclists, buildings, monuments... Their lust for carnage is unquenchable.
In 24 hours, motorists have struck 2 horse drawn carriages on an Ohio River bridge sending drivers & passengers of the carriages flying across the span high above the river.
This must stop. We need to ban automobiles on the city streets. Relegate their use to the interstate highways. Install governors to keep them from going over 35 MPH.
This nonsense needs to stop.

Fishwarp report here

Male Models

Seriously - Tesla guy or Bugatti girl ?
In an article over at the Globe & Mail, the author is pleased to report that more male models are being used at car shows. While women in skimpy, clingy outfits (or just swimsuits (because cars & swimming just go together)) have traditionally been the norm, the guys just wear street clothes and some of 'em are positively dorky. Why aren't the guys rolling around on the hoods in their skateboard culottes?

Globe & Mail article here

…and since it popped into my head, I'm sure it popped into everybody else's.

Nevada Issues Student Permit for Driverless Cars
The permit still requires, not only one, but, two people sitting in the car - presumably eating Cheetohs & surfing the intertubes. What will be interesting, as more of these things hit the road, is how traffic accidents will change. Likely things will get better. Of course some lawyer will probably jump out in front of one of these cars so he can mire the whole technology in years of lawsuits.
Lost Vegas Son story here

Speedway

I thought this ad was pretty wack but with gasoline sales & total auto mileage down, it appears the business inside Enon. Ohio's Speedway stores is ticking along rather nicely with a 13% bump from sales from this quarter last year.
Like the JS said, "you know the people come around for a reason".

Noose Son story here

Car Culture

What happens when you have a car adducted centric culture? You go crazy. You think you have to drive. And many people let their dependence on cars paint them into a corner, making them truly dependent.
The Dayton Daily News reports that 20% of fatal car crashes involve people driving with suspended drivers licenses.

Nearly 1 million Ohio residents have a suspended license; many having multiple suspensions at a time — the average is 2.8 per driver, according to Lindsey Bohrer, public information officer for the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

People just gotta drive. It seems necessary to live. It seems to be a right.
But,

Lt. Anne Ralston, public affairs commander for Ohio Highway Patrol said, "Driving is a privilege and licensed drivers are required to go through testing, a renewal process, and have insurance."

How do people get their licenses suspended? It's not just bad driving. In fact, there are 46 ways you can get a suspension - not all of them involve driving. One really dumb way is to not pay child support. Dunno how that helps matters. 116,000 suspensions in Ohio come from drug possession with or without car in the picture.

The federal government requires states to suspend your license if you’re convicted of a drug offense, but a state’s governor and legislature can opt out by certifying that they oppose such a law, something Ohio leaders have not done.

Hard to believe our current legislature & administration wouldn't opt out of this - they are so eager to sever ties with D.C. & give us smaller less intrusive government & all.
It just shows how much of an addiction it is. Like a dope dealer teasing an addict by withholding his fix, the government teases people by withholding their driving privileges.
Are you an addict?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot smoke?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot drink?
Do you avoid going places where you cannot park your car?

Driving Safety
Advocates for Highway Safety gave Ohio one of it's lowest grades. Why? Because Ohio doesn't see not wearing a seatbelt as a primary offense. You have to be stopped for something else like speeding to be punished for violating the mandatory seatbelt law. Ohio also doesn't have a law banning texting while driving. While Ohio communities lay off police and Sheriff deputies this coalition of insurance companies want them to start poking around & seeing what people are doing inside their cars.
Meanwhile, over in scenic Holland, traffic engineers are trying out using fewer signs, lights and regulations to improve driving safety. Their theory is that drivers are lulled into a sense of safety by all the signage & crap cluttering up the side of the road. They have found that drivers frequently give bicyclists a wider berth when there is no designated lane than when there is one. That is - keeping the driver on his toes, he is more likely to pay attention to what he is doing.
If the driver needs to pay attention one could presume he would be less likely to engage in other activities like texting. If one is more concerned with the total driving experience he will more likely buckle up before starting out.
The ranking is probably hogwash & is just an excuse for the insurance companies to justify raising rates on Ohio drivers - real safety be damned.

Noose Son story here.

Examiner story here

Cash for Clunkers ?

The 1965 Shelby Daytona Cobra Coupe CSX2601 was sold at auction in Monterey, California for $ 7,250,000. This sets a record for the price paid for an American car. The car was part owned by a Springfield, OH car dealer that specializes in Corvettes and other sports cars. It was sold to a Cincinnati collector. So why didn't they just meet at a Frisch's in Dayton ? I am sure we will be seeing this car in Kroger parking lots (over by the cart corral) real soon.

Noose Son story here.

Motorists Drive Around Dying Man
the Fishwrap reports that a guy was shot several times on the sidewalk along Reading Road in Avondale at rush hour. He fell into the street and the motorists just drove around him. That is, people didn't stop and try to protect him or help him. Presumably somebody called the police. They probably had to put their current conversation on hold to do so.
This is pretty much what we can expect in our car-centric society. Everybody just kinda glides along in their steel and glass bubbles, their controlled environments complete with 100 watt, 14 speaker stereo system and heated leather seats. Toss in a heaping helping of telephones, internet, streaming video, talk radio.....
The stuff going on outside just starts looking like a game projected onto the windshield of the car.
Over time, driving really starts to insulate you from the communities you live and work in. A lot of people on Reading at rush hour are probably just passing through anyway and don't care about the people living and dying there. They just drive by. Did they pause to at least Twitter, "HAH ! Dead as punk out in the street on Reading !".
I seriously wonder if the crime was reported to the police or if people just reported an obstruction in their commute.
Commenters on the Fishwrap website applaud the death as the guy had a police record. But how would they know he had a record if they were just driving by hoping to not get any blood on their car ? Did they take off their tin foil hats for a moment to listen to the voices ?
Dumbasses shoot each other over trivial BS all the time. This isn't really about them. this is an indictment of "the good people". You know, the ones with jobs, the ones who pay taxes, the ones who don't walk.

Fishwrap story here.