Category: Transportation

The First Uber Death

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30 Miles, 40 Min, over the Bay Bridge, a toll road.
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Yesterday, I posted about the Libertarian delusional dream that is Uber.

Today, I read about an Uber driver hitting 3 pedestrians, killing a 6-year old girl
:

Update, 11:35 a.m.: Uber confirmed that Muzzafar was, indeed a contractor with the company. It’s since deactivated his account. An Uber spokesman stressed, again, that Muzzafar was not “providing services through the Uber system” at the time he struck and killed a 6 year-old girl at Polk and Ellis Streets.

Update, 9:46 a.m.: Police release name and photo of the self-identified Uber driver (See bottom).

 It’s been a rough year for Uber thus far. Just four hours before the car-hire startup planned to ring in 2014 — ideally with an onslaught of high-priced trips through San Francisco’s bustling downtown corridor — one of its contracted drivers allegedly hit a family in a Tenderloin crosswalk, killing a 6-year-old girl and critically injuring her mother and brother.

“There are no words to express the deep sadness and grief felt for young San Francisco resident, Sophia Liu,” Supervisor Jane Kim wrote in a statement issued shortly after the young girl’s death.

Kim added that the accident would have been “100 percent avoidable” had the driver followed basic traffic laws. She considered the incident a harbinger for app-based car-hire startups, indicating that it raises questions about driver training and compliance.

Notice the non denial denial?

In their blog, they said that, “This tragedy did not involve a vehicle or provider doing a trip on the Uber system.

Notice what they did not say?  They did not say that he wasn’t logged in, and that he wasn’t waiting for some of those lucrative,  “Onslaughts of high-priced trips.”

Why else would he be driving around San Francisco on New Years Eve?

Driving?  In San Francisco?  On New Years Eve?  That is nucking futs!  ……… Unless, of course, you are there to make some bank by getting dispatches from a certain Techno-Randian transportation company.

Then, it makes lots of sense.

It is telling that Uber has deliberately chosen a model which is structured largely to evade any responsibility, or liability, for the misdeeds of its drivers.

H/t Crooks & Liars.

It is Called Price Gouging, You Moronic Free Market Mousketeer!

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The latest poster boys for techno-Libertarians is the taxi service Uber, which is a smartphone based car hire service.

At the core of their business model is the idea that there is no need for any pesky regulations, because ……… Internet.

Ignoring for the moment supply restrictions like New York City’s Medallion* system, there is a reason that cabs, and cabbies, are regulated.

There is a need to ensure that the cars are safe, that the cabbies are properly trained,† and that pricing is consistent and transparent, so, for example, we do not see price gouging, on New Year’s eve, or during a rain storm.

So, what does Uber do?  It triples rates for New Year’s Eve, and Randroid morons like Rob Leathern, the Chief Product Officer of Brand Networks, has this is not like price gouging at all, because ……… Internet:

Uber’s pricing isn’t price gouging. It’s just in an area we are deeply conflicted about, and missing some transparency that would increase consumer trust. They could certainly give all or some more of their excess surge profits to the drivers, or show us more of the extensive data their Math Team produces but doesn’t yet share– if their algorithms are as sophisticated as they claim then the benefit they get from sharing information with customers will outweigh any competitive concerns.

Bullsh%$.

This is price gouging, and it has been defined as such throughout the developed world for something over 80 years.

One of the reasons that we as a society make laws against this is because it is unethical, and dishonest.

I really hope that if he ever has a heart attack, that Mr. Leathern does not find an ambulance driver who jacks up the rate to take him to the hospital.

*Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? The medallion system sucks.
†Uber has already had at least 1 rape allegation attached to its service so far, and it turns out that rape by gypsy cab drivers is endemic.

I Think that Chris Christie now has a “-Gate” Scandal on His Hands

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Pass the Popcorn

Christie’s two recently resigned political appointees to the Port Authority have lawyered up:

Two appointees of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who recently resigned amid a controversy over lane closures at the George Washington Bridge have retained private attorneys, according to correspondence reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

 Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, former executives at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, have sought outside counsel amid an investigation into why traffic lanes leading to the nation’s busiest bridge were closed, the documents showed.

 The hirings came as correspondence and documents related to the bridge controversy are due to be delivered soon to a legislative inquiry of the state Assembly.

 The Democrat-led Transportation Committee subpoenaed documents from people involved in the incident, including Messrs. Baroni and Wildstein and leadership of the authority, seeking more information about how the lanes were closed and why.

 Mr. Wildstein recently hired Alan L. Zegas, a criminal lawyer from Chatham, N.J., to represent him, according to an email sent from Mr. Zegas to the state Legislature Tuesday.

 Mr. Zegas was co-counsel to former Newark Mayor Sharpe James in 2008 in response to federal corruption charges brought by Mr. Christie when he served as the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, according to Mr. Zegas’s biography.

 Mr. Baroni retained Michael Himmel, of Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Mr. Himmel works at the firm’s New York City and Roseland, N.J. offices, and specializes in white collar crime, according to his biography.

I figure that this will eventually degenerate into finger pointing, and the question is whether it will just involve Mssrs Baroni and Wildstein, or if it will go higher.

It Ain’t the F%$#-Up, It’s the Cover-Up

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 Remember yesterday, when I wrote about how a crony of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie closed entry lanes on the George Washington Bridge in what appeared to be retribution for the (Democratic) mayor of Fort Lee, NJ for not endorsing him?

Well, I figured that this was an instance of some underling deciding to take initiative, kind of like when Nixon was in the White House, when he would rant in private, and say something like, “Someone should shoot that SOB,” and aide Chuck Coleson would go and buy a gun.

It’s one of the problems that one can have with evil minions. Sometimes they are too enthusiastic.

Well, maybe not so much.  Because it has now been revealed that Governor Christie made a private call to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asking him to instruct the head of the Port Authority to quash the investigation:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week to complain about a Cuomo appointee’s handling of a growing controversy over traffic pattern changes on the George Washington Bridge, a person familiar with the matter said.

 Mr. Christie, a Republican, complained in a private phone call to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, that Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was pressing too hard to get to the bottom of why the number of toll lanes onto the bridge from Fort Lee, N.J. was cut from three to one in early September, according to this person. The lane closures occurred without notice to local authorities, officials have said, and snarled traffic for a week in the small borough on the Hudson River bluffs.

 Messrs. Cuomo and Christie share control of the Port Authority, which oversees Hudson River bridges and tunnels and the region’s airports and is rebuilding the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan.

 Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have accused Christie appointees of ordering the lane closures to punish Fort Lee’s mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, for not endorsing the governor’s re-election campaign. Mr. Christie’s campaign has denied that, and his Port Authority team has said the lanes were closed to study traffic on the bridge.

 A spokesman for Mr. Christie said the governor talks to Mr. Cuomo regularly “on any number of mutual-interest topics. Those conversations are private.”

 A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to comment.

 The call between the governors was an illustration of how the controversy has mushroomed into a headache for Mr. Christie. One of his top representatives at the authority, David Wildstein, resigned last week, citing the bridge closures. Democratic calls for the resignation of another top authority aide, Bill Baroni, have escalated this week.

It wasn’t clear how Mr. Cuomo responded to Mr. Christie’s call or if it was the first time Mr. Christie had lodged a complaint.

 The exchange appears to stand in contrast to Mr. Christie’s public remarks on the bridge matter. At a briefing on Dec. 2, the governor mocked a legislative inquiry on the lane closures and joked that he himself had moved the traffic cones that winnowed local access to the bridge.

The perspective on this whole matter has just shifted.

Yesterday, the conventional wisdom was, “Why did Christie hire such a stupid motherF%$#er?”

Today, the question is, “What does Chris Christie have to hide?”

Why Chris Christie Will Not Be the Republican Nominee

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In many ways, Christie’s putative Presidential campaign reminds me a lot of Rudolph Giuliani’s in 2008.

Governor Christie  he suffers much the same problem as Guiliani,* which is that the better that people know him, the more that they will dislike him.

He is clearly too liberal for the nut-jobs who caucus in Iowa, and his actions in the rough and tumble of New Jersey Politics show that he is someone who people in New Hampshire will dislike when they see him in person.

Case in point, it now appears that one of his appointees shut lanes to the George Washington Bridge in order to punish the Democratic Mayor for not endorsing him:

It would seem a minor whodunit for a small suburb: On the first day of school in September, three access lanes leading from Fort Lee, N.J., streets to the George Washington Bridge were unexpectedly and mysteriously shut down. Cars backed up, the town turned into a parking lot, half-hour bridge commutes stretched into four hours, buses and children were late for school, and emergency workers could not respond quickly to the day’s events, which included a missing toddler, a cardiac arrest and a car driving into a building.

 But the George Washington Bridge is the world’s busiest, and New Jersey is led by one of the nation’s most pugnacious and prominent politicians, Gov. Chris Christie — who also happens to appoint the people who control the bridge.

 So the unfolding story of the lane closings has become something of a cause célèbre, resulting in a hearing before the New Jersey Legislature on Monday, as well as a window into the proudly aggressive and often secretive dealings of Mr. Christie’s team.

 The mayor of Fort Lee, a Democrat, complained in a letter in September that the lane closings were “punitive” — Mr. Christie, a Republican, was leaning heavily on Democratic mayors to endorse him for re-election so he could present himself as a presidential candidate with bipartisan appeal, but the mayor was not going along.

 Mr. Christie laughed off the idea that he had been involved in a matter as small as closing bridge lanes, and his chief appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the bridge, insisted that the lane closings were simply part of a traffic study.

 But on Friday, the man who ordered the closings — a high school friend of the governor’s who was a small-town mayor and the founder of an anonymous political blog before Mr. Christie’s appointee created a job for him at the Port Authority — resigned, saying the issue had become “a distraction.”

The people of New Jersey might understand (though the indications are that they aren’t, because their commutes were f%$#ed with in a major way), the people of most of the rest of the country (pretty much everyone but New York and New Jersey) won’t.

*Also, Christie has not been zinged the way that Joe Biden zinged Rudy that, “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, and a verb and 9/11,”

I Can Haz Metro Pass?

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Click for full size



Awwwww!!!!

The cutest commuters in the New York subway system shut down the Q and B lines for 2 hours:

A major crisis was averted in the subway Thursday on the fe-line.

Two skittish kittens, who have been named Arthur and August, were rescued by a pair of cops and an MTA worker in Brooklyn after their precarious presence near the third rail shut down service for about two hours and shook up the city’s usually stoic straphangers.

Transit workers spotted the furry duo along an open-air stretch of the B and Q lines near Church Ave. at 11 a.m., prompting officials to cut power to the tracks. A transit supervisor “tried to corral them,” but the felines were too fast, said a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokeswoman.

The kittehs were rescued, and named Arthur and August.

The Stoopid!!!! It Burns Us!!!!!

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This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.*

In response to the collapse of I-5 bridge north of Seattle, Washington State Representative Ed Orcutt,(a Republican, of course) thought that the concerns were overblown, because, “11 of the 12 Sections of the Bridge Are Still Standing“:

In the wake of the I-5 bridge collapse, the progressive activist group Fuse put together an online petition, urging state legislators to “Fix our crumbling roads and bridges!”

 ………

 Hard to read that as a controversial request, unless, of course, you are state Representative “Angry Ed” Orcutt (R-Kalama), the ranking Republican on the house transportation committee. Via email, Orcutt responds defensively to petitioners, objecting to any effort to “leverage more tax dollars” in response to the Skagit River bridge collapse:

[I]t is clear that the reason for the collapse was due to a collision with the super structure of the bridge — not a lack of structural integrity of the bridge. The bridge would indeed be standing today had the truck’s load NOT rammed the super structure of the bridge. In fact, 11 of the 12 sections of the bridge are still standing.

Dude, it’s not a bridge any more, it is a f%$#ing pier!!!!

Or, to quote yet another movie:

Garry: The generator’s gone.

 MacReady: Any way we can we fix it?

 Garry: It’s “gone”, MacReady.

*What, you’ve never seen Ruthless People? Great movie.

Full letter after the jump:

From: “Orcutt, Rep. Ed”
Date: May 28, 2013, 12:23:47 PM PDT
To: XXXX
Subject: RE: Fix our crumbling roads and bridges!

 XXXX,

 Many people have misunderstood terminology used in the aftermath of the I-5/Skagit River Bridge collapse.

 This bridge is deemed functionally obsolete — not structurally deficient. Functionally obsolete basically means that the width of the lanes do not meet current design widths. In other words, if it were to be built today, it would need to be wider.

 Since the incident, I have been on a conference call with the Governor (which included WSDOT and WSP officials); two briefing calls with National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials; and have met with NTSB officials on the deck of the bridge. From NTSB to WSDOT, it is clear that the reason for the collapse was due to a collision with the super structure of the bridge — not a lack of structural integrity of the bridge. The bridge would indeed be standing today had the truck’s load NOT rammed the super structure of the bridge. In fact, 11 of the 12 sections of the bridge are still standing.

 It is important to note also, that DOT has specifically stated that if a bridge were deemed unsafe, it would be taken out of service. So, when you approach a bridge and see that it is open, please know that DOT has deemed it safe enough for the traffic using it.

 I agree with you that we must maintain our infrastructure to assure it remains safe, but let’s not confuse this incident or try to use it to leverage more tax dollars when the cause of this collapse had nothing to do with the availability of tax dollars.

 Ed

 Representative Ed Orcutt
20th Legislative District

 Olympia Office:
408 John L. O’Brien Building
PO Box 40600
Olympia, WA 98504

 * ed.orcutt@leg.wa.gov
( 360.786.7990

When is Being in a Car Accident Not the Worst Thing to Happen to You All Day?

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When you are returning from a field trip to CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference), where you have meet attendees who argue that the slaves should never have been emancipated.

I was involved in an accident with a toy Tour bus carrying students from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, who were returning from this field trip.

Light posting for a while.

Posted via mobile.

My Flight Left Over 4 Hours Late

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I also spent about 2 hours on the tarmac waiting for a gate to open up to deplane.

Of course, this means that I missed my connecting flight.

I’m booked on a flight that leaves in 5 hours, and wait listed for one that leaves in 2 hours.

If I were stupid, this would be where I would make an angry, but not serious, statement about what should happen to the good folks at USAir, and their lackadaisically maintained fleet of  aircraft.

Of course, this would pique the interest of the good folds in Fort Meade, and I would end up getting to know FBI special agent Body Cavity Search.

So I will leave our at, “Their mother was a hamster, and their father smelled of elderberries.”

Posted via mobile.

This is Called Circling the Drain

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The Army has decided to delay its Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program:

Army acquisition leaders moved Jan. 16 to delay its top modernization program, the Ground Combat Vehicle, in hopes of making it more viable in the face of expected defense budget cuts.

The Army issued a memorandum Jan. 16 announcing the addition of a six-month extension of the Technology Development phase of the GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle program. Defense companies will have more time to “refine vehicle designs,” according to an Army statement.

They have been playing around with all sorts of whiz bang technology, the weight has ballooned to that of an M-1 tank, and there have been repeated delays and cancellations. (Background here)

This is a clusterf%$#, and it will continue to be a clusterf%$#, and the best case will be an over priced, under performing, Byzantinely complex and hard to support system.

Republicans: Personal Responsibility for Thee, But Not for Mew

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A Republican Maryland Delegate Don Dwyer got drunk, and crashed his boat, fracturing the skull of a 5-year old girl.

His excuse was that gay marriage made him do it:

It is not funny that Maryland Delegate Don Dwyer drunkenly crashed his boat last year, fracturing the skull of a five-year-old girl. But it is funny that he is blaming gay marriage for the alcoholism that made him drunkenly crash his boat last year, fracturing the skull of a five-year-old girl! Oh, did we say “funny”? Well, seems like everything is funny to us! First, congratulations to Del. Dwyer for sitting down with the Capitol Gazette and making a searching and fearless moral inventory of himself. Second, the opposite of congratulations to Del. Dwyer for coming up with the positively Gingrichian “I was working too hard to protect the sanctity of marriage and that’s why I f%$#ed my aide drunkenly crashed a boat, fracturing the skull of a five-year-old girl.”

(%$# mine)

Seriously, do you have to be a self-involved psychopath to be a Republicans these days?  Because I don’t see any Republicans out there who don’t appear to have something missing in their basic humanity.

h/t Atrios.

It;s the Hypocrisy, Stupid

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Me Like Republican Mug Shots

Senator Mike Crapo was just busted for drunk driving:

Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho was arrested early Sunday and charged with driving under the influence in a suburb of Washington, D.C., the authorities said.

Mr. Crapo, a Republican, was pulled over after his vehicle ran a red light, the police in Alexandria said. He failed field sobriety tests and was arrested about 12:45 a.m., said a police spokesman, Jody Donaldson, and then was taken to the Alexandria jail and released on an unsecured $1,000 bond about 5 a.m.

“There was no refusal” to take sobriety tests, Mr. Donaldson said, and “no accident, no injuries.”

“Just a traffic stop that resulted in a D.U.I.,” he said.

The police said Mr. Crapo, who was alone in his vehicle, had registered a blood alcohol content of 0.11 percent. The legal limit in Virginia is 0.08 percent.

Mr. Crapo, 61, has a Jan. 4 court date.

“I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance,” he said in a statement on Sunday night. “I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter. I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated.”

So, why is hypocrisy an issue?

It’s not because he’s a Mormon. There is no reason to expect anyone to observe all the manners of observance of their religions, bur rather it is because he describes described himself as a Mormon who abstains from drinking alcohol.

It was a politically expedient lie about a moral position, and as such it is appropriate to invoke the “H-word”.

What a Surprise. Management Lies About Labor

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As you may, or may not be aware, the clerks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are on Strike.

The Los Angeles Times, in a reporting job that harkens back to their pre-Otis Chandler days, when they were the worst major daily in the nation, takes a claim by the management negotiator, and reports it as fact:

Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes “absolute job security,” a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks’ paid vacation and a generous pension increase.

Of course, the idea that “clerks” get $165,000 a year, much less %195,000 a year.

Well, the slightly less credulous Long Beach Post, reports a slightly different number:

Employers however, feel most of these claims are highly questionable. They say that workers have rejected fair proposals in the last few years including the most recent one offered on Monday, the day before the walkout, which included: absolute guarantees that OCU workers will not be laid off; full-time pay for 52 weeks a year despite workload; permission to access computer database update histories and audit trails so as to allow clerical workers to research if anyone is using technology to divert their work; and most prominently, increase their compensation packages to over $190,000 in wages and benefits by 2016. Clerical workers currently make an average of $165,000 per year.

Well, if you assume about 10 hours of OT a week, normal in this environment, and that 30% of all remuneration is of the non wage form (healthcare, vacation, sick time, pensions), you get a base hourly rate of about $46/hour, which is nice, but not spectacular.

Also note that the union is demanding access to the job routing database, which indicates that there is a real suspicion that management is transferring jobs elsewhere.

Also, look how another source, from the same Stephen Berry, drops the pay number even further:

Stephen Berry, a negotiator for the employers, said under the old contracts, workers earn either $40 or $41 per hour, receive a full pension after as little as 10 years of work, and receive 11 weeks of paid time off annually.

Berry said the employers have offered slight raises. But both sides agree the dispute is not about money.

Union officials say the companies have been quietly moving some jobs to Taipei, Taiwan; Costa Rica; Charlotte, N.C.; and Texas, a charge employer representatives vehemently deny.

So,we are down to $40/hour.

But we are still relying on Stephen Berry, who is paid to lie for employers.

What if we found an independent source, something like an official government job posting, which lists the salary for a “Cargo Audit Clerk III- Provisional” as $16.69 – $22.80 Hourly.

Kevin Drum took the LA Times article as gospel, but his readers provided links (which I am using here) which show that both the Times, as well as Mr. Berry, to be full of crap.

Because No One in Washington Believes In Public Works for the Public Good

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Duncan Black wonders why Obama’s infrastructure plans have so much added complexity in order to accommodate private investors:

I like me some infrastructure spending. I do not know why the government, which can borrow money for free, needs a rube goldberg machine with added middlemen to make it happen.

This one is simple: There is a Washington consensus about public projects these days, it’s that giving some rich dude the opportunity to earn a profit at taxpayer expense, is essential because of capitalism.

What are you a commie pinko or something?

Yes, the free market mousketeers are basically corrupt ratf%$#s.

BTW, that is one seriously fat cat.

You Have Got to Be Kidding Me

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I did not think that it was possible for a pedophile priest could get any less sympathetic, but the Transportation Security Administration has proved me wrong, because they hired him as a supervisor of the gropers at Philadelphia International Airport:

The CBS 3 I-Team has learned that a Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations now holds a sensitive security post at Philadelphia International Airport.

The security checkpoint between Terminals D and E is a busy place where thousands of people – including lots of kids – pass through every day. But you might not believe who the I-Team observed working as a TSA supervisor at that checkpoint this week: Thomas Harkins.

Until 2002, Harkins was a Catholic priest working at churches across South Jersey. But the Diocese of Camden removed him from ministry because it found he sexually abused two young girls. Now, in a new lawsuit, a third woman is claiming she also is one of Harkins’ victims.

The I-Team asked Harkins about the suit as he was leaving his shift at the airport.

“I have nothing to say,” was Harkins’ reply.

The new lawsuit, filed in federal court against the Camden Diocese says quite a bit. It accuses Harkins of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl 10 to 15 times in 1980 and 1981. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the alleged victim, claims the abuse occurred while Harkins was a priest at Saint Anthony of Padua parish in Hammonton, NJ, with one assault even occurring in Harkins’ bedroom at the rectory.

Seriously, this just boggles the mind.

BTW, props to the Camden Diocese, which, unlike to many other dioceses, got rid of this guy, but f%$# the TSA.

H/T Americablog.

OK, These Are Some Tax Collectors That I Could Love

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So, the Italian police have taken to staking out posh neighborhoods and pulling over drivers of expensive cars. They then take their personal information, and send that to the tax bureau to make sure that their lifestyle matches up to their declared income:

Police fanned out across Milan in late January halting more than 350 vehicles, mostly luxury SUVs and Porsches.

At checkpoints, including one adjacent to the fashionable Corso Como, the police got the driver’s license and registration, which they passed on to the national tax agency. The tax authorities will use the data to check if the cars’ owners had declared enough income — and of course paid the right amount of income taxes — to justify their lifestyles.

It was at least the fifth raid targeting wealthy Italians since a Dec. 30 sweep at the posh Cortina d’Ampezzo ski resort, where 251 high-end cars were stopped, including Ferrari and Lamborghini supercars, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Feb. 13 issue. Rome, Portofino on the Italian Riviera and Florence have also been targeted.

I’m Matthew Saroff, and I approve of this tactic.

This is an Epic Prank

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Righteous!

Something to add my rules to live by: Don’t use prison labor to do graphic design for law enforcement:

How did an image of a pig — the infamous ’60s-era epithet by protesters for police officers — wind up on a decal used on as many as 30 Vermont State Police cruisers?

State officials Thursday pointed to the failure of the quality assurance office within the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Albans to detect a prisoner-artist’s addition made four years ago to the traditional state police logo. A spot on the shoulder of the cow in the state emblem was modified into a pig.

An investigation has begun into how the computer program was improperly modified to insert the image, Vermont Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito said.

I really hope that whoever did this does not get caught.