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May 19, 2008MacGyver Maneuvers in New Orleans"When television's MacGyver pulls off an engineering feat with duct tape or some other mundane material, that's entertainment. But New Orleans area residents don't expect improvising when it comes to critical flood protection.That's what seems to have happened in 2006 when laborers working for the Army Corps of Engineers stuffed expansion joints in a floodwall near the Paris Road bridge with newspapers. Corps officials called it an expedient but temporary solution, made to help the agency finish work before the start of the 2006 hurricane season. But the fact that the corps had a lot to do in a short amount of time in the first year after Hurricane Katrina doesn't explain why the agency didn't use the customary rubber material to fill panel gaps in the floodwall. That's not a scarce commodity, and the corps surely didn't need to scrape up a substitute. Floodwalls are constructed in separate panels to prevent cracks due to temperature change, and the half-inch gaps have barriers to prevent leaking, including a thick rubber "waterstop" in the middle that runs from the top to the bottom and is anchored in the concrete foundation. Rubber material is normally used to fill the gap on the front and back side of the floodwall, and it is sealed again on the outside. But in this case, newspaper was used instead in three places. Maj. Timothy Kurgan, chief public affairs officer for the corps' New Orleans district, called the risk of leaking minimal. 'I don't want people thinking there's just a bunch of newspaper inside this wall, and that's the only thing keeping water out,' he said. The corps says this method wasn't used anywhere else, but this floodwall near the Orleans-St. Bernard Parish line, is in a critical spot. People who depend on it for protection shouldn't have to worry about the material used to repair it. The corps must realize that public confidence was eroded by the catastrophic failure of the federally built flood protection system during Katrina. This kind of fix does little to rebuild faith in the agency or its work." Related from the Reg-Markets Center: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the New Orleans Protection System Stephane Hallegatte The Economics of Rebuilding Cities: Reflections after Katrina Robert W. Hahn Posted by Reg-Markets Center on May 19, 2008 Driver Cellphone Bans Questioned"As California gears up to start enforcing a law banning hand-held cellphone use by its millions of drivers, a new study casts doubt on whether such laws do much good in many situations.The study, from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, predicts that the state's hands-free requirement, which goes into effect July 1, will reduce traffic deaths in the state by 300 a year. But the institute -- which reached its conclusion by studying state-by-state traffic-fatality data, including data from a handful of states that already restrict cellphones on the road -- found a decrease in deaths only when people drove in adverse conditions, such as in rain, or on wet or icy roads. California's law, like legislation already enforced in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and the District of Columbia, allows drivers to talk on mobile phones only when using headsets or other 'hands-free' devices. A separate law banning teenage drivers from using cellphones at all, including barring them from sending text messages while driving, also goes into effect in California July 1. But previous laws didn't have a statistically significant effect on safety when driving conditions were good, according to the report's author, institute research fellow Jed Kolko. The study is the latest twist in a somewhat confusing body of research evaluating the dangers of talking on the phone while driving -- research that is fueling the move by many states to pass cellphone laws." "Other studies using data from Canada and Western Australia have looked at specific auto accidents, including nonfatal crashes, and whether motorists were talking on their phones at the time of the crashes. Those studies found that driver cellphone use increased the risk of having a serious accident by four times. There was no difference in the rate of crashes for drivers who used headsets versus regular phones." "'Once people are talking on the phone, the distraction seems to be approximately equal,' said Adrian Lund, president of the Arlington, Va., Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research group funded by car insurers. The insurance institute helped conduct the study of drivers in Australia, which was released in 2005." Related from the Reg-Markets Center: Are Drivers Who Use Cell Phones Inherently Less Safe? James E. Prieger, Robert W. Hahn The Impact of Driver Cell Phone Use on Accidents Robert W. Hahn, James E. Prieger Posted by Reg-Markets Center on May 19, 2008 |
