Friday, May30, 2014
HOT TOPICS:
- Letter to the Editor: Claims bad experience with DMV
- Editorial: Put seat belts on school buses
- Pennsylvania bill would allow undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses
Letter to the Editor…
Claims bad experience with DMV
Hartford Courant
Claims Bad Experience With DMV
Letter to the editor
7:13 p.m. EDT, May 29, 2014
My son is in the military and last week a renewal notice for his CT driver's license was mailed to our house. Since he is finishing boot camp and will then be sent to Pensacola, FL, I called the DMV to fully understand everything I needed to provide him with so he could renew his license from out of state.
Not only was the woman I spoke with at the DMV not very forthcoming with all the information I needed, she was very impatient and rude to me. I asked her to refrain from being so huffy with me since I was only trying to fully understand the process and my ability to connect with my son is limited. She did not seem to care. Isn't that her job, to field questions? Isn't she a state employee, which means she works for me, a taxpayer? Shouldn't she have thanked me for my son's service and been accommodating no matter what my questions were?
This military mom is disgusted with the treatment I received in an attempt to assist a military serviceman. Shame on this woman and shame on the DMV.
Kim Villanti, Bristol
Editorial…
Put seat belts on school buses
Greenwich Time
Editorial: Put seat belts on school buses
Published 6:46 pm, Thursday, May 29, 2014
It's human nature to hear about a bad car accident and respond with "Were they wearing seats belts?"
There's no need to ask that, though, when the accident involves a school bus. This state does not require seat belts on school buses.
More than a dozen Stanwich School students and their 74-year-old driver were injured Wednesday when their bus smashed into a tree on Stanwich Road in Greenwich. The injuries sustained by the high school students included broken bones, a fractured hip and head trauma. A few were placed on advanced life support en route to Stamford Hospital.
Even without knowing the details, anyone seeing the wreckage would certainly hope the passengers were wearing seat belts.
Bills mandating usage of belts on school buses fail to travel very far in the state legislature. The contradiction, of course, is that any driver failing to strap in potentially faces an expensive ticket.
Those opposed to mandatory belts on school buses cite data, studies and a variety of reasons: School buses are already one of the safest ways to travel because the seats are elevated . . . the law is a challenge to enforce . . . kids hit each other with the buckles.
In the end, of course, it comes down to money. The National Safety Council reports that children are about 40 times safer traveling in a bus than in a personal vehicle and cites the cost of installing belts at between $8,000 and $15,000 per vehicle.
Dismissing the needs for belts because more kids are killed in other methods of transportation is repugnant reasoning. We're not deaf to the concerns about paying for the buses, but this issue must not be driven by cold cash.
More severe injuries on Stanwich Road this week would be a game-changer in the public conversation about this issue in Connecticut. Such was the case in Texas seven years ago, when two students were killed and 12 seriously injured in a rollover in which no seat belts were worn. A bill was subsequently passed mandating seat belts in school buses, similar to laws in New York (the first state to require them), New Jersey, California, Florida and Louisiana. The specifics of the measures vary. New York, for example, leaves it to individual school boards to determine if the belts must be used (only a fraction require them).
We don't expect this law to change quickly, but lawmakers should at least revive the conversation about requiring seat belts on new buses. Our children should at least have the option to strap themselves in.
Story on…
Pennsylvania bill would allow undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses
Lancaster Newspapers
Bill would allow undocumented immigrants to get Pa. driver's licenses
Posted: Thursday, May 29, 2014 5:52 pm | Updated: 12:55 am, Fri May 30, 2014.
By DAN NEPHIN | Staff Writer
Undocumented immigrants in Pennsylvania would be able to get driver's licenses under legislation proposed in Harrisburg.
Supporters say such immigrants are already working here and paying taxes, but not having a license makes them lawbreakers just so they can do things like get to work and take their children to school.
"They end up driving without a license, not because they want to break the law, but because they can't do these things (otherwise,)" said Oscar Barbosa, an attorney at Diaspora Law in Lancaster.
And for 10 years, until shortly after 9/11, Pennsylvania's undocumented immigrants were able to get Pennsylvania driver's licenses. And a handful of other states allow undocumented immigrants to get licenses.
Rep. Mark Cohen, a Philadelphia Democrat and sponsor of House Bill 1648, would like to return to that practice.
But he acknowledges it has little chance with a Republican-controlled House.
"Obviously it's not going to get through imminently, but all new ideas need the time to circulate … this seemed to be one way to increase awareness of this issue," Cohen said Thursday.
Cohen spoke at state Capitol rally on the issue Wednesday with some two-dozen undocumented immigrants in attendance.
"My general legal philosophy is that we ought to put more people inside the boundaries of the law. The more people we put outside the boundaries of the law, the more we're undermining the law … we’re just creating more and more outlaws," he said.
"Many of the people who are undocumented citizens didn't choose to be undocumented citizens. Their parents brought them here when they were young children," he said — or they came on student visas or as visitors.
Rare, he said, are the stereotypical undocumented immigrants who knowingly sneak in the country.
Sheila Mastropietro, director of Church World Service's Lancaster office, said immigrants she deals with want to be legal.
"Their reasons for living here are reasons we all understand — to be reunited with family, to keep their family together, to provide for their families, to give their children the best opportunities for the future, to protect their children from mind-numbing poverty, unstable or corrupt governments. Not everyone has the option to legalize their status here in the U.S." she said in an email statement.
Cohen's bill, she said, would only give immigrants the right to legally drive in Pennsylvania "… conferring freedom of movement, a basic human right, to the approximately 200,000 undocumented immigrants in Pennsylvania,"
She estimated several hundred undocumented immigrants live in Lancaster County.
House Republican spokesman Steve Miskin said members oppose the bill.
“States should not be making their own rules about who is in this country legally and illegally,” he said. “Members don’t believe we should be legitimizing people who are here illegally.”
Lancaster County Republican representatives Steven Mentzer and Dave Hickernell said they oppose it.
"Providing undocumented immigrants with the same privileges as legal residents would only encourage more illegal immigration and compound the federal governments problem of boarder control," said Mentzer, of Manheim Township.
Hickernell, of West Donegal Township, said there's already a process that allows persons with a valid foreign driver's license to drive in Pennsylvania for up to a year.
Democrat Mike Sturla of Lancaster, said he'd have to look into the possible ramifications of Cohen's legislation, but he said appeared to be a positive step toward creating a pathway to citizenship.
"Ultimately, I think we need to have some sort of federal congressional action … to have a pathway to citizenship for the people who are already here," he said.