This is Memorial Day weekend and that means a lot of things. In addition to being the unofficial kickoff to summer, it’s also the third worst holiday of the year in terms of deaths from drunken driving. In fact, four times as many people die during this holiday than on New Year’s Eve (granted it lasts longer). Too many people attend or throw parties where alcohol is served and is not controlled. Here are some tips to make things safer. 1) Plan ahead and use a designated driver, 2) use alternative transportation including cabs rather than getting behind the wheel, 3) Report drunken drivers you see on the roads and 4) always wear your seat belt. If you’re having people over, there are also some things you can do so that your guests don’t meet with tragedy when they leave. They include: 1) Not letting your guests mix their own drinks, 2) serving plenty of food, 3) cutting off any guest who has had too much and holding their keys, 4) having a good selection of non-alcoholic drinks and 5) stop serving alcohol an hour before the party ends or, if you are throwing a baseball game, in the 7th inning.
Keep in mind this is also the kickoff of the “Smooth Operator” program and there will be a lot of police out there on the roads checking for drunken and aggressive driving as well as seat belt compliance. Because there will be so many checkpoints and extra patrols, your chances of getting caught are very high so just don’t take the risk. At the same time, get out there and have some fun — you deserve it.
Using existing farecards for parking?
Mark writes in with a suggestion wrapped in a question: “Why doesn’t Metro simply use its existing farecard readers for parking? I have never understood why Metro has magnetic strip farecards that work for exiting the platform, but not for exiting the parking lot. Isn’t the only difference between the two facilities the width of the gate? Rather than incurring the cost of making the parking lot gates read credit cards, why not simply install the platform farecard readers on the parking gates, so that either magnetic fare cards or SmarTrip cards can be used. This would avoid additional confusion for users while enabling Metro to insure that parking facility users have actually utilized the Metro system. This seems so simple. What am I missing?”
You’re correct, Mark, it does seem like a simple solution, but there is an issue — weather. Those card readers inside the stations workbecause they are indoors and not subject to rain and snow and ice. I thought about putting little canopies over the readers if they were placed outside at the parking lot exits, but was reminded about something else — wind. The wind can blow enough moisture under any canopy or covering you might install there to wreak havoc on the guts of those machines. There are sensitive enough without have to deal with Mother Nature. Besides, the real issue of accepting credit cards at the exits … is that riders who don’t have enough fare on their cards … aren’t forced to turn around and go back into the station to add fare.
Questions, comments, random musings? Write to [email protected].
