AZDPS

Arizona one of worst states in nation for driving, highway safety folks say

Arizonans beep your horns – we’ve been selected as one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to driving safely.

Photo (but not crash) by Ryn Gargulinski

Perhaps we should have some bumper stickers made up.

Arizona ranked as the second worst state based on the annual report card from Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, according to its news release.

Ironically, the low-ranking report card came hot on the wheels of an Arizona Department of Public Safety news release that announced highway deaths decreased nearly 50 percent from 2006 to 2009.

Maybe people have been just too broke to buy gasoline.

The Highway and Auto Safety report card ranks states into cute little categories that match traffic lights. Green is at the top of the heap, yellow is the mediocre states and red is the worst.

Arizona was only topped by South Dakota and had the fine distinction of being a new entry in the red category.

The Grand Canyon State was bashed for having only 4.5 laws of the group’s 15 recommended laws that promote safe driving.

The group said the state is missing a primary seat belt law; six out of seven teen driving provisions; mandatory blood-alcohol testing for drivers who survive a crash in which there was a fatality; and the booster seat law.

Why do we need a booster seat law when we can just chuck the kids in the back of the pickup?

Arizona also lacks a motorcycle helmet law and restrictions on texting while driving.

Last we heard there isn’t even a cell phone law, why should we jump the gun and institute a texting one?

This year’s report graded states on their adoption of 15 model laws divided into five issue categories, the release said:

Adult Occupant Protection (2 laws)
* Primary enforcement seat belt law that allows law enforcement officers to stop and ticket someone for violating the seat belt law rather than a weaker secondary enforcement law that requires the officer to observe another traffic violation first.
* All-rider motorcycle helmet law that requires motorcyclists of all ages to wear a helmet.

Child Passenger Safety (1 law)
* Child booster seat law that requires children from age 4 through age 7 to be placed in a booster seat.

Teen driving Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) law that phases in the full driving privilege in a three stage process and allows for primary enforcement of the law: (7 laws)
* A minimum age of 16 to obtain a learner’s permit.
* Learner’s Stage: A six-month “holding period” that requires beginning teen drivers to be supervised by an adult licensed driver at all times and to be citation-free before graduating to the provisional or intermediate stage
* Learner’s Stage: A minimum 30-50 hours of adult supervised driving with no reduction in required behind-the-wheel practice time for teens who take a driver’s education course.
* Intermediate Stage: A nighttime driving restriction provision that prohibits unsupervised driving from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
* Intermediate Stage: A passenger restriction of no more than one non-family teen passenger without adult supervision
* Learner’s and Intermediate Stages: A cell phone and texting restriction that prohibits the use of cellular devices (handheld and hands-free) by novice teen drivers, except in the case of an emergency.
* The minimum age for an unrestricted license is 18.

Impaired Driving (4 laws)
* Ignition-interlock devices (IID) required for all drunk-driving offenders.
* Child endangerment law for driving drunk with children in the motor vehicle.
* Mandatory blood-alcohol testing for any driver who is killed, or who survives a crash in which there is a fatality, to have his or her BAC tested.
* Open container ban in the passenger area of vehicles. The state law must match the requirements put forth in the federal TEA-21 law, which includes possession and consumption and allowing for primary enforcement.

Distracted Driving (1 law)
* A ban on text messaging for all drivers, except in the case of an emergency.
In each of the five issue categories, states were given one of three ratings based on how many optimal laws they have: Green (Good); Yellow (Caution – state needs improvement); and Red (Danger – state falls dangerously behind). Placement in one of the three ratings was based solely on whether or not a state had adopted a law as defined in the report, and not on any evaluation of a state’s highway safety education-enforcement program or on fatality rates.

While all this is quite interesting, rating a state by how many laws it has in place may not be the best way to go about ranking them.

Even if laws are in place that does not mean people will actually follow them.

New York made the green category as one of the top five states for traffic safety.

The ranking people have evidently never driven through Brooklyn where the car in front of you will suddenly stop, double parked in the middle of the street, while the driver runs into the deli to get a bialy.

And they are certainly missing out on driving an Arizona highway in a dust storm or trekking through Tucson where anyone who doesn’t tailgate ends up getting cut off and blinkers are foreign objects.

If they tried basing the ratings on those aspects, Arizona may even beat out South Dakota.

[tnipoll]

What do you think?

Would Arizona be a safer if all the recommended traffic laws were in place?

What traffic law are we missing that we need?

What traffic laws are annoying or stupid?

What driving laws do you constantly ignore?

97 illegal immigrants found chilling in a frigid tractor trailer

What started as a routine traffic stop for a refrigerated commercial tractor trailer ended up as a hefty illegal immigrant bust on July 29, according to a press release from the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

An Arizona Department of Public Safety officer stopped the trailer for an equipment violation after getting a tip, perhaps ironically, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol.

Packed in the back with chilled out cargo/Ryn Gargulinski — Packed in the back with chilled out cargo/DPS photo

The DPS officer pulled over the truck on Interstate 19 at kilometer 24, north of Nogales, to take the driver into custody on a misdemeanor warrant.

He then peeked in the back of the truck.

In addition to a load of produce chilling out in the 34-degree temperature, he found 97 illegal immigrants. They included adults and children, the latter ranging in age from 9 to 12.

The produce type was not specified but photos of the empty truck show chewed up watermelon rinds along with water jugs and bottles, a mere 2 degrees above freezing.

The aliens, who were found to be from both Mexico and Guatemala, were taken to the Nogales Border Patrol station where they will be processed and returned to their native countries.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office are coordinating the investigation into the smuggling scheme.

“This is yet another frightening example of the callous disregard human smugglers have for those who entrust their lives to them,” said Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Arizona.

“These people were treated like cargo. They were crammed inside this truck and subjected to near freezing temperatures. Fortunately, due to the swift action of the law enforcement agencies involved in this case, none of these people came to any harm.”

What do you think?

Are you appalled at the precarious situations people put themselves in just to cross the border?

Would you rather be smuggled across the blazing desert or in a freezing tractor trailer?

Ryn: Mules and fools wanted for drug careers

Anyone looking for a career that is exciting, creative and full of surprises can find it right here in southern Arizona.

You can go into drug smuggling.

Drug dog Becky sits atop the 133 pounds of marijuana she sniffed out/AZDPS photo — Drug dog Becky sits atop the 133 pounds of marijuana she sniffed out during a bust in March/AZDPS photo

This lucrative and enticing opportunity will never have you hunkered over a cramped computer for hours on end.

Nor will you be subjected to excruciating board meetings, layoffs due to the recession or those horrible dress code things that always got me in trouble at the insurance office on Madison Avenue.

You make your own hours, wear what you will and earn enough cash to buy fancy sharkskin suits and machine guns.

In a bustling week starting June 5, the Arizona Department of Public Safety seized more than $830,000 in suspected drug cash; 35 pounds of cocaine; three pounds of methamphetamine; and, with the help of some other agencies, 660 pounds of marijuana.

One caveat, of course, is you cannot get caught.

But hauls similar to those could be yours if you use some ingenuity.

All types of strange places have been used for drug smuggling, so you need to come up with something new.

Drugs stuffed in the dashboard, car seats and fuel tanks are old hat. So are drugs stuffed in old hats, wheel wells and vehicle trunks, engines and speakers.

One that could have been ingenuous was foiled because the smuggler got carried away.

A man with a tractor-trailer full of watermelon was crossing the border earlier this month with cocaine stuffed in a very creative place.

No, not in the watermelon. Drugs stuffed in foodstuff is also passé and obvious.

He thought of jamming cocaine into a fire extinguisher. The only problem was, he thought it such a grand idea that he tried to haul seven fire extinguishers through U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

Since watermelon are not known for being particularly flammable, border patrol officers decided to have the drug dog check out these fire extinguishers to see what the deal was.

The deal for the watermelon dude will now most likely be jail time. And he doesn’t even get to keep the watermelon.

Another spot that had lots of potential for drug stuffing is dead bodies. The corpse’s stomach can be hallowed out and made into a particularly clever hiding space where not many people would want to search.

In another tale that may or may not be true, a mother crosses the border cradling her baby in her arms. An agent, however, notes the baby doesn’t look too well and asks to take a closer peek. The mom runs off, accidentally dropping the child, who is found to have been brutally murdered and gutted so his insides could be stuffed with drugs.

While this tale may seem far-fetched, similar circumstances have been used to smuggle drugs inside the living.

Balloons, small baggies or condoms are stuffed with drugs and swallowed or crammed in bodily orifices.

Several problems have popped up from using drug balloons. Some start clogging intestines or other places and need to be surgically removed.

Still others begin to leak and the person ends up flipping out or dying from a massive drug overdose.

We never said this career was without its dangers. Otherwise, everyone would be doing it.

In addition to dead babies and a fatal drug overdose, an even greater danger lurks in the land of smugglers.

The drug-sniffing dog. These canines are trained to detect marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and anything else that makes you high, stoned, spaced-out or is illegal to carry across the border.

Even a juicy T-bone won’t deter these pooches from their mission. Your only hope is not to get them called over in your general direction.

So be frugal with those fire extinguishers.

And be careful. This is not a job for sissies, although it may be a job for idiots. But with all the busts, murders and deaths, at least you know it’s a field where there will always be new openings.

Ryn Gargulinski is an artist, poet and TucsonCitizen.com Ryngmaster who never tried to smuggle drugs but once smuggled her pet rat on an airplane. Listen to a preview of her column at 8:10 a.m. Thursdays on KLPX 96.1 FM. Listen to her webcast at 4 p.m. Fridays at www.Party934.com. Her column appears every Friday on Rynski’s Blogski. E-mail rynski@tucsoncitrizen.com

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