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BIG CITY: Safe streets require attention

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Staff

Kirk Ross

If you’re a regular reader of this newspaper, you’ve heard this before. But don’t stop me – it’s not a joke.

Several years ago, while researching yet another pedestrian-and-car accident, I got a copy of some very solid research on accidents in Chapel Hill. One chart jumped out. It showed the frequency of accidents throughout the year. Guess which part of the year was the most dangerous by far? Yep – this one.

If you think about it, the fact that so many car/pedestrian and car/bike accidents happen in the first few weeks of a new semester is not all that surprising. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are full of young drivers new to the roads in town and the walking ways of their peers.

Then there’s the hurry everyone is in this time of year. Throw in the use of portable electronic devices (the study was done prior to the boom in texting but after cell phones were in common use) and you have a real recipe for disaster.

So every year, I try to type something up cautioning folks to hang up and drive and to pay attention, whether they’re getting around on foot, two wheels or four.

If this column isn’t reminder enough, here’s a simple study you can perform yourself: Stand on a major corner in any part of town and count how many drivers going by are on the phone. Then look around and count how many pedestrians are either doing the same or are walking around wearing ear buds. Unless things have changed dramatically, what you see should frighten the living hell out of you, especially when you consider that talking on the phone while driving has been proven to be an impairment to safe motoring akin to that of drunk driving.

So please be safe out there this month, next month, and whenever you take to the roads. Consider yourselves warned and cajoled.

Did I mention he coached football?

I’m not much of a sports journalist – and aside from the years where I got to photograph home games as part of my job, I haven’t been much more than a mildly enthusiastic fan of Carolina football.

But having worked under an editor who loved to opine about the detrimental effects of big-time sports on the university, I’ve written a few stories on the business and academic aspects of Tar Heel revenue sports.

If that editor and I were both back at our old jobs, I’m sure I would be all over the Butch Davis story whether I wanted to be or not. We’re not, and to that I say, hoo-rah.
Reading the flack, spin and baloney generated by this episode has been a reminder of how insular a world Carolina football can be. Oh, and self-absorbed.

How else can a headline like “Thorp’s job safe for now” make it into print? That the chancellor would somehow get tossed under the bus for firing a football coach, even a top-notch one, is just delusional. First off, he was the football coach, not the basketball coach. Second, the football program is in a heap of trouble. Third, note again the first reason.

Sorry if you didn’t see the firing of Davis coming, but anyone who shares a small office with a Virginia Tech fan knew he was toast from the day the story broke. And I’m sorry if you think the chancellor’s timing was awful. When you get to be chancellor, I’m sure your timing will be impeccable in all things.

Another awful episode in the world of big-time college athletics, and another fine, upstanding university dragged through the mud over the pursuit of sporting victories. I’m shocked.

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