There are more and more deer and out and about these days, or at least it seems as if there are depending on where you drive. We have talked in the past about various solutions to alert deer to oncoming cars, but it seems las if very few of the current efforts do much good.
Contrary to the opinions of some of my acquaintances who feel that deer whistles have worked for them, there is ample evidence that the things just don’t work.
In Burlington County, New Jersey local officials are testing a device called the Wildlife Crossing Guard that seems to be working. The device is about the size of a brick and mounts on a pole near the roadway. When a car approaches the headlights trip a sensor that activates the device for a short period of time. When activated the device flashes a blue light in the direction where the deer might be coming from and emits a high-pitched whistle.
Because this device is only activated when vehicles are approaching and is not on all the time there is little chance that deer will get desensitized to it. The device is made by an Austrian company and has been tested there for some time. New Jersey officials say that in the area where these devices have been placed, they have gone from 53 reported crashes involving deer to zero. I’d say they’re working.
Nepotism in Metro?
A self-described bewildered rider writes to ask: “I’ve been told nepotism is running rampant at the transit company, ‘Metro.’ Friends of mine say it is a company of ‘groups,’ ‘clubs’ and ‘family.’ How could this go on with Federal and State funding being so generous? If you’re not in the ‘groups’ it’s rare to none that you get promoted. Not all the available jobs are posted, they are whispered or talked about through the friends network.
“Could you possibly inquire how that system works and why it is keeping a select ‘club’ in the house?”
This issue has been discussed in the past in this space and elsewhere, but it’s worth a review. There is a long history of favoritism in the operations side of Metro. Because of the way the collective bargaining agreement works supervisors can assign overtime for many of the jobs. This has led to some workers being able to almost double their salaries through overtime. Some of the best bus routes, those routes that are easiest or safest or have the potential for overtime, frequently go to friends and family of supervisors.
Metro has changed some of its practices, in large part because of the need for more operators, but still doesn’t seem able or willing to make the changes some say are necessary to reduce the big cost of overtime. Congress made a lot of noise a little while ago about making changes in the collective bargaining agreement as it related to overtime. We haven’t heard much about that recently, and it would seem that big labor may have lobbied hard to get legislators not to interfere. On the national stage, few legislators want to be accused of union busting and even though that isn’t what this would have been about that was the scare put into those on Capitol Hill.
