Wear them.
And some interesting stats from Maine:
Medicaid paid out, on average, $24,500 for crash victims who were wearing their seat belts at the time of the incident. . . . The Medicaid payout for unbelted victims, meanwhile, was nearly triple that figure, or roughly $74,000 per patient, Steele said.
In an earlier review of Medicaid patients at EMHS, 10 of the 11 patients whose bills were in excess of $100,000 were not buckled up at the time of the accident.
A heartwarming tale of bloody death and a robbery gone wrong.
The Boston Heraldreports on “several random beatings on perceived outsiders by South Boston punks.”
Years ago, late at night, I used to ride my bike through South Boston a lot (the Castle Island causeway was a great destination). But it just so happens that Southie was home to some of the stupidest must heroined-out white people you’ll ever meet.
It’s like a little bit of South Baltimore right in yuppie Boston, but more racist. I felt more ill-at-east in parts of Southie (and also the white parts of Dorchester) than I ever did in the ghetto. And I’m white!
Going through Southie I had to stay on our toes (inasmuch as you can, riding a bicycle). Local yahoos would occasionally drive by and shout things like, “get a car, you fag!” or maybe throw an empty beer can. It may not sound so bad until you realize how defenseless you are on a bicycle, and how their little “joke” could easily kill you. “Ya honor,” they would later say in court, “We didn’t mean him to die. We was just kiddin’ around, ya know, havin’ a good time. We didn’t know he was going to fawl off his bike when we bumped him with ah caaah”
Sometimes I’d ride with my roommate after our job at the restaurant ended and the bars had closed. After 2AM the streets were empty. We had a routine–which we still joke about even though we never had to use it–if somebody wanted to run us down for being “bike-riding fags” or some other similar offense. Johnnie, cause he could put on a wicked-thick local accent, would say, “Naw, we ain’t fags, this is for the Jimmy Fund! We’re doin’ it for the retaaaaded kids!”
Anyway, Southie has gentrified quite a bit since the 1990s. But apparently, not enough.
Well this is going to set back sentencing reformfor a while!
I suspect this seventh strike will put him away for life.
A multiple felon who campaigned against California’s three-strikes law and was free after managing four times to escape its harsh sentencing guidelines has been charged with murdering four people in home-invasion robberies here this year.
…
Mr. Ewell was in courtrooms again this summer after three arrests, accused of switching price tags on a vacuum cleaner and other items at Home Depot stores. The judge postponed his 32-month prison sentence so Mr. Ewell could undergo “prescheduled eye and stomach surgery,” said Jacquelyn Lacey, an assistant district attorney in Los Angeles. Prosecutors said Mr. Ewell spent a month of that grace period — from late September to late October — robbing a string of homes in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County and killing four people he either strangled or beat to the point of a heart attack.
I see pictures like this from the Daily Newsand I notice one thing: the shoes.
If you’re hit by a car going too fast, the shoes will fly off your feet and be left basically where you are hit. Think of how much pressure you can apply and not get your shoes off your feet. It’s impossible if you don’t untie them, right? It freaks me out.
“The car was going really fast down 93rd St., much faster than normal.” So what’s the moral? Not don’t jaywalk… don’t friggin speed!
From Chicago, the Sun-Timesreports on the death of a Bears fan:
A skilled climber who enjoyed scaling up the side of buildings and trees, he may have even hopped over a railing to enjoy a cigarette behind one of Soldier Field’s famous columns before he fell, friends said.
Here’s a sad story about the costs–physically, psychologically, and financially–from one shot crime victim.
Timothy “So I can’t call you no more?” West was acquitted despite, best I can tell, admitting to it. According the Daily News:
Privately, several jurors interviewed after the verdict said they didn’t buy the victim’s story because there were no signs of forced entry into her home.
One juror said the panel believed the victim must have known West, and that she let him into her home.
West has a history of break-ins and was on parole for robbery when arrested, but the jury did not hear that evidence: Buchter ruled it could prejudice the jury against him.
From the Daily News:
The fearless off-duty cop who faced down an armed robber in a Brooklyn beauty parlor on Saturday managed to shoot the pistol right out of the crook’s hands, cops said Monday.
And in a scene that would be over the top even for the most ridiculous Hollywood cop movie, one of Officer Feris Jones’ bullets hit the front door – and locked it.
…
He escaped by kicking out the glass on the lower portion of the door and crawled out to the street on his hands and knees, leaving a trail of blood.When Cox was arrested in a single-room-occupancy hotel on Pacific St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant early Monday, he answered the door meekly, his bloody hands wrapped in Bounty paper towels borrowed from his mother.
…
The suspected gunman’s mom told the Daily News she was shocked her parolee son was mixed up in it.“I can’t come to grips with it,” said Cheryl Cox, whose 19-year-old son, Winston Cox, the youngest of her eight kids.
I was hoping for a better quote from him mom, though. But maybe she made those little air quotes with her fingers when she said the word, shocked. That would make it good.
[Update: Actually, in the mom’s defense,she has filed eight charges of assault against her son and had good things to say about the police officer, “I’m just thankful to God the police officer is OK — she did a good job.” It’s in the Post.]