Driving the Issue
Road rage: The only reason all these accidents are happening on Interstate 95's tolled express lanes is not because of the express lanes; it's because of the shitty Miami drivers ("Crazy Lanes," Gus Garcia-Roberts, October 13). I have lived here my whole life, and nothing changes. People should pay attention to what they are doing, read the signs, and quit blaming others for their mistakes. Don't blame the roads.
Jorge Hurtado
Signs of bias: It seems Mr. Garcia-Roberts's goal is to write as negative an article as possible, regardless of any positive information he "uncovered." He succeeded! The express lanes are well marked to indicate limited access on and off the interstate. Perhaps people should pay more attention to the signs instead of their cell phones, iPods, etc. Express lanes are meant to help distribute traffic more evenly, and even the folks who say they cannot afford the express lanes benefit. If these lanes are so bad, I wonder why the Florida Department of Transportation has won awards for such a well-run, efficient project. Shame on you, Mr. Garcia-Roberts, for your unprofessional slurs and lack of proper research.
Penny Minge Kamish
Carless in Miami: I don't buy the whole "I was trapped" story told by people who were injured during the early days of the lanes. They should have just waited until it was safe to change lanes instead of being dumb and disrupting the flow of traffic and causing accidents. However, I do agree that the implementation of these lanes is misguided, since it is encouraging people to depend on their cars to commute from the burbs to their workplace. Miami doesn't need more cars on its roads. I'm an FIU student, and I don't drive. The 95 Express bus is the only good thing that came out of this.
Brandt Absolu
Taking a toll: As someone who must regularly commute from Miami Beach to Boca Raton at least once a week, I find the express lanes to be nothing short of a blessing. They are beyond helpful in getting past the Miami-Dade I-95 traffic jams and into Broward County. I will gladly keep paying the tolls and am certainly looking forward to the lanes' expansion in Broward. The one thing I do take issue with is where the toll money is going. I would like to see the money funneled back into the city, preferably into some sort of mass transit program.
Adam R.
To Have and Have Not
Get an occupation: If you continue to alienate corporations by encouraging people to join the Occupy movement, they can take their jobs overseas ("Luke's Gospel," Luther Campbell, October 13). The entitlement mentality you have is further aggravating the job crisis. The same people who smoked weed and disrupted class when I was in high school are the ones who feel they "deserve" a job. Tough shit when no one wants to hire a burned-out pothead who can't read. You are preaching a socialist agenda.
Mabella
Coming home: We need corporate America to move back into the neighborhood and become a responsible neighbor. Bring back the factory and long-term jobs, not the temporary Band-Aid road jobs. Stop all the outsourcing and put people here back to work. Corporate America is creating the haves and the have-nots.
Key West
Instant karma: Let's see. The spoiled, silver-spoon-fed, white, arrogant brats with no jobs and rich parents are mad because they have no work. But they all voted for Obama, whose regulatory and negative-business agenda has failed to create jobs. Sort of getting what you voted for, right?
Smash
Camera Shysters
Big Brother payday: There's something unseemly and sleazy about any local officials who use law enforcement as a means of generating revenue using red-light cameras ("Seeing Red," Francisco Alvarado, October 13). Consequently, photo enforcement has never survived a public vote. Perhaps it's time for Miami to step up. Red-light cameras have been banned outright or so severely restricted as to make them unworkable in nearly a dozen states. Lakeland paid $667,000 to wrongfully convicted drivers in a class action lawsuit. More than 500 red-light-camera tickets worth about $250,000 were dismissed after a superior court judge affirmed her earlier ruling that the Napa, California contract with its camera provider violated state law. Des Plaines, Illinois, will add no more because they're not effective. Albuquerque citizens just voted them out. Last I heard, red-light cameras are used in about 500 communities in 26 states, fewer than 2 percent of America's 30,000 communities. If city bosses really believe cameras reduce accidents, they would have marked them with bright colors instead of making them difficult to see. The people aren't stupid, and it looks like most realize this is not the kind of world free humans want, a world in which our superiors and their police remotely monitor our actions to ensure approved behavior.
Tom