School Bus Safety Not Involving Arming Teachers

According to Politico, safety advocates are asking Congress to take up a bill aimed at making school buses safer in the wake of recent crashes in several states that have killed five children and injured dozens of people. Introduced in September, the legislation, S. 3432 (115), would require buses to have seat belts in every seat, use technology like automatic emergency braking and electronic stability control, and carry an event data recorder. "We laud the leadership of Senator Tammy Duckworth and Representative Steve Cohen [both Democrats] for introducing this lifesaving, commonsense bill and urge Congress to take action on it immediately," said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, in a statement. The bill, which is based on recommendations from NTSB, has not advanced in either the House or Senate, but a Democratic win today will get it moving.

DogGone

A couple of days ago, I'm in a coffee shop on Montana. You know the one. I'm having a scone and coffee near the door at a table next to that counter holding the cream and milks, sweeteners, condiments, straws and napkins. The stream of dogs is unrelenting, but what can you expect in a city that enforces only those laws that affect squeaky wheels.

The entitled have no second thoughts about turning others' protections to their benefit. Case in point: you could open a wildly successful store here selling nothing but counterfeit service-dog outfits.

So, just another day in paradise.

Then this happened, over the top even by Westside standards. A woman enters, wearing expensive workout clothes, apparently aspirational, with a small pooch that also looks like it has missed a few days at the doggie dojo. The woman drags her little darling over to the food-laden counter, grabs a handful of napkins, and proceeds to wipe the dog's ass. Then she reaches up and throws the toilet paper into the hole between the honey and the half and half.

There are good reasons for the regulations prohibiting animals, other than service animals, in places that stock and serve food: hygiene, allergies, disease, noise, bites, fights, the rights of other patrons among them. Service dogs are excepted because they are a necessary aid to people with certain disabilities. They are also well-trained: they don't bark, fight, climb on the furniture, or lick the tables (there is one local mutt that drags his ass around the floor every day while his "master" gets his order; I wonder what level of fecal matter Mythbusters would find on the Sugar in the Raw at that location).

The regulations are reasonable. They should be enforced.

No Comment Department: Safe Streets

From the BicycleLaw.com blog:

In the Netherlands, the law imposes a rebuttable presumption of liability on drivers -- if a motorist is involved in a crash with a cyclist, the law presumes that the motorist is liable for the crash, unless the motorist can rebut that presumption with evidence to the contrary. The reason for this shift is that the Dutch recognized that the cyclist will virtually always be the injured party in a collision with an automobile, and by putting the onus of fault on the driver, have provided motorists with a powerful legal incentive to pay more attention to the presence of cyclists.