Stop wrong-way driving deaths

It's time to stop the killing! I'm talking about the deaths caused by vehicles being driven the wrong way on our busy interstate highways.

An October 25 a Providence Journal article described the latest tragedy (Five dead in Mass. in wrong-way crash). The dead included four college students in a lawfully operated vehicle and the driver of the car traveling in the wrong direction.

Every year similar tragedies occur on interstates across our country - deaths that are preventable when corrective action is available.

We've all returned rental cars and driven over the directional traffic control spikes that prevent cars from being driven out of return lanes. Cars driven the wrong way across these 'tiger teeth' suffer punctured tires that disable the vehicles.

Such devices could be easily and inexpensively installed at the ends of all interstate exit ramps to prevent cars from entering the highways from the wrong direction. A quick Internet search shows that good ones are available for about $1200 per highway ramp. Installation would probably cost another $800 each.

For only $80,000 these tiger teeth could be installed at the top of all 40 or so exit ramps on I-95 in Rhode Island. Very expensive but more durable devices would likely cost no more than $500,000. Add another million dollars for all ramps in Rhode Island and our interstates are protected. Massachusetts and Connecticut would likely follow suit if Rhode Island set the example.

Isn't protecting our lives from wrong-way drivers worth this minimal expense? It's time to stop the killing! Stop texting-while-driving deaths

As one who leans libertarian philosophically and politically, I find it difficult to advocate government interference in individual activity. However, when such activity presents clear and objective risk of harm to other individuals, it's time for all of us to speak up and push government and industry to apply fixes to the problem.

Currently, the most dangerous activity to motorists, pedestrians and roadway-adjacent properties is the ubiquitous use of hand-held cell phones by vehicle operators for texting, email checking, app using, and talking. Almost all states have made such activities unlawful, yet police are unable to stop the illegal activity and the resulting deaths and the destruction simply because it is so hard to prove the activity occurred.

There is a solution to this problem. But our lawmakers must act and the auto industry must get onboard.

For several years industry has known how to prevent vehicle operators from using hand-held phones. An article in the International Journal of Enterprise Network Management in July of 2012 explained clearly how auto manufacturers could install low-level jamming devices that would prevent operators from using hand-held phones while still allowing passengers to do so and allowing Blutooth connection to hands-free speakers. Dashboard GPS systems would also still function.

Automakers are certainly able to install devices in every car that would make any hand-held electronic device unworkable within three feet of the steering wheel's center. Cell phones with blue tooth connection to the car's speaker system would not be affected. Thus, hands-free phone conversations could still occur while texting and other dangerous activities would be precluded. Should the need arise for a quick 911 call from a hand-held device, the operator would have to pull to the roadside or the call could be made by a passenger outside the distance limitation.

Historically, it has been innovations by industry that have solved most of society's problems, not government. Sometimes it just takes a bit of prodding by government to make it happen. And sometimes it takes a bit of public prodding of government to make it move in the right direction. The time has come.

Forgetting America's genocide

When Americans think of genocide, they automatically remember the Holocaust and genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda and elsewhere around the globe - but not in our country.

Late in 2016, Governor Raimondo signed a bill that mandates Rhode Island students study the horrors of genocide. A close look at the bill served to illuminate Americans' myopia on the subject of our own genocidal actions.

A reading of the bill itself and the statements of those interviewed for a news story about the bill mentioned numerous instances of genocide that should be studied, yet not a single mention was made of the Colonial- and U.S government-conducted, centuries-long genocide of Native Americans. It was an accepted, even glorified, genocide that almost wiped out an entire race of humans. Yet our lawmakers and ethnic leaders say nothing about including the American Indian genocide as part of mandated student learning.

Yes, the Holocaust should be studied by our students, as should other 19th and 20th century genocides. However, our students will never truly appreciate the horrors of genocide until we finally admit that what our ancestors did to Native Americans was nothing short of genocide.

We are a great country. One of the things that makes us great is that we are usually able to admit when we are wrong and find ways to correct our faults. Studying genocide is a major step in that direction so long as the American Indian genocide is included.

Save prison space for violent offenders

Late last year, our attorney general's office made a deal with a man caught stealing wreaths so that he received a one-year suspended sentence. He was freed to roam the streets again.

The man had three pending cases - felony assault, possession of a stolen vehicle, and a felony drug charge. We'd be foolish to think that he will be a law-abiding citizen during his suspended sentence. Surely, the man is now out committing crimes or looking for the opportunity to do so.

A California man who had been convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 was freed. He was convicted of kidnapping in a subsequent case but was left free and required to wear a GPS bracelet. He cut off the bracelet and fled to Nevada where he was captured and returned to California. Still free with a new GPS bracelet, over the next few years he killed four women before being caught and finally put behind bars.

These are only two example of how our over-populated prisons cause prosecutors and judges to allow dangerous offenders to roam free.

Had our prisons not been filled with so many non-violent offenders, judges would likely have put both these men in prison - preventing them from committing additional crimes.

It's time to reserve our limited prison cells strictly for the incarceration of violent offenders. Non-violent offenders should be sentenced to home confinement or community service probation with strict GPS monitoring.

Who had you rather have on GPS probation, an former public official who embezzled funds or a convicted rapist kidnapper?

A Warwick resident, Lonnie Barham is a former Beacon columnist and occasional contributor to these pages.