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From: Alex M. Dunne | d i g i t t a n t e [mailto:alex@digittante.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 1:24 PM
To: Jeanne.Kohl-Welles@leg.wa.gov; marylou.dickerson@leg.wa.gov; reuven.carlyle@leg.wa.gov; phyllis.kenney@leg.wa.gov; david.frockt@leg.wa.gov; drivers@dol.wa.gov
Cc: bryan.bissell@leg.wa.gov; Opinion; Jennifer Sullivan
Subject: [ REQUEST ] How about "1 strike and you're out" for killer drivers?

Senators Kohl-Welles & Frockt, Representatives Dickerson, Carlyle, & Kenney,

I’m writing to you about public safety and the risk of licensed drivers who have killed on the road.

Senator Frockt and Representative Kenney:  You are likely aware of this weekend’s tragic accident in your district on Lake City Way NE and 110th street. An SUV slammed into a smaller car at high speed killing both occupants.

Senator Kohl-Welles and Representatives Carlyle and Dickerson: You may be aware that the driver of that SUV killed a woman on 15th Avenue West in your district in 2009 while also driving at high speed.

In the 2009 incident, the driver was initially charged with vehicular homicide but later pled guilty to only reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Lessening the charges didn’t lessen the impact. The victim remained dead. The driver was able to resume driving, and as of this Sunday, resume killing.

This driver has now had ‘3 strikes’ in two years, and I certainly hope he will be removed from the roads permanently. But could we make our roads even safer? Driving in Washington state is a privilege, and one that in some cases should be taken away more severely. What if, in Washington State, the law allowed only 1 strike for killer drivers?  Kill with your car just once, and no matter the severity of the conviction, you’re banned from driving for life. Implementing such a change would likely require RCW updates to the following sections as indicated:

My family and friends live in your districts and rely on these roads daily. I’d like to tell them you’ll include this proposal in your upcoming legislative work.

Please let me know if you’re able to, or if you have further questions.

All the best,

AMD
36th District
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Alex M. Dunne
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Richard Feynman, God of Perfect Analogies, explains why it's not a failure or a scandal when scientists adapt and change their understanding of the world. This is a really important point, applicable in a lot of public debates over science, espec...
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Richard Feynman, God of Perfect Analogies, explains why it's not a failure or a scandal when scientists adapt and change their understanding of the world. This is a really important point, applicable in a lot of public debates over science, especially those focused on evolution and climate change. Science isn't about writing things on tablets of stone. It's about taking a theory and constantly digging deeper into it—adding layers of nuance, finding stuff that doesn't make sense, and using both to build a more complete picture. Even if the big idea is right, the details will change. That's how science is supposed to work.

Via W. Younes

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A Policy Maker's Dilemma: Preventing Terrorism or Preventing Blame (PDF), a study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, argues that counterterrorism policy fails to address real terrorist threats because politicians and bureaucrats ...
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A Policy Maker's Dilemma: Preventing Terrorism or Preventing Blame (PDF), a study in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, argues that counterterrorism policy fails to address real terrorist threats because politicians and bureaucrats perceive more risk from being punished by voters if they preside over an attack than they do in attacks arising from actual, probable sources.

Although anti-terrorism policy should be based on a normative treatment of risk that incorporates like-
lihoods of attack, policy makers’ anti-terror decisions may be influenced by the blame they expect from
failing to prevent attacks. We show that people’s anti-terror budget priorities before a perceived attack
and blame judgments after a perceived attack are associated with the attack’s severity and how upsetting
it is but largely independent of its likelihood. We also show that anti-terror budget priorities are influ-
enced by directly highlighting the likelihood of the attack, but because of outcome biases, highlighting
the attack’s prior likelihood has no influence on judgments of blame, severity, or emotion after an attack
is perceived to have occurred. Thus, because of accountability effects, we propose policy makers face a
dilemma: prevent terrorism using normative methods that incorporate the likelihood of attack or prevent
blame by preventing terrorist attacks the public find most blameworthy.

A Policy Maker's Dilemma: Preventing Terrorism or Preventing Blame (PDF)

(via Schneier)

(Image: Border Patrol Checkpoint in *New Hampshire* - 2, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from chrisdag's photostream)