Safe or sorry
I am at a point in my life which causes me great concern. I don't know if I am an unsafe driver or a law breaker.
The speed limit, as we all should know, is 55 mph. That makes me an unsafe driver in the eyes of the motorists that insist on violating the 55 mph posted speed limit on the highways.
I try to offset being an unsafe driver by driving 60 mph, and that makes me a law breaker. I drive 60 mph but to no avail, as there are those individuals who seem to believe that the speed limit is made to restrict every other motorist except them.
No matter what lane I drive in at 60 mph, I am tail-gated, cut off when an irate motorist passes me, and given very graphic indications that the other motorist wishes I were on some other highway except the Beltway.
The tragedy is that motorists in this country have forgotten the 1970s and the gas lines. Since that time the price of gasoline has risen to the point that those of us who have a limited income can hardly operate our vehicles from month to month.
But the main point is insurance rates. They are predicated on the volume of claims against any given company; rates are levied due to the volume of claims and the area in which this increase in claims occur.
However, back to the speed limit problem. I believe a happy medium could be reached by increasing the speed limit to 60 mph.
I find this speed to be the most comfortable, time-wise and speed-wise. But you can rest assured that we will have speeders no matter what speed limit is posted, because the average citizen cannot operate an automobile in a safe and prudent manner without some sort of supervision.
I would like to think I am mature enough to obey the laws of any state I might be traveling in without having to worry about the presence of a traffic officer to tell me the right and proper thing to do.
The only problem I have to worry about today concerning this speed thing is if I drive at 55 mph and get involved in an accident, will I be liable because my speed was "restrictive to other automobiles"? Or because I was, technically speaking, breaking the law by speeding at 60 mph? Just where do I fit? Safe driver or speed demon?
John F. Thomas
Catonsville
Blood drive
I recently had a bad experience at the Red Cross blood drive that has been held at my church for the last 15 years.
The problem is the length of time the donors had to wait. From the time they arrived until the needle went into their arm was over two hours.
Most people don't mind an hour for the whole process. But they do mind waiting two hours just to get on the table.
In fairness to the Red Cross staff, they did a great job.
But the blood drive coordinator failed to send enough of them. The Red Cross only sent five nurses.
I know they have cut back like other businesses.
But if they are going to "beg for blood" on radio, television and in the newspaper they should at least be prepared to make it a pleasant experience for donors.
It's not the fear of contracting AIDS that has kept people away, it's the lack of consideration the Red Cross has for people who take their own time to donate a pint of blood for people who critically need it.
Mary Milam
Reisterstown
tTC
Remembering the horror of Hiroshima
In "Hiroshima, rewritten" (Other Voices, Feb. 3), Barton J. Bernstein writes approvingly of "high-ranking military men" who believed that Japan "was defeated" before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As a veteran of the greatest land, sea and air battle in history -- at Okinawa in April, May and June 1945 -- I have searched in vain for the date when this alleged "defeat" occurred.
Why did we suffer casualties at Okinawa until at least June 26, less than six weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima, if Japan already had been defeated?
Why was my outfit, along with the rest of the 77th Infantry Division, training in July and August on Cebu Island in the Philippines for the scheduled Nov. 1, 1945, invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four main Japanese islands if Japan was defeated?
Why did a Japanese submarine sink the cruiser Indianapolis on July 30, with a loss of almost 900 Americans, if Japan was defeated?
Professor Bernstein writes that in May 1945, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall did not want to use the atomic bomb because it would "break the old moral code against killing noncombatants."
This helps perpetuate the belief of many who were not in combat that World War II was somehow a gentlemanly affair after Pearl Harbor and before Hiroshima.
In reality, noncombatants were killed by the hundreds of thousands during that period.
We destroyed large portions of almost every major Japanese city by conventional bombing, with terrible loss of civilian lives, and Japan still fought on.
For example, we destroyed a larger proportion of the city of Kobe with conventional bombing than we did of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombing.
At Okinawa we lost about 12,500 killed, and we killed about 110,000 Japanese soldiers.
What is generally overlooked by those who shed tears only for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that we killed about 94,000 civilians on Okinawa.
Of course, this was not done deliberately. On that small island there was nowhere those pitiful people could go to escape the slaughter.
With more than 200,000 deaths on Okinawa, and the successful testing of the bomb in July, is it any wonder that President Harry Truman tried to end the war in August?
The views expressed above were shaped not only by my war experience but by teaching in Hiroshima for 27 months during 1948-1950, my service with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Nagasaki for six months in 1950-1951, and my service as a federal civilian employee on Okinawa for eight years, from 1964 until 1972.
Many survivors in all three places became close friends. I have the deepest sympathy for them and those who were killed, as well as for my American comrades, with whom I am proud to have served.
I have equal sympathy for President Truman, who has been portrayed as a monster for trying to end a war that was horrible beyond imagination for those who were not involved.
Leon K. Walters
Millersville
Reform needed in child support laws
I was interested in the recent exchange on your Other Voices page regarding child support ("A deadbeat dad prepares for jail," Feb. 6). I am in full agreement with Robin Miller's disparaging view of child support laws and practices in Maryland.
Non-custodial parents are an unfairly maligned and beleaguered class of people, yet any complaint from them is viewed as proof of their "irresponsibility."
Proposals for stricter enforcement, such as revoking driver's licenses and professional licenses, would not solve the problem of "deadbeat dads."
Men who are behind in their payments generally are either financially unable to do better or have been made irrational and defiant.
Yes, it is irresponsible to walk away from your kids. But it is a tragedy to have your kids taken away from you, and not everyone reacts to tragedy in a manner they would be proud of later.
The long-term solution to the problem is quite simple: First, make support payments reasonable.
Then, unless there is compelling reason to do otherwise, the courts should grant custody to the parent being divorced, with the parent seeking the divorce being required to pay support.
The result would be a much lower divorce rate and a much higher compliance rate among those required to pay support. With less contention between parents, kids would benefit as well.
If the Glendening administration takes the same approach to child support as it has toward the speed limit, we should have more reasonable laws on the books soon. As Sen. Jennie M. Forehand noted regarding the proposed raising of the speed limit: "I'm in the legislature to write laws that people are willing to obey."
With a half billion dollars in back payments owed by non-custodial parents in Maryland in 1993, and officials admitting that "current enforcement efforts are not working," there are obviously many people who are unwilling to obey the law.
I urge Senator Forehand and others to be just as realistic about child support as they are about highway speed limits.
Rather than beef up enforcement efforts to little avail, rewrite the laws to make them more reasonable and likely to be obeyed.
Everybody would be better off, especially the kids.
R. L. Brown
Pasadena