HEY guess what its AGANST the law already to text and drive for when you drive a truck, car, plane, and TRAIN. IF you get caught using a phone when driving a train, they will suspend you, or if your train crashes because you were on your phone you will get fired and go to jail. And plus I trust trains way more then anything else and you CANT NOT have computers driving fright trains that is way to dangerous. but Amtrak could though. I think seatbelts wont work on trains. Really what type of stupid idea is that? and Are you all talking about both fright and passenger trains?

Plus there’s airport jobs to consider.

Ok, so you have one opinion.

My question is why do the majority of dems support abortion and terminating life in the womb if we are to assume that there is no price too high when it comes to human life? Since you revealed yourself to be a registered dem I would be interested in your take on this. The dems have forever claimed to be champions for the ‘little guy’. An embyro is the epitome of the ‘little guy’. It’s confusing.

Thanks for your opinion on war casualties. I just wondered why Diane Feinstein or Barbara Boxer who belong to the party of compassion didn’t organize any sort of memorial for the reported 500,000 fallen Iraqi men, women or children who died as a result of our invasion in 2003? Again, it confuses me.

But today Democrats are Puss and Boots…..PC this….too cold…to warm……Shake hands with Castro and bow to oil sheiks and Chinese dictators.

And you can’t wear an American flag image on a T-shirt in miserably failing government run California schools…..no offend temporary/permanent visitors!

-Oh My

It is not possible for you to be any more agonized over the war casualties than I and a lot of other people. You don’t have a monopoly on common decency.

If there is no price too high when it comes to human lives then why do the large majority of dems favor killing children in the womb?

Human life is valuable to the oligarchs only when it translates into putting dollars into their pockets. The invasion of Iraq and it’s aftermath was reported to be responsible for the killing of 500,000 Iraqi men, women and children. And that wasn’t just a republican war. The majority of dems in congress approved the funding for it too. Did anyone over here bat an eyelash over the loss of those human lives? Did Barbara Boxer or Diane Feinstein ask for a moment of silence in memory of those fallen humans? Were there any tears shed?

Human life is just a political and economic commodity. And whenever they start talking about ‘protecting’ or the ‘safety’ of human life….watch out. Another ‘right’ is about to get taken away.

So what you are saying is that if we had half the volume of motorists on our California freeways we would have more accidents and traffic fatalities since there would be less density? Sorry. I just can’t buy that explanation. So the way to combat trffic fatalities is to add more cars to our roads and create more density? So if we had a better public transportation system (like Europe) and removed 30-40% of our motorists from the roadways, thus decreasing roadway density, we would have more traffic fatalities? None of that makes any sense to me.

Also, did you note the statistical data I presented above comparing traffic fatalities in the US and Europe using “fatalities for billion kilometers traveled” as the opposed to “fatalities per 100,000 residents” as the measuring stick? You omitted any reference to it in your response. This measures fatalties based on distance traveled. Apples to apples comparison. And the US still far exceeds western Europe when it comes to traffic fatalities.

Unless we admit as a nation that we have a problem the hope for improvement or a solution is non-existent. The ‘density’ argument just provides another convenient excuse.

“Oh, and less population density should result in fewer roadway fatalities, not more.”

No, it means more because more people are driving and you’re driving longer distances. NY City, population 8.3 million, has 291 traffic fatalities (115 of them motorists) from July 2011 to June 2012:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/nyregion/in-reversal-new-york-city-traffic-fatalities-rise.html?_r=0

The state of Virginia, population 8.2 million, had 775 in 2012 (672 motorists): http://www.dmv.state.va.us/safety/crash_data/crash_facts/crash_facts_12.pdf

That’s more than double for all traffic fatalities.

But if you just include motorists, it’s 115 for NYC and 672 for VA, or 5.8 times as many.

If you tally only cyclists + pedestrians, it’s 176 for NYC and 100 for VA. That’s 76% more for NYC. It reflects how NYC cities are clogged with people walking or on cycles, whereas a rural VA interstate will have few or no pedestrians and cyclists.

Part of my argument was that if we had better public transportation systems (like they do in Europe) the number of Americans dying on our roadways would fall dramatically. But due to lack of viable options, we’ve been forced to become dependent on our cars for travel. This, of course, only compounds congestion on our roadways and results in more roadway fatalities – and wastes a tremendous amount of fuel making us that much more dependent on foreign oil to run the country placing us in a precarious position. But due to government mismanagement we’ve flubbed that opportunity to build effective urban and inter-city/county consumer transport systems. It was possible in the 40’s and 50’s or maybe even in the 60’s when we had the luxury of stellar economic growth. Today it’s cost prohibitive due to all the other waste, fraud and corruption at the top. Plus, our growth rate has slowed tremendously and we rely more and more on debt financing than ever.

Even when you compare the roadway fatalities in western Europe with the US using ‘fatalities per billion kilometers traveled’ US fatalities are still 20%-60% higher than our global neighbors. Here is the list:

USA: 8.5
Denmark: 4.9
France: 7.1
Germany: 5.6
Ireland: 4.9
Holland: 5.6
Norway: 3.5
Switzerland: 5.3
Sweden: 3.2
UK: 5.1

So whatever method you choose to go with, we have a much higher rate of traffic fatalities than do the western Europeans. Oh, and less population density should result in fewer roadway fatalities, not more.

Maybe it’s time to ask “Why?” and fix the problem.

Oh, you’re right about the ICBM per capita comparison. Thanks for the correction. We’re #2 behind Russia. But since it would take less than 1% of our nuclear arsenal to turn the globe into a nuclear fireball maybe that’s another huge waste of money, huh? Nothing to be proud of IMO.

Both the oil and banking industries have raked the common citizens over the financial coals in the last few decades. Sure, we have the largest GDP but we are also, by far, the largest debtor nation in the history of the world running trillion dollar deficits. If your neighbor had an annual income of $27,000, yet spend $37,000 year and had run up over $170,000 on his credit cards what would you call him? Would that lexus parked in his driveway impress you?

Banks and gas stations are overrated. If you’ve been to Europe you’ve witnessed the cultural differences first hand. Most western Europeans live quality lives and don’t have banks and gas stations on every street corner. Examining at the pros and cons – I would much rather live under socialism than in a kleptocracy under crony capitalism. I preferred old America when capitalism really meant something.