Cities and States are implementing anti-idling laws on almost all motors.
These laws could do what no terrorist has been able to do.

They could bring the USA to almost a standstill.



*I'll start with truck drivers since I happen to be one. But read the entire article.
There is absolutely no consideration being given to the drivers who live in the trucks while they are on the road.


* This next line is possibly more important!
And in many cases, it is also illegal to run the reefer engine on the reefer trailers while it is sitting.

What that means is that only limited amounts of refrigerated products can be picked up or delivered in the areas which have these laws, or are considering them.

There are a couple of work-arounds for the driver's cab:

But without a pet in the truck, the truck must be shut off when it is not moving in many locations. The fact that most drivers will be suffering, and some will end up hospitalized or dieing due to extreme conditions. This does not seem to have been taken into consideration in these laws.

Am I exaggerating about the suffering, or the health hazard to the point of drivers being hospitalized, or even dieing? You have only to look the daily newspapers each summer or winter to see where people have been hospitalized ,or even died, due to a lack of heating or cooling. And we are talking about the driver's home while the driver is on the road and deliver products for you.

Think about your home without heat or cooling....

Lawmakers don't seem to care about the health and welfare of drivers. Their answers are to simply find more drivers.

Under these conditions, I think that fewer people will be applying for jobs as a truck driver.

Lawmakers also seem to think that drivers from Mexico and Canada will take up the slack.

Maybe, and maybe not. I don't know. But I do know that the US Economy will be hurt in either case.

That brings us to the fact that our U.S. Infrastructure will slow down when these laws are enforced.

Why?

Everything is the U.S. is transported by truck at one point or another.

• Many medicines have to be kept refrigerated during transport. If special permits are required to run a reefer motor to keep them at a certain temperature, then the cost will be passed on to  the public.

• Large trucks traveling across the country allow products to be delivered or picked up cheaply from small towns, production plants, or ranches in the middle of no-where, or anywhere. Reducing the driver pool due the extreme conditions, or paying more to drivers because of the hazardous conditions will show up on the shelf and take more out the family dollar.

• Imagine not being able to receive oranges from California or Florida because it is illegal to keep them refrigerated in one state or the city where they are going to or coming from. They can not be kept refrigerated without the reefer motor running.
  
• Imagine not being able to get milk or beef for the same reason.
  
• Or, if you are a farmer or rancher, imagine you are not able to ship your butchered beef or milk to one city or another because of these laws.

• Even the potatoes that are served with most people's meals have to be kept refrigerated on part of their trip to the supermarket. Even the instant ones and the potatoes included in microwave meals.
  

If that reefer can not be kept running, or a special permit is needed because of current laws, then the consumer costs will go up.

This not only affect items shipped by trucks which require temperatures to be controlled, but also things coming by trains. Trains use reefer cars, too.

Common sense needs to be applied here.
These laws are already on the books. They simply have not been enforced in all communities yet. That will change.
When these laws are enforced everywhere, it will do what no terrorist has been able to do.

It could bring the USA to almost a standstill.

This is a case where every one of you needs to write your congressmen and local lawmakers.

You can see that I am back to using Firefox here.

In the news, paranoia has become law, it seems. At least it seems so in Massachusetts.

An MIT student was arrested for for wearing a circuit board and other computer parts when trying to board an airplane.

Granted, it was not the smartest thing in the world.
But was illegal?

M.I.T. students are famous for wearing computers. Not just computer parts, but whole computers. Some of them powered by generators in their shoes which power batteries as they walk. They have screens built into the glasses that they wear everyday. They have entire study groups which are in constant contact as they move about campus.

And this is not new! It's been going on for several years. What I have just described was the M.I.T. of several years ago. Pre- 9/11. I have no idea how far it has advanced since then.

But the point is that wearing computer boards and other high-tech gadgets is normal for many of these students.

M.I.T. stands for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Apparently, Boston, Massachusetts, considers it a terrorist cell. The young lady was arrested as she entered the airport to catch her flight. She had to post a $700 bond in order to return to campus.

As I said above, I'll grant the bad judgment.
But has paranoia become the law?

I've been playing with the Opera Web Browser a lot since I last posted my thoughts about it.
I've found that I can use it in most places.
Plus the people at Opera claim that it is more secure then Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Well, I can't the text controls to work properly here on my Bravenet pages with Opera. But it works well on 99% of the web. Plus it is faster then any other browser that I have used with any Microsoft or Linux based system.