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September 26th 2005 - Monday, September 26, 2005
Diesel prices up; oil industry spared the brunt of Rita
Diesel prices rose Monday, Sept. 26, in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, though not as much as they did following Hurricane Katrina.
The Energy Information Agency reported a national average of $2.798 per gallon for the week ending Sept. 26. That’s up 6.6 from the previous week. By comparison, prices jumped 30 cents in one week following Hurricane Katrina.
The highest prices were in California, at $3.031 per gallon, though that was down almost 3 cents from the week before. The rest of the West Coast wasn’t far behind at $2.978 per gallon.
The biggest jump was in the Midwest, where prices rose 9.1 cents to $2.739 per gallon. The Gulf Coast region wasn’t far behind, with a jump of 7.9 cents to $2.756 per gallon.
The Lower Atlantic region also saw a big jump. Prices there rose 7.3 cents to $2.775 per gallon. The Central Atlantic had the highest prices in that area at $2.875 per gallon, while New England came in at $2.875 per gallon.
The East Coast region as a whole posted an average of $2.808 per gallon.
Meanwhile, truck stops across the country were reporting minimal effects from Rita.
Flying J reported that its facilities in Houston and New Caney, TX had escaped damages from the weekend hurricane and were being refueled Monday. Another Flying J in Orange, TX, did have some damage and was closed.
Travel Centers of America was still reporting some rationing at some of its stations Monday, including stations in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Petro reported that its station in Beaumont, TX, along Interstate 10 was still closed as crews worked to assess the damage there. Petro also reported fuel shortages at some stations in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina.
And the oil industry is breathing a little easier after Rita missed major petroleum processing areas in Texas.
Light, sweet crude oil was trading at $65.85 per barrel in midafternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Though that is up from last week, it is still not close to the $70.85 per barrel spike that followed Hurricane Katrina.
The Associated Press reported that, although overall damage was not as bad as expected, 16 Texas oil refineries were still shut down on Monday, and significant damage was found on at least one refinery in the Port Arthur area.
A 255,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Port Arthur owned by Valero Energy Corp. was said to be the most damaged. That plant could take at least two weeks to reopen.
Meanwhile, President Bush announced on Monday that the government is prepared to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve again, if needed.
No word yet on just how much would be released. That number will be determined by requests from oil companies once they fully assess the damage.
Higher speeds OK’d for some South Dakota highways
Speed limits on some rural highways in South Dakota will increase in about three weeks.
The South Dakota Transportation Commission voted last month to raise the speed limit to 70 mph on five stretches of divided four-lane highways. The Legislature’s Rules Review Committee gave the final OK to the faster speeds Sept. 20.
Highways affected are:
U.S. 83 between Pierre and Interstate 90;
U.S. 12 between Aberdeen and Interstate 29;
state Highway 37 between Mitchell and Huron;
state Highway 50 from Yankton and Vermillion; and
U.S. 281 between Aberdeen and state Highway 20.
Speed limits on those roads are now 65 mph.
South Dakota legislators approved a bill this year allowing the commission to decide if it’s safe to permit drivers to travel faster on four-lane state highways that are not part of the federal interstate system.
The speed limit on I-90 and I-29 in the state is 75 mph, but reduced to 65 mph through cities and towns.
In return for higher limits, anyone exceeding 70 mph on the affected stretches would be subject to a $200 fine and/or 30 days in jail.
Widow sues trucking company, plans state suit over truck crash
The widow of one of the victims of a fatal truck crash in Connecticut is suing the company whose dump truck caused the wreck.
Ellen Stotler, the wife of Paul A. “Chip” Stotler, who was killed in the July 29 crash, has sued to freeze the assets of American Crushing & Recycling, and has told the state’s transportation commissioner that she also intends to file suit against the state for ignoring the safety problems at the crash site, the Hartford Courant reported.
On July 29, a 12-wheeled dump truck owned by American Crushing and Recycling careened down Route 44 near Avon, and slammed into cars waiting at the intersection with Route 10 at the bottom of a steep grade. Four people were killed, including the truck’s driver, Abdulraheem Naafi, also known as Terrance R. Stokes.
“Unfortunately, the state waited until after this horrendous collision to put up the appropriate signs, and they still haven’t developed a plan for putting up runaway truck ramps or closing the road to trucks entirely,” Stotler’s lawyer, Michael A. Stratton, told the Courant. “Chip and his family paid a terrible price for that inaction.”
The lawsuit is the latest legal problem for the trucking company. On Thursday, Sept. 22, new evidence surfaced showing that on Jan. 3 American Crushing and Recycling had suspended its insurance coverage on the truck involved in the crash. The company cashed a refund check of almost $40,000, the Courant reported. Then, 118 minutes after the July 29 crash, the company’s insurance agent requested a reinstatement of the suspended coverage, retroactive to July 1.
However, Hubert J. Santos, a lawyer for the trucking company, issued a statement Friday,Sept. 23, that said the company had “continuous liability coverage at all times.”
On Thursday, Sept. 22, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell asked the state’s attorney general to determine if the company could be criminally charged with fraud for operating without insurance.
“The more I learn about this company the more enraged and horror-struck I become,” Rell said in a statement.
The accident sparked public interest and outrage, causing officials to take a hard look at safety violators within the state. On Aug. 17, Rell asked for a top-25 list of companies with poor safety records. Those companies underwent additional inspections, putting 61 trucks out of service.
However, the list faced scrutiny for not including companies based in Connecticut and operating out-of-state. On Aug. 23, the state’s Transportation Commissioner released a second list of the top 25 interstate companies with poor safety records on order of the governor.
Department of Transportation records show that inspectors had found five brake violations on the truck involved in the crash during inspections in the past. All of the problems were corrected, according to Newsday.
American Crushing and Recycling, the company that owned the truck, also had 448 mechanical violations between 1994 and 2001 while operating as Wilcox Trucking. The company changed names after the state Department of Motor Vehicles suspended the registrations of 16 of its trucks because they failed to comply with a number of repair orders, a DMV spokesperson told Newsday.
Despite a number of violations, the company was not in either of the lists for the top 25 violators in the state.
Naafi’s own history is also being questioned in the investigation. The accident occurred just two days after he began working for American Crushing and Recycling – the day after he was fired from another trucking company partially because he could not operate the truck’s transmission, Newsday reported.
Under a third, unreleased name, Naafi had a criminal record that included a robbery conviction.
Colorado cow accident raises liability questions
An accident in Colorado involving a tractor-trailer, 205 barrels of oil and five cows has raised some questions about exactly who is liable in such situations.
On Sunday, Sept. 25, a truck carrying 205 barrels of oil slammed into five cows along a state highway in Colorado. The cows had wandered into the road, and the driver was unable to brake in time.
The truck rolled off the side of the road, spilling more than 200 gallons of the oil it was carrying into a ditch. A passenger in the truck was killed, as were all five cows. The driver was hospitalized but is expected to recover.
Both people in the vehicle were wearing seatbelts and the police said that neither excessive speed nor alcohol was a factor in the accident.
Chuck Johnston, Claims Department manager for OOIDA, said an accident like this stresses the importance for drivers to know the laws of the states in which they operate.
In such cases, Johnston said, determining who is responsible depends on whether the state is an “open range” state.
“Some states are open range,” he said. “Which means, wherever the cattle are, is where they are, and no one is at fault. Other states require the cattle to be fenced.”
According to the Colorado Department of Agriculture, Colorado is an open range state, but that doesn’t mean that farmers can just allow their livestock to run around wherever they please.
There are various state and local laws that deal with specific offenses involving cattle, such as grazing on roads and in municipalities.
Though Colorado does not require cattle to be fenced in, cattle owners can still be held responsible for livestock involved in accidents on public highways, according to the department.
However, even in such a case, Johnston said it is not always easy to hold the owner of the cattle responsible.
“You have to show negligence on the part of the owner of the cattle,” he said.
– By Terry Scruton, senior writer
terry_scruton@landlinemag.com
Red-light tickets scrapped due to bad light timing in California
Drivers in Union City, CA, aren’t just seeing red – they’re seeing it a few seconds sooner than they should.
According to news Web site insidebayarea.com, every red-light ticket issued in the city – which could amount to as many as 3,000 – has been revoked. That move came after city officials discovered the timing of the yellow lights at five camera-monitored intersections had been shortened more than a second below the state-required length.
According to the California Department of Transportation, an intersection with a speed limit of 45 mph should have a yellow light time of at least 4.3 seconds. In Union City, however, the yellow-light time was incorrectly set at 3 seconds.
According to insidebayarea.com, about 100 of the 3,000 ticketed people had either already paid the $136 dollar ticket. All of those people will receive refunds, and the violations will be eliminated for the others.
A blunder down under
Traffic cameras aren’t just causing problems domestically. A snafu in Australia’s network of speed cameras has spurred more doubt about the use of automated traffic enforcement systems in the country.
According to the Melbourne Herald Sun, hundreds of drivers traveling on the Hume Highway at Somerset on July 21 were issued tickets for exceeding 80 km/hr, roughly 50 mph.
The problem? The speed limit on the road is 90 km/hr – approximately 55 mph.
Apparently, the technician responsible for calibrating the cameras set the speed at 10 km/hr too slow. Victoria police are expected to send withdrawal notices to all of the falsely ticketed drivers, the Herald Sun reported.
This incident is the latest of a series of problems in Australia that have raised questions about the security, effectiveness and validity of traffic-monitoring cameras.
On Aug. 9, a judge in Sydney, Australia, threw out a speeding case after the Australia Roads and Traffic Authority admitted they could not prove that pictures taken by an enforcement camera in the case had not been altered, Australia’s Daily Telegraph reported.
The case centered on the security of a mathematical algorithm that encrypted every picture taken by the cameras. The RTA was unable to find an expert who could prove the encryption was tamper-proof.
The ruling could set a precedent for many others who have received tickets in connection with the speed cameras, which have been in operation for more than 15 years and generated more than $104 million in fines last year alone, according to the Sun Herald.
On the same day, the RTA also admitted that cameras in the Sydney Harbour Tunnel – which were installed to monitor toll evaders – had been turned off for three years. No tickets were given via the cameras during the time they were off, the Daily Telegraph reported.
During the same week, the Herald Sun uncovered a 50-page manual from the RTA that details other major flaws in the camera system. The paper would not reveal some of the bigger gaps due to safety concerns, but did point out other smaller problems, such as camera distortion from metal signs, fences, wall and roadside postal boxes.
U.S. traffic cams also under scrutiny
As red light cameras face scrutiny abroad, one city in Florida is using the technology as a warning system, rather than a revenue source.
The Orlando Police Department announced in early August that it would install red light cameras at intersections throughout the city to catch light runners in the act, despite a Florida law that prevents the cameras’ photos or video being the sole evidence for a traffic ticket, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Violators won’t receive a ticket – they’ll just get a warning letting them know they were caught, as encouragement not to do it again.
So far, the camera is being used as part of a pilot program, and will be moved daily to prevent drivers from knowing its location.
“You can either have a two-ton dump truck invade your privacy, or a camera,” Russ Colthorpe, a representative for the camera manufacturer, told WFTV-TV. “Which would you prefer?”
Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, municipalities are implementing speed and red-light cameras without the restrictions of a no-ticket law. In Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Police Department has installed nine new red-light cameras and three speed enforcement cameras. The new cameras bring the total surveillance cameras in the city to 48.
At least two states are reviewing whether images from red light cameras are enough evidence to issue traffic tickets.
In Minneapolis, a city where 16 red light cameras were installed at 12 intersections as a pilot program, only about 40 percent of drivers caught by the cameras were actually issued tickets.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about 11,500 drivers were photographed between July 7 – a month after the cameras were installed and the first day tickets began being issued – and Aug. 6. But there were technical problems with the cameras such as blocked views from tree branches and larger vehicles.
The cameras also erroneously photographed drivers who were making legal right turns on red. Of the 11,500 drivers caught on camera, only about 4,500 drivers were issued tickets.
Meanwhile, in Missouri, state Attorney General Jay Nixon is questioning whether the photographs provide enough proof to hand out tickets to motorists.
“I think it’s pretty clear these pictures can’t be the sole or only evidence to cite drivers for violating state traffic laws,” Nixon told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I have deep concern whether taking someone’s picture rolling through a stop light is adequate evidence in and of itself to uphold a state traffic law.”
Several towns in Missouri have already installed the cameras, and more are expected in the near future. Officials in the towns say the cameras would help enforce local ordinances, and would be out of the jurisdiction of statewide laws, according to the Post-Dispatch.
– By Aaron Ladage, staff writer
aaron_ladage@landlinemag.com
Seat-belt initiative voted down in Wisconsin
A bill that sought to permit police to pull over drivers in Wisconsin who are not buckled up has died. The vote could end up costing the state some federal dollars.
The Assembly Committee on Transportation voted 7-6 against the bill, effectively killing it for the year.
Sponsored by Rep. Garey Bies, R-Sister Bay, the bill would have created a primary law for seat-belt enforcement, meaning drivers could be pulled over for such a violation. Current Wisconsin law allows police to issue seat-belt citations to drivers only after stopping a vehicle for another traffic violation, such as speeding.
The bill – AB215 – would have increased the fine for failure to buckle up from $10 to $25. No points would have been assessed against a driver’s license.
Despite lawmakers’ refusal to adopt stricter rules on buckling up, Wisconsin still could be in line for additional federal dollars if it passes a primary enforcement bill by Dec. 31, 2008.
The Highway Bill approved by Congress this summer gives any state that adopts tougher seat-belt rules or achieves a belt usage rate of 85 percent one-time grant money equal to 500 percent of the highway funding they received in 2003.
Wisconsin is one of 28 states without the stricter provision. Twenty-one states allow police to pull over drivers solely for not wearing their seat belts. New Hampshire is the only state without a mandatory seat-belt law.
Ohio governor orders biodiesel, ethanol use for state vehicles
In a strong commitment to alternative fuels, Gov. Bob Taft announced last week one of every four gallons of fuel used to power Ohio’s fleet of diesel vehicles will be biodiesel.
Taft signed an executive order Tuesday, Sept. 20, requiring the Ohio Department of Transportation to use at least 1 million gallons of biodiesel and 30,000 gallons of ethanol annually. The governor also mandated any future passenger vehicles purchased by the agency be able to run on fuel with high blends of ethanol.
All vehicles that can use diesel are already capable of using the biodiesel blend.
“Today, Ohio is taking a major step forward in the state’s commitment to biofuels, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, decreasing emissions and increasing opportunities for the Ohio biodiesel and farm industry,” Taft said in a written statement.
The governor’s order is similar to a bill offered by Rep. Steve Reinhard, R-Bucyrus, which would require all state agencies to use more alternative fuels.
Reinhard’s measure would require that 90 percent of new state vehicles be capable of using alternative fuels and that 90 percent of the entire fleet supply for state vehicles be alternative fuels by 2009.
HB245 is in the House Transportation, Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee.
Some schools close to conserve diesel; cut costs
Though diesel prices haven’t spiked as they did following Hurricane Katrina, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue asked schools in his state to close on Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 26 and 27, to conserve diesel in the wake of Hurricane Rita.
Perdue told The Associated Press that, if all of the state’s schools were closed, the state would save about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel each day.
Perdue said it was up to each school district’s superintendent to make the final decision on closing, but he urged the state to come together.
“If Georgians stick together, work together and conserve together we can weather whatever problems Rita brings our way with the least possible inconvenience,” he said.
In a related story, in Kentucky, schools are cutting back across the board – limiting field trips and redrawing bus routes – to save on fuel.
One county in the state has even gone so far is to cut back its school week. In Jackson County, KY, beginning Oct. 17, students will get every Friday off and teachers will only work a half-day on those days.
To make up the time, Jackson is extending school hours during the rest of the week. Schools will start 15 minutes earlier and end 45 minutes later, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Another Kentucky county, Webster, made this move in 2003 when diesel prices started to rise and saved more than $150,000 in transportation, overtime and workers’ compensation costs in the first year.
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