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D'Val Westphal, aka the Journal’s Road Warrior columnist, is a refugee from radio. After doing a drive-time show in El Paso with Don Imus’ brother Fred, she added a master’s degree in the ink flavor of journalism to her broadcast BA and worked at the Las Cruces Sun-News before coming to the Journal copy desk in 1989 and completing a Ph.D. in American Studies at UNM in 1995. She did stints as an assistant city editor and then news editor before joining the editorial page staff. She's written the Road Warrior column since 1996.
Road Warrior
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By D'Val Westphal
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Tuesday, 31 March 2009 08:36 |
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Answers to most commonly-asked e-mails: Many readers e-mail me asking about tickets for talking on a hand-held cell-phone while driving. I've written two columns on this, and they are pasted below: (short answer -- 800-plus in 2007, almost 3,000 in 2008)
From november 2007:
800 Cited for Using Cell Phones in Cars: WHY IS EVERYONE DWY AGAIN? Tom Leith has been trying for months to find out if Albuquerque Police Department officers are enforcing the no-hand-held-cell-phonewhile-driving ban.
His point?
“My primary modes of transportation are motorcycle and walking. I saw a dramatic decrease in (cell-phone) use after the ban went into effect. This in spite of the police chief saying that he would not be stopping people (solely) for driving and using a cell phone. Lately, however, I have seen an increase in cell-phone use. I can only suppose that people have learned that there would be no consequences for doing so.”
And Joanna Bartlett e-mails that the “law on the books that prohibits driving while using a hand-held cell phone … seems to have made no difference in the number of people I see, on Interstate 25 for example, driving at 65 mph while talking on a phone. Or the alternative, doing 40 mph in the fast lane, which is just as dangerous.
“Do you have any numbers on citations given for breaking this law? If the City Council passes ‘junk’ laws, people will consider it OK to break any law.”
When the ban on talking on a hand-held cell phone while driving went into effect Feb. 16, officers didn’t issue citations for 60 days. And the police department made it clear it would not be pulling people over for DWY — driving while yakking — alone, but would cite if the yakking was being done in conjunction with unsafe driving. City ordinance 8-2-1-24, DRIVER’S PROHIBITED ACTS, states “it shall be unlawful for any person to … operate a motor vehicle upon a public highway while using a mobile telephone to engage in a call or create, send or read text messages while such vehicle is in motion.” Drumroll, please.
Since April 16, officers have written 800 tickets. It includes exemptions for emergency calls to and from medical, safety or law enforcement personnel; hands-free devices; and holding to activate, deactivate or initiate a function on a cell.
Since mid-April, Metropolitan Court has handled 798 first offenses and two second offenses, according to Metro Court spokeswoman Janet Blair.
At $100 for first and $200 for second, that’s a cool $80,200 in fines. And from February 2009: Despite Law, Phones And Tints Abound DOES ANYBODY ENFORCE CELLPHONE AND DARK-TINT LAWS? Sandie Short e-mails that “since the only people I see pulling out in front of me or drifting over the line are on their cell phones, AND it seems like at least one-third of the time I can’t make eye contact with another driver to somehow ‘divine’ their intentions, I really didn’t think these laws were being enforced at all. (I) don’t know anyone who’s been cited for those reasons.
“Because word of mouth is so effective, could you suggest to the police that they need to publicize, in every way they can think of, that they are enforcing cell phone and tinted windows laws?”
An Albuquerque Police Department Traffic Unit spokesman says “voluntary compliance is always our goal and much easier when we have the public’s cooperation. However, citations are being issued to those who put their convenience over the safety of others.”
According to Janet Blair, spokeswoman for Metropolitan Court, in calendar 2008, 2,736 people were cited for using a hand-held cell phone while driving ($100 fine plus $59 in court costs); 1,105 for too-dark tint (from $25 to $200 fine plus the same court costs).
APD says officers “have been making a habit out of running tactical operations with the Traffic Unit looking for traffic violations in random areas. These operations include in their scope cell phones, window tint and any unsafe driving habits.”
SHOULD I REALLY CALL IF THAT CRUMMY DRIVER IS A COP? The recent column on that topic caught Dave’s eye. Actually, make that the cops driving the cruisers.
Dave e-mails he has “estimated that, as far as using their signals, APD officers are about 50/50 for compliance. I had a neighbor, who ended up being an assistant chief of police, who didn’t use his. Neither did his wife nor his two driving-age children. Even though the children had to go through drivers’ education, I saw who they emulated.”
"The Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office deputies make the APD officers look like angels. One day, my son and I were traveling eastbound on Paseo del Norte near Second Street. I told my son that this cop — who I could see in my rearview mirror — was really moving. She was going so fast that she couldn’t stay in one lane through the slight curves. We found why she didn’t have her rack lights on when we caught up to her. She got stuck in the right turn lane at I-25 southbound. She was in street clothes AND was eating food with utensils! Another Saturday I was behind a deputy’s Mustang going southbound on Golf Course Road from Rio Rancho. He also was in street clothes. He was racing from light to light. I got up to 50 in a 40 mph zone trying to keep up to him before I backed off because it was not really smart for anyone, including me, to be doing that. The way he was pulling away from me, he had to have been going at least 60 mph, and through Paradise Hills, it is a 30 mph zone.”
Dave says he gets “the vehicle numbers and am always planning on calling these in but usually cool off before doing so. I figure I would just make myself a target for police harassment.”
Au contraire.
BCSO spokeswoman Erin Kinnard Thompson went straight to Undersheriff Sal Baragiola. He says “when not responding to a call for service, the sheriff’s department fully expects deputies to follow all traffic laws. Reports of traffic violations such as speeding are taken very seriously by the sheriff and command staff, and Sheriff (Darren) White encourages anyone who witnesses a violation to report it to his office.
“The reports are thoroughly reviewed and investigated, and the deputy is disciplined when the information can be verified. It is important to include as much identifying information as you can when reporting a problem driver. If at all possible, we ask motorists to get the license plate number or unit number and call the sheriff’s department administration at 468-7100.”
That column back in November had a spokesman for APD’s Traffic Unit recommending that, if someone observes a problem with a city officer’s driving, they should “call 311 and make a complaint any time. The officer is then identified, given the correct information, and the complaint is forwarded to that officer’s chain of command, where it will be investigated by his or her direct supervisor.
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By D'Val Westphal
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Wednesday, 11 February 2009 09:32 |
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After the recent blog post on free Donate Life license plates for Valentine's Day, this scary story about the road to hell being paved with life-saving intentions came in:
"make sure you let the people know that they have to pay the medical bills at the hospital while the people find a suitable recipient for the organs. i know first hand as we donated our son's organs and are being billed over $53,000.00 for keeping his body alive so that they can harvest his organs. it was one of the most awful things i and my wife have ever gone through and we vowed never to do it again. ..."
I forwarded the horror story to Maria Sanders, the community services manager at New Mexico Donor Services, and she gave this rundown of how the organ donation process works:
"New Mexico Donor Services assumes responsibility for all costs of the organ donation. However, there is one distinction: if the patient was a designated (registered) donor, hospital costs are assumed after brain death declaration; if the patient was not a designated donor, then costs are assumed after consent for donation has been obtained from legal next of kin. "NMDS would like an opportunity to further investigate this donation. Please ask donor family to contact Patricia Niles at (505) 843-7672 or toll free 1-800-843-7672 and we can proceed from there. It is possible that this donation occurred in another state. If that is the case we can direct them to the best point of contact for that state's organ procurement organization. "It is our hope that if a financial error inconsistent with our practice is discovered we can proceed to next steps and reconcile this matter immediately. "NMDS is committed to caring for our donor families, we certainly want to protect them from any unnecessary and unwarranted hardship during their time of grief." Our e-mailer says the donation occurred in Lincoln County. Here's to clearing up any errors so people can see the light of giving the amazing gift of life in an otherwise dark, dark time -- instead of a pile of bills.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 12 February 2009 12:42 )
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By D'Val Westphal
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Friday, 06 February 2009 15:05 |
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Getting a "Donate Life" plate won't cost you an arm, leg or kidney -- in fact, they're free on Valentines Day.
MVD Express will hand out 100 free DONATE LIFE license plates on National Donor Day, Feb. 14th. All you have to do is be a registered organ donor and be among the first to register your vehicle that morning. The plates usually run $12. I know. I have one and have advocated for organ and tissue donation for years. My mother has donor bone in her spine, my sister-in-law has had two donated corneas, I have friends who have donor cartilage in their knees, and when my brother-in-law died unexpectedly at the age of 42 we learned he had had the foresight to be a donor and make a positive, life-changing difference in many lives. The free license plates are being sponsored by Organ Transplant Awareness Program of New Mexico. In a news release, Phillip Lance, president of the group and a kidney transplant recipient, says "New Mexicans register to be organ donors because they want to help someone in need. We want to thank them for their decision to save lives with a 'Donate Life' license plate." New Mexico Donor Services says the five participating MVD Express sites are:
- Eubank & Montgomery, 4531 Eubank NE
- Wyoming at Paseo del Norte, 8801 Wyoming NE
- Menaul & Morris, 10200 Menaul NE
- Menaul & Washington, 4100 Menaul NE
- Coors north of Montano, 6271 Riverside Plaza Ln NW
If you don't get one of the free plates Feb. 14, know that they are available anytime for $12. New Mexico Donor Services says "National Donor Day encourages Americans to donate the Five Points of Life - organs, tissue, blood, platelets, and bone marrow. National Donor Day sponsors include the Organ Transplant Awareness Program of New Mexico, New Mexico Department of Health, New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division and New Mexico Donor Services." For more info check out www.DonateLifeNM.org.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 February 2009 16:15 )
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By D'Val Westphal
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Saturday, 31 January 2009 00:00 |
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More than four years after the red-light cameras went up in Albuquerque, the city has delivered stats on how the program has affected safety.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 30 January 2009 14:24 )
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