Recent South Carolina newspaper editorials:
The Index-Journal
March 31
Vaccine eligibility being expanded to anyone aged 16 and over
Today is a special day in South Carolina. And this is not the day before the April Fool’s joke.
Governor Henry McMaster opened the opportunity for anyone aged 16 and over to apply for the COVID-19 vaccination, starting today.
That almost anyone who wants to receive the first dose can now sign up and get in line when spring arrives and the state begins to renew itself to open up again.
Yes, it is a little risky, we know, but towns, cities and counties are preparing to return in the hope that the decreasing number of cases and deaths, together with the availability and increase of vaccines, are a sign that we are on the verge of to return to some appearance of normalcy.
Now, this is a keyword. Some. We are not out of danger yet, as the expression says, and there is reason to be concerned about the possibility that the variants could harm the party. There is also cause for concern that spring break activities could lead to a resurgence of cases.
So here again, we ask people to sign up. Take dose one, take dose two. We will fight with COVID-19 and win.
The Times and Democrat
March 31
Fatal accidents in the wrong direction
It happened again in March, only this time a very common event made national headlines.
Tampa, Florida, Officer Jesse Madsen was heading north on Interstate 275 in his marked patrol vehicle. Joshua Daniel Montague, 25, new to the city, took the interstate and headed in the wrong direction. They landed near E Hillsborough Avenue. Both men died on impact.
Reports say that Montague was probably intoxicated at the time of the accident, driving his rental sedan at speeds of over 160 km / h. Madsen, it seems, was determined to stop him before it caused a major carnage.
Tampa police chief Brian Dugan corroborated an eyewitness report that Madsen appeared to intentionally veer off the path of the oncoming car to stop the driver in the wrong direction.
Dugan called him “a true American hero”.
The case also raised concern locally, with Bowman’s self-proclaimed “UFO Man” Jody Pendarvis writing: “I struggled for years all the way to Washington to change a sign so that no one had to get on the wrong road.
“To get to the interstate, there is a sign that points directly to where you should go, but a section going up the road is also exactly the same sign. So, if there is fog, heavy snow or rain, you must take the first sign, which it is very close to the interstate exit. So BAMB!
“There are signs on Homestead Road and I-26; and Charleston Highway and I-95 are other signs. The bad sign must have a direction to go ahead and then turn to the proper entrance.”
Pendarvis wrote to US Senator Lindsey Graham and others pointing out the problem and declared: “I hoped that no one else would die, but I must speak up when a highway patrolman deliberately gives his own life to save others.”
This is a bigger problem than you can imagine.
Although the report focuses on North Carolina, without South Carolina statistics being provided, the latest data analysis from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that fatal accidents in the wrong direction are a persistent and devastating threat that has significantly worsened in the state by Tar Heel.
The analysis found that the average number of deaths from accidents on the wrong road on divided highways in the state from 2015 to 2018 was 75% higher than in the previous five years. This more than doubles the national increase of 32%. The researchers found that the chances of being a driver in the wrong direction increased with alcohol consumption, old age and driving without a passenger.
“Accidents on wrong roads on divided roads are often fatal because they are often head-on collisions,” said Dr. David Yang, executive director of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. “And unfortunately, as the data shows, the number of fatalities from these accidents is increasing.”
According to the NCDOT, there were 164 deaths from 2000 to 2017 due to accidents in the wrong way – and alcohol and / or drugs were involved in almost half of all these accidents. Of the 129 accidents on the wrong road from 2000 to 2013, 68 of them involved alcohol.
“If you notice a driver driving in the wrong direction, stay tuned and go to the right shoulder – be sure to avoid hitting the brake or swerving abruptly,” said Tiffany Wright, director of public relations for AAA-The Auto Club Group in the Carolinas . “Once out of danger, call 911 to report the situation.”
Drivers are advised to always use common sense – and to drive sober and not while you are tired. In addition to the driver’s responsibility, with accidents in the wrong direction having grown both in North Carolina and more than 30% across the country, it’s time to look at other factors, including road signs.
The Post and Courier
March 30th
USC deciding whether to retain male basketball coach Frank Martin
The SC Legislative has a tendency to interfere – in executive decisions that, according to the state constitution, should be the competence of the governor; on local matters that, according to the constitution, should be from the province of municipal and district governments; in college, issues that are legally within its competence, but that affect colleges whose budgets are financed almost entirely without state funds.
But there is nothing wrong – and we suggest very right – in informing the University of South Carolina that it needs to make a choice: you can continue to ask the legislature to spend $ 35 million on your new medical school – or to help you pay for deferred maintenance or any pet project you want funded on a given day – or you can continue to waste money paying overpaid coaches to stop training. You cannot expect to do both.
The bad news is that this delayed message was not delivered by the entire legislature, but by a single state senator, Darrell Jackson, who questioned USC President Bob Caslen during a budget hearing on Thursday before a Senate finance subcommittee. .
The good news – assuming it is true – is that Caslen seems to have taken the message seriously. Sources told David Cloninger and Andy Shain of the Post and Courier that USC officials decided after that meeting with Statehouse to retain basketball coach Frank Martin for a 10th season, despite a losing record this year, essentially reversing the course of the that until then seemed like a certain dismissal.
That’s good news, not because we want the USC to lose basketball games or because we’re big fans of Mr. Martin – we don’t have strong feelings in one way or another about the third most winning basketball coach at USC, although we think that rather being declared to fire someone whose losing season resulted, at least in part, from three breaks from the COVID-19 team and their own two struggles with the disease.
It is good news because our legislature has nothing to do with giving discretionary funding to a school that is so much more concerned with athletics than with academics that it would seriously consider paying a coach $ 6.5 million not to be a coach. At the same time, spending an absurd amount of money to look for a new coach, who will receive many millions of dollars to actually train – at least until the school decides to buy the contract as well.
It is good news because the legislature does not need to give discretionary funding to a school that would do this just four months after agreeing to pay former football coach Will Muschamp what turned out to be $ 12.9 million for not training. What the school didn’t have to do.
It is good news too, because perhaps it means that the USC will let Mr. Martin continue to work on a two-year contract instead of extending it or renegotiating it – his current contract promises 100% of the money he would earn if stay, unless he is fired for some “cause” other than a losing season – to eliminate the purchase clause or to specify that the “cause” includes a losing season.
College officials advocate buying coaches’ contracts saying they are using “private money” or “athletics department money”. But the money is fungible and, according to SC law, the money raised to support the university is public, even if it comes from private donations. And “athletics department money” is university money, because the athletics department would not exist without the university and, therefore, by law, any extra money it has should go to academics.
It would be great for all SC colleges to have winning athletic teams, but contrary to what Caslen suggested to the Senate Finance subcommittee on Thursday, winning teams are not essential to the financial success of a college or university. They are certainly not essential to the real mission of the university, which is to educate the children of our state.