Opinion
We enter the holidays with plans of get-togethers with family and friends, company parties and year-end celebrations. There will be an increase in traffic with old man winter knocking at our door. Based on past performance and statistics, the anticipated driving under the influence fatality rate is expected to run in the 40-percent range.
What, do you ask, can a person do to reduce that statistic? There are several things that can be done.
The designated driver approach is one in which someone in the group is in charge of the transportation. Treat him/her good by supplying the designated driver with all the soda or other nonalcoholic beverages they desire.
Call for a taxi or friend to pick you up or just plan on spending the night at the place you are drinking at.
And, by all means, don’t get into the vehicle if you know that the driver has been drinking.
Our holiday exhortations not to drink and drive are repeated annually, even though they may seem monotonous and ritualistic. This plea will be made anew every holiday period because the decisions reached by each individual driver counts for so much.
The highway is a community in itself, particularly in California, where our major roads are constantly occupied, where activity never ceases, and where unwise and thoughtless behavior results in undesirable consequences.
Sometimes the consequence of driving after drinking is drowsiness, because alcohol is a depressant. That form of sleepiness is not so easily overcome, except for the obvious – don’t even start out or let the sober designated driver take over the vehicle.
This is not meant to be a gloomy message, but we all see enough suffering every holiday season that need not happen if we all do our part.
Please think about judgment and choices this season as your life may depend on it.
Also, let us remind everyone to activate your headlights during inclement weather for everyone’s safety.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season and see you in the New Year.
Lance Mino and Adam Garcia are California Highway Patrol officers. Team DUI is a group of local agencies – including the CHP – and individuals dedicated to fighting drunk driving and underage drinking in Lake County.
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- Written by: Lance Mino and Adam Garcia
On Dec. 8 the Executive Committee of the 11,000-member Sierra Club Redwood Chapter proposed that mussel containment become a top priority for the California Sierra Club, as advocated by Sierra Club Lake Group Chair Victoria Brandon and Chapter Delegate Paul Marchand.
At the Water Managers Forum held in Lakeport on Nov. 30, Cobb area district water manager Robert Stark called an infestation of these mussels in California waterways "the catastrophe that hasn't happened yet": it would devastate their ecological balance and dramatically impair their recreational value, while imposing a grievous financial burden upon water companies and other organizations that rely on surface water sources to meet community and agricultural needs.
Of European origin, quagga mussels entered the Great Lakes in ballast water in the 1980s, and have subsequently become widespread in the eastern United States, where they clog intake pipes, destroy motors, turn mooring lines into razor blades, and monopolize so many nutrients that fish and other forms of aquatic life starve. Direct repair and maintenance costs top $100 million annually. No practical method of eradication has yet been discovered.
They were found in Lake Mead in January 2007, and subsequently in other parts of the Colorado River drainage and several unconnected reservoirs in San Diego County, with recreational boaters believed to be the primary transport agent.
In October, legislation sponsored by Yolo Assemblymember Lois Wolk (AB 1683), provided the Department of Fish and Game with the authority to inspect, decontaminate, and if necessary to quarantine boats, other vehicles (eg trailers and seaplanes), and marinas, and to delegate these sweeping powers to other agencies – but without the budgetary increases needed for effective implementation.
The Redwood Chapter wants the Club to urge California government to take decisive action to keep the mussel invasion from spreading throughout the state. Specific recommendations include: exercise by the Department of Fish and Game of its AB 1683 powers to quarantine mussel-infested waters or to impose mandatory decontamination on boats and other vehicles leaving those waters, with whatever funding increases are necessary to enable the effective performance of this mandate; inspection of boats and boat trailers for mussels at the state border, with mandatory decontamination if necessary; joint action with Nevada, other affected states, and federal agencies to establish containment methods; and design and implementation of a comprehensive campaign of public information.
The Chapter expects to present a resolution including these recommendations to the Regional Conservation Committee of the California Sierra Club on Jan. 20, 2008.
Victoria Brandon is chair of the Sierra Club Lake Group.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
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