I got a new Prius

The Subauru is reasonably popular up here in Canada for precisely that reason. Never seen one stuck.

>

Even before getting a Prius, I tried to drive as if everyone else was deaf. Noise cues are a plus, not to be relied on. OTOH even at electric-only speeds a Prius is rarely completely silent. Its wheels make the same road surface noises as those on other cars.

But I _am_ training the locals to look around before crossing.

You beat me by three years but I severed my ties from all types of paid work completely. I have only one problem with retirement. Mostly it's not knowing what day of the week it is. Even when I ask, five minutes later I 've forgotten.

LOL! Again, I find myself agreeing. This is a VERY Liberal area. If I didn't own the home here (and like the peace and quiet) I'd be out of here! The ONLY benefit of living in such an area.

But, most of our shopping has to be out of town. Thanks to Sprawlbusters, we have no affordable department stores (there is one, but I ain't got $39 for a pair of jeans...). They have managed to keep Wal*Mart, Target, and all the other large stores (that WANT to come here) out. We have 5 Home Improvement stores, including Home Depot, three large supermarkets, a half-dozen autoparts stores, but no discount department stores.

A store is trying to come to the area, and after a 5 year battle the City government finally approved an area, and now the k00ks are holding it up, saying it is a Wetlands *BUFFER* area...

I tell you, man, these people come out of the woodwork...

My other peeve with them: there was a company that wanted to build an office park on 55 acres on the edge of town. It got shut down because it was 'voted' that the land should remain available for New farms...

There hasn't been a "New" farm in that area in 50 years...

Yeah! That's him! Ivan...I knew that!!

This is true...when I was 18 I started up a dirt-and-rock raod in a friend's '67 Chevy 30 Pickup (30...as in One Ton). He looked at me and asked where I was going..."You'll never get through there!"

Why not? I do it with my Mom's Corona all the time!!!

I really wanted one instead of the Mazda, but opportunity knocked. After a few minor teething problems, the Mazda is proving itself to be a very decent car, all things considered.

Some of these places I mentioned, that will get you SHOT!

Or at least lead to a good episode of Road Rage. I haven't had a good one for about 3-4 years now...that night I took the '85 Celica up tp 110 'playing' with some idiot who thought he was Mario Andretti...

He wasn't laughing too hard when I got *done* with him...

Dude...*I* don't want to dirty *MY* ashtray!!! I rarely put a butt in the ashtray. It's the only littering I do. I pile the inside of my car with Flaky Puff wrappers, old dead coffee cups, you name it. I had to have someone at work give the exchange student a ride home because there was no room in the CHRYSLER because of the junk! NOTHING goes out the window

except ciggy butts...

Here is a series of articles about a notorious crossing area about 15 miles from where I live. I know the girl driving the Jeep. She was a bartender where I played bass every Thurs night for 5 years. I met her by walking up to her and saying, "Does your mother know where you are"...

Because she looked like my 16 YO daughter!

GREENFIELD - Tara Sudyka's lawyer on Thursday tried to debunk the state police reconstruction of a 2004 crash in which her Jeep struck and killed a 25-year-old pedestrian in a crosswalk on Route 116 in Sunderland.

In the District Court vehicular homicide trial, Jeffrey Brown questioned the accuracy of the state police calculations in an attempt to show that, at the time of the crash, his client could have been driving as much as 10 mph slower than the upper estimate made by the trooper from the Crash Reconstruction Unit.

According to trooper Walter Lazarz, Sudyka's vehicle was traveling at somewhere between 37 and 42 mph when she struck Jessica Hayes in the crosswalk in front of the 7-Eleven store on the night of Dec. 21, 2004.

According to Lazarz, based on his calculations, Hayes' body would have been knocked sideways so that her torso slammed into the hood of Sudyka's

1997 Jeep Wrangler, before the body was launched into the air, a prediction which matches well with the descriptions offered Wednesday by witnesses to the event.

_____________________

I remember that night well, because it was dark, rainy and miserable; the kind of night that Night Blindness sets in. I called my drummer and cancelled practice because I didn't want to drive the 30 miles to get to his house.

_____________________________

SUNDERLAND - A pedestrian was hurt and taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield Tuesday night after being hit by a car near the northern-most entrance to Cliffside Apartments on Route 116.

According to Sunderland Police, Alan Reed, 56, who lives at Cliffside, was following his wife and son, crossing from the west to the east side of the road around 7:40 p.m. The three were walking outside of a crosswalk in a darkened area of Route 116. His wife and son were three-quarters of the way across when a car driven northbound by Andrew Boivin, 20, of Bernardston, swerved to avoid the two.

_______________________________

Wissemann said the board, which has worked closely with the state Highway Department on the project, advocated that two crosswalks replace the previous four crosswalks that went between Cliffside on the east and bus stops and shops on the west. Pedestrians now are more often forced to make a circuitous route from one side of the street to the other if they use the crosswalk.

_____________________________-__

I have been driving this road most of my life, since I got my license at

1. The problem isn't with traffic, or the crosswalks, or anything but the fact that the apartment complex across the street from the 7-11 and the bus stop is mostly inhabited by college students from UMASS, and are used to having the undisputed right of way at the college.

I don't know how that many of them cannot simply realize that YOU CAN'T STOP A TON OF METAL IN TWENTY FEET!!!!! I have had them walk right out in front of me when I was TEN FEET from the crosswalk!!! In the course of 30 years I have probably had 20 near misses because people simply walk out in front of you, or, worse yet, walk around the front of the friggin' BUS and walk out in front of you...yeah, I can see through 3 tons of metal, NO PROBLEM! Let me turn my X-Ray vision on!

Reeducation of the pedestrians will stop the problem, not $250,000 of "Modifications" every 6 months!!!

Well, for one, I am not financially independant enough for that, and the other thing is, when I have a cool job, I LIKE working!!

The USian practice (AIUI), of forcing traffic to stop for school buses (un)loading students, is admirable but I wonder what kinds of lazy road behaviour it encourages in youngsters. The college kids would recently have been school, I expect, and still had no idea how dangerous the real world can be, or the watchful habits of true adults.

The German poet/playwright Friedrich von Schiller penned a neato summary of that problem: "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen GÖtter selbst vergebens." IOW: "With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain." We cannot force people to be smart. Helping them not to be quite so _unthinking_ might be doable. :-(

Tomes, have you looked at the Toyota FJ Cruiser as a possible replacement for your Jeep (Wrangler)? I've heard it's quite excellent off-road, unlike recent incarnations of the Land Bruiser.

The way I understand the crosswalk law in NJ anyway, it is the same as the crosswalk being a Yield sign. The driver must be sure that there is not a pedestrian (who does have the right of way) there. If he is sure, he can then pass. Yep, even if the pedestrian is behind a bus. If the pedestrian is not in the crosswalk, then the driver has right of way. It is a painted line on the ground thing.

This is a relatively new law here (within the last 10 years I am thinking) and the education level of the drivers is still lacking. At this point there are many crosswalks with those skinny signs nailed to the double yellow line instructing the drivers to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk, but they still do not obey this law. Tomes

Up 87

I like the FJ. I liked the old FJs as well. The thing is, I buy a vehicle and then run it forever. I will run the Jeep for over 200K miles (they go that far too) [80K now]. The Jeep is mine, the Prius is ostensibly the wife's car, and the Sienna is now the kid's car and the trailer puller and load mover. I see this staying in stasis for a while now. However, if the big Monty Python foot would come down on the Jeep I would seriously look at the FJ. A big drawback is that it does not open up enough for me, at least not yet. I can hope that removable roof and doors are in its future... Tomes

In Mass. there is no Jaywalking. Anytime a pedestrian steps off the curb, you are supposed to grant Right Of Way.

That's all fine and well, but the stretch of road in question here is a 45 MPH roadway. Great, but you still have to realize the physics involved in hauling 2900 pounds from 45 to 0 in X feet! They walk out in front of you like you can stop on a dime in 10 feet! Even at 35 MPH, which is what they are proposing for that stretch of road, it is still impossible!

A little further down the road, in Amherst, they installed raised crosswalks, like speed bumps, with flashing lights like flashbulbs that flash as soon as they hit the button. And the speed limit there is 30 MPH. Better, but you still get Dimwits at night wearing dark clothes that don't hit the button and expect you to stop from 25-30 in 5 feet.

And this is Amherst College material?

Oh...yeah...to Plattsburgh...

Well, let's hear what happened!

I'm certainly NO enviro nut BUT....those filters just do NOT degrade.... . Now, NON-filtered cigs..no problem..the butt just falls apart in the wind or rain.