Okay the legislature is out of session, so these what might have been stories are a dime a dozen, but, I find it irking to the max that instead of talking about the big problems, we get legislators talking about the little problems. Problems like a tweak to the open container law. From Brian Lockhart’s report in the Advocate:
Amann said over the weekend that when the General Assembly reconvenes later this summer to vote on a bonding package, he wants his colleagues to budget additional money for bridge and road maintenance to avoid a deadly collapse like the one in Minneapolis Aug. 1.
Amann said he also may urge his colleagues to revive the open-container ban, which died in June in the House of Representatives. It may be that, without one, Connecticut and 12 other states are forced to divert tens of millions of dollars in federal road grants to drunken-driving prevention.
“If that’s true . . . we should immediately put a lid on those containers and see if we can receive the revenues,” Amann said. “It never seemed to be a priority of too many people.”
Now drivers over 21 cannot drink alcohol behind the wheel but can have an open container in the vehicle. Passengers are allowed to consume alcohol.
State Sen. William Nickerson, R-Greenwich, a longtime proponent of a ban, said an open bottle often means a driver is imbibing.
Note that no one is talking about the statistics or evidence on just how many drivers are tooling around with open containers of alcoholic beverages in their cars. I’m surprised that they aren’t talking about the corallary, too hot coffee beverages, open and inviting in the drivers hand as they drive. Let’s take drinking and driving to its ultimate conclusion, no drinking and driving of any kind. Then maybe we can start to focus on the real problem which is reckless and irratic driving.
Reckless driving is something that police can actually easily observe and enforce. Things like tailgating, lane switching without turn signals, turning without signals, turning radius into the wrong lane, speeding, weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds, driving too slowly, and not staying in a lane. Then there’s the stopping at stop signs, red lights, school buses, and slwoing down through construction zones. In short, there are many driving behaviors that are easily observerble that are not enforced. That is the real problem to solve. Not some feel good measure, cloaked in federal highway funds scare tactics, to make it look like the legislature is doing something.
The legislature should be concerned about the budget deficit, which they wrongfully refer to as a budget surplus. They did nothing after Rell vetoed the adoption of GAAP, mostly because they spend time worrying about issues like the open container law, instead of issues like having a financial reports that reflect the actual state of the state, instead of the fantasy numbers they all use so they continue spending money.
source: Advocate, Bid to outlaw open containers may be revived, August 20 2007
