Monday night the Park Ridge City Council’s Committee of the Whole deadlocked – 3 aldermen (Don Bach, Robert Ryan and Frank Wsol for) to 3 aldermen (Joe Sweeney, Rich DiPietro and Jim Allegretti against) on a motion to send an ordinance to the full Council that would impose a $50 fine on drivers talking on hand-held cell phones. Ald. Tom Carey was absent, and Mayor Schmidt is not allowed to break ties on COW votes.
The ordinance was not supported by Police Chief Frank Kaminski, who believes a state-wide ban would be more effective and enforceable than a local ordinance. We agree with the Chief on that one.
But if you want to consider this issue at the level our elected officials did, consider the “reasoning” offered by Ryan and Allegretti for and against, respectively, the hand-held cell phone ban, courtesy of this week’s Park Ridge Herald-Advocate story (“Cell phone ban gets poor reception from aldermen on Monday,” August 10).
Ryan: “I think there’s nothing wrong with Park Ridge taking a leadership position. We’ve always done that and I would like to see us get back to doing that. I would hate to see some child die because I didn’t act.”
Allegretti: “I talk on my cell phone a lot and I’ve never had an accident with it; I’ve never run anybody over and I’ve never turned a corner and nearly struck somebody. I don’t think it’s that level of distraction that these studies say (cell phones) are.”
We challenge Mr. Ryan to identify all the “leadership position(s)” Park Ridge has taken on significant public issues over the past decade. What the heck, we’ll give him the past two decades – if only because we feel sorry for a guy who is looking for “leadership” from a City still reluctant to let go of Prohibition.
As for Mr. Allegretti’s statements, even a cursory Internet search reveals numerous surveys and studies with a variety of results, almost all of which conclude that cell phone usage – both hand-held and hands-free – while driving is a significant distraction that increases the risk of auto accidents. Then again, so is yelling at your misbehaving kids, putting on make-up, reading billboards, and a variety of other things that impair a driver’s concentration.
The debate is ongoing, however, on whether hands-free cell phone usage is significantly safer than hand-held usage. A survey in the February 1997 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine found the difference between hands-held and hands-free cell phone safety usage to be “not significant,” and subsequent studies generally have concurred.
But if safety is truly the reason behind the City Council exploring any kind of ban on cell phone use while driving, then why not ban all cell phone use while driving? Why limit it to just hand-held phones – other than because hand-held usage is more readily provable by the police and, therefore, more likely to provide extra revenue for cash-strapped municipalities like Park Ridge?
Hey, couldn’t those red-light cameras catch hand-held cell phone drivers red-handed?
If the public really wants to significantly increase road safety, it could start by demanding more stringent driving tests instead of the joke that passes for a licensing exam in Illinois today. Or by demanding mandatory prison sentences and lifetime driving bans for people convicted of drunk driving, like they do in some other countries. Or by raising the licensing age to 25, the age that most insurance companies use for determining the “adult” premium rate.
Those are weighty policy issues that don’t seem to be within the comfort zone of our public officials at the state or local level. Which is probably just as well, because as of now this debate – at least on the City Council level – sounds more about good intentions than sound public policy considerations.
And as perhaps the leading 19th Century American statesman, Daniel Webster, warned: “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This site is undergoing some upgrades and, consequently, the “Comments” function will not be functional at all times during the upgrades. We expect them to be completed within the next few weeks, at which time the Comments function should become fully operational again.
17 comments so far
That is a great Daniel Webster quote. It seems like were surrounded by “do gooders” who claim the moral high ground and then try to impose their sense of right and wrong on everybody else, but at everybody else’s cost.
I think I have finally figured out who runs this blog. Rand Paul.
10:47am… please explain.
Correct. And Lisbeth Salander runs the other one.
Good points, PD. This is just more of that namby pamby crap we get from Ryan, although I’m surprised Allegretti and DiPietro didn’t jump on this bandwagon too. I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Allegretti, but I guess he has to get someting right every so often if only by luck.
Well, Inaction certainly is in line with mayor dipschmidts’s approach to things.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To paraphrase Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential nomination acceptance speech: “Procrastination in the expansion of government is no vice…and haste in pursuit of public folly is no virtue.”
Is that Lisbeth again?
Careful Mr. Editor. Better not quote a Republican or someone might get mad or worse, accuse you of being part of an evil GOP conspiracy. Or did that already happen?
The editor said:
Procrastination in the expansion of government is no vice…and haste in pursuit of public folly is no virtue.”
except Mayor Dipschmidt has procrastinated in explaining in a full and responsible manner how he would reduce the government. although he has been hasty in public folly (Commerical for Americaneagle at the fireworks)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dear PRU-dence: Did you leave for summer vacation before the mayor said that he would veto private community group appropriations ($200,000) and O’Hare appropriations ($165,000)? That’s $365,000 more than the aldermen were willing to cut from the budget, so let’s see what happens if/when the Council tries to make those appropriations.
Also, this latest expression of your unbridled passion for Americaneagle is duly noted.
$365,000 is a far cry from the 1.5 million Mayor Dipschmidt and the editor of the pubdog (now known as sir barksalot) claim the city are under water. When Mayor Dipshmidt present full and responsible alternative solutions to that 1.5 shortfall, then the citizenry will have been served adequately by the carpetbagging corpulent.
as to americaneagle–funneling a “donation” for the fireworks that winds up in extended family pockets is a disingenious attempt to coddle positve public sentiment and has backfired. Having Mayor Dipschmidt provide a commercial for his biggest campaign contributer is tacky –as tacky as having his other campaign supporter, the criminally charged Anna Dudcyk run a polishfest event that used city services and never once did he demand any disclosure from them as to finances.
What a schmuck!
EDITOR’S NOTE: PRU-dence, we know you read our Editor’s Note to your comment of yesterday to our previous post, but we’ll restate it here again for your convenience:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Dear PRU-dence: What goes through our mind is that all of these sweetheart deals that private groups like Taste Inc., the community groups, the fireworks concessionaires, etc. get from the City should end now. Period. If you are a private organization of any type and want a street or sidewalk closed off so that you can engage in a money-making activity (including you alleged not-for-profits and so-called charitable organizations), then you should pay for that privilege. If your money-making activities require extra police, fire, or other City services, you should pay for them. And you should be required to enter into formal contracts with the City (or the Park District, or the School Districts) that become matters of public record, and that disclose who your principals (officers, partners, members, closely-held shareholders, etc.) are.
And that goes for Dave Iglow and the Taste Inc. crew, the Rotarians, the Kiwanians, Tony Svanascini and Americaneagle, the Chamber of Commerce, and anybody and everybody else who has any designs on making a buck (of “profit” or “non-profit”) at the taxpayers’ expense.
Comprende?
Such vituperativeness.
“Carpetbagging”…”corpulent”
Those words do help you make your point, Lisbeth, if your point is to announce to the world what a mean miserable person you are.
Ah, but like Lisbeth, you probably relish your role as the meanest person in Park Ridge. So I guess you might as well just carry on.
I thought the post was about cell phones. Are we on the fireworks yet again?
Mean misreable person…..fits right in!!!!!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Can we try to get back to the issues, folks, as in the issues related to today’s post?
……and as you’re arguing, griping and bitching about the same ‘ol same ‘ol,>insert yawn here
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re not sure what “same ‘ol [sic] same ‘ol [sic]” you’re talking about, but your “yawn” is noted.
hey what happened to the rest of my post?! Have I been edited already?
EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know what the “rest of [your] post” is, but we can assure you that we didn’t edit anything you submitted. Low self esteem, perhaps?
Editor (AKA –Sir Barksalot) said: Can we try to get back to the issues, folks, as in the issues related to today’s post?
you mean the issue of inaction by elected members of city government? I think we are discussing that. I don’t think the issue is limited to one ordinance but rather to the general inactvity that plauges said members.
And right on up at the top of the list is Mayor Dipschmidt (however, since Mayor Dipschmidt and the pubdog owner seemed to be joined at the hip -almost cerburusesque–maybe the conjoined political frankenstiensish creature should be remonikered “DogSchmidt” Yes–Mayor DogSchmidt it is!
EDITOR’S NOTE: The topic was cell phone usage while driving.
While your comments are a bit thin substantively, we are mildly impressed by your attempt at using a mythological reference to criticize both the mayor and this blog – assuming, of course, that we are correctly translating “cerburusesque” into a play on the name Cerberus, the mythical three-headed dog which guarded the gates of Hades. Now all you need to do is figure out how a mythical three-headed dog reference can be reconciled with the concepts of “joined at the hip” and “frankenstiensish” (“Frankenstein”? Or are you taking a political shot at Minnesota U.S. Sen. Al Franken?), and maybe you have something.
As for “DogSchmidt,” you may want to check with “Dilbert’s” Scott Adams to make sure it’s not an infringement of his “Dogbert” character.
You are right Mr. Editor. Nobody should utter this crap on a cell phone while cruising down Prospect.