NATIONAL MOTORISTS ASSOCIATION

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Hello Massachusetts Motorists

'Tis the season of giving, and in MA alone the Governor's Highway Safety Bureau is awarding over $3,700,000 in grant funding to 265 local law enforcement agencies and to the Massachusetts State Police for traffic enforcement during the six 2004/2005 "mobilization" periods. The remaining mobilizations are:

Mark your calendars. They did.


Fast Lanes to the Beach

After decades of wrangling, work has finally started on replacing the traffic-snarled circle at the foot of the Sagamore Bridge with lanes running directly onto the bridge from Route 3.

The $58.2 million project includes construction of new highway lanes and exit ramps to connect northbound and southbound traffic to Route 6, Route 3A and Sagamore Beach. The project will also relocate a commuter parking lot, a state Highway Department maintenance headquarters, the Chamber of Commerce building and the Bourne fire station.

The improvements are expected to reduce travel times from just north of the bridge to Route 6 on the Cape Cod side from 27 minutes to 6 minutes. Most of the work should be finished by the fall of 2006, with final completion slated for the spring of 2007.


New Road Needs New Speed Limits!

The four year Route 3 widening project is nearly complete. Route 3 from Burlington to New Hampshire has been widened to three lanes in each direction and improved to modern standards. This is an opportunity to put an end to the ridiculously low and universally ignored 55 MPH speed limit. Members from the region should write their state senator and representative asking for the speed limit to be increased.
John Carr, MA State Activist


In Legislative News:

You would think increased use of hybrid and other fuel efficient vehicles is good news, but the state officials expressed fear over such a trend. The State Transportation Secretary Daniel Grabauskas thinks this unfortunate turn of events will reduce the revenue from the state's gas tax too much. So he was proposing equipping private automobiles with mileage-recording devices in order to charge owners by the mile.

After all, extorting money from individual motorists must be easier than recovering some $1.6 billion from the lead contractor responsible for the cost overruns in the leaky Big Dig project!


Speed Kills?

Back in October, in the case of Julio Rodriguez, the 58-year-old Lawrence barber accused of killing one and seriously injuring two others, the Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley said - and many reporters mindlessly repeated - victims were shot inside a "speeding" van on I-93. Maybe they could have dodged the bullets had the van been obeying the speed limits.

Similarly, in Springfield, a man was shot outside a bar at 2 a.m. Although the police had not established a motive for the crime, to the Globe reporter it was clearly a case of road-rage. After all, the shooting occurred in a parking lot...


TV Expose Needed

In the Spring of 2004, I was contacted by Mike Beaudet, the Investigative Reporter for Channel 25 FOX News. He was looking for stories involving motorists in the State.

Following a lead unearthed by our Activist John Carr I told him about a loophole that allows the Commonwealth to collect millions of dollars from speeding tickets issued on the MassPike roads. Mike filmed our portion of the story, but then ran into a snag. Because of the runaround by the state, he was unable to verify the number of tickets in question. I'm afraid after months of unresponsiveness by the authorities to his public information requests, he may be giving up...


Christmas Spirit

For a limited time, the city of Boston was accepting a new form of payment for parking tickets: Cabbage Patch Kids, Morphibians, even Mega Bloks.

To help boost donations to the Marines Corps Toys for Tots campaign, city officials were allowing parking scofflaws to settle their debts with toys of equal or greater value than their tickets. A sales receipt was required for proof of value.

Tickets issued Dec. 1, 2, or 3 were eligible for the program, excluding those issued for public safety reasons, such as parking in front of a handicap ramp, in a crosswalk, or in a fire lane. However, the city's generosity ended on December 10.


New Federal Ruling

All passenger vehicles sold in the United States must have shoulder and lap belts in the rear center seat by the 2008 model year under a federal rule issued recently. Three out of four new passenger cars already have the belts, but only half of pickups and sport utility vehicles do.


And so as we come to a close of another year, I'll be seeing you down the road in 2005. All the best to all of you and your loved ones.

Ivan
NMA MA Coordinator
1/05

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