It's NOT Simply "Speed Related".

Yet another tragic loss in Tazewell County, and yet another report by law enforcement that it was a "speed related" accident. First, that's a copout (pardon the pun). For two vehicles to collide, at least one must be moving, therefore, traveling at a "speed"...2 MPH is technically a "speed". So, all accidents could be called "speed related".

But that's not the real story here. In the PJS account of the story on Tuesday, nothing was mentioned about the real cause of this latest fatality until the VERY LAST LINE of the story:

Potts said it is not official, but early indications are that Riley ran a stop sign before the fatal crash.

That makes it NOT a speed related accident, but a failure to obey a traffic control accident. And there are FAR MORE of those than there are "speed related" accidents. It's just more propoganda being spread to try and slow people down. How about we concentrate on stopping for stop signs and using turn signals instead?

Also, the story, like every other one like it, has the police quick to point out (they can't wait to spit it out) that the driver "was not wearing his seat belt..." at the time of the crash. I had an incident about five years ago in Bureau County, when the police called the radio station with a fatal accident report, in which the reporting officer never said "was not wearing a seat belt."

So at the end of the report, I asked, "did the driver have his seat belt on?"

(long pause) "Um, er, ah, well, actually, it's not mentioned here on the report."

"So in other words, the driver that died WAS wearing his seat belt?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, you didn't say he WASN'T wearing his seat belt, right?"

"What are you getting at?"

"If he wasn't wearing his belt, you would have mentioned that to me, correct?"

"Yes, I certainly would have."

"So since you didn't say that, I can safely assume he WAS wearing his belt."

"Say what you want." (click)

Moral of the story: If you want to tell me about a lack of seat belt usage every opportunity you get, then you have to tell me when the driver DID have a seat belt on, too.