Monday, April 04, 2005
Thank you, Colorado!
Colo. Cracks Down on Left-Lane Dawdling
DENVER - Colorado is serious about its no-dawdling law in left lanes. Drivers who insist on staying in the passing lane are risking tickets as the State Patrol has begun enforcing a law requiring motorists to use the left lane for passing only.
Since the patrol started enforcing the "Left Lane Law" three months ago, troopers have written about 460 tickets or about an average of five a day to drivers who dawdle in the left lane.
The law applies in zones with speed limits of 65 mph or higher. It took effect July 1, but troopers gave drivers until January to get used to the new law; warnings were issued instead of tickets.
Master Trooper Ron Watkins said that since the ticketing campaign began three months ago about 90 percent of the drivers he has pulled over for dawdling or cruising in the left lane said they didn't know that it was illegal to do so.
Violators of the left lane rule may be fined up to $41 and have three points tacked onto their driver's licenses. The law is not enforced when the highway is too congested to allow drivers to pass.
Colo. Cracks Down on Left-Lane Dawdling
DENVER - Colorado is serious about its no-dawdling law in left lanes. Drivers who insist on staying in the passing lane are risking tickets as the State Patrol has begun enforcing a law requiring motorists to use the left lane for passing only.
Since the patrol started enforcing the "Left Lane Law" three months ago, troopers have written about 460 tickets or about an average of five a day to drivers who dawdle in the left lane.
The law applies in zones with speed limits of 65 mph or higher. It took effect July 1, but troopers gave drivers until January to get used to the new law; warnings were issued instead of tickets.
Master Trooper Ron Watkins said that since the ticketing campaign began three months ago about 90 percent of the drivers he has pulled over for dawdling or cruising in the left lane said they didn't know that it was illegal to do so.
Violators of the left lane rule may be fined up to $41 and have three points tacked onto their driver's licenses. The law is not enforced when the highway is too congested to allow drivers to pass.
Let us set our stage in Vatican City, home to some of the most glorious art of the known world. One that is besieged by grief at the passing of Pope John Paul II. A sad event even for someone who doesn't think organized religious is her particular brand of vodka. I mean no disrespect to the man himself, who I'll agree did wonderful things for many, many, innumerable people (and my Polish side likes that he was the first non-Italian since the 16th century). But as I hear that numerous reports on his passing on the news I continue to hear the phrase "remembered as one of the greatest Popes of all time." How do people decide that? He's the only Pope many of us remember, the rest presenting themselves to be judged only through history books. I think that skews the vote a bit. In 100 years, he'll be in a book somewhere and his reign will be boiled down to failing health in his final days, surviving an assassination attempt and the fact that he took power after the suspicious death of his predecessor, whose abreviated 33-day reign is widely believed to be the work of the Italian Mafia and P2 in response to the fact that Pope John Paul I was intent on divesting the Vatican of much of its financial tentacles. Change that didn't occur during the years that Pope John Paul II ran the ship.
Now, I reiterate that I have no problems with the man and that I rather liked him also. It's just my example of how time and perspective can often change how we label things. How things that were once so important now pale in comparison to your current situation. Or when people that you had firmly intrenched in a particular place in your life no longer fit there. Think what would happen in newscasters constantly asked you to rate people as they drifted in and out of your life? Who would be "the greatest friend of all time?" It would change, right? Depend on how you looked at it and what mood you were in at the time of being asked. Oh how about being asked "Which person in your life has the most impact on you as a person?"
And as a sidenote, I have to wonder if there has been another time in history that average mortals have know as much about the election of a Pope as now. As I listen to various newscasts go over the directives of electing the new Pope, I feel that I know all about it. That anyone who has read
Angels and Demons understands this protocol. And is thinking, wow, if people start dying along the Path of Illumination, I'm definitely keeping my eye out for hunky symbologists in my neighborhood who might need a sidekick.
