Word: driver
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American truck drivers like to think of themselves as kings of the road, but a disturbing number have become mobile menaces, causing truck accidents on interstates to rise from 31,000 in 1983 to 39,000 last year. A provision inserted into the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed by Congress this month is aimed at putting the brakes on those rising stats. Starting in 1988, truck and bus drivers will be required to pass a federally approved test before being issued a license. At the moment, standards across the country vary. In 20 states, for example, a driver can take...
Opponents of the law mistakenly focus on the act of buckling up instead of its context. A seat belt doesn't just protect the individual who wears it; its use means that the driver is taking seriously the privilege of driving and its concomitant responsibility. A mandatory seat belt law, in this sense, is like a speed limit...
...does more than impose fines on citizens; it sets up state-sponsored education and police training programs. More important, the law can be enforced only if the driver has been stopped for violation of another motor vehicle law. For individuals who have already shown irresponsibility and have put others in danger, it is reasonable to make the enforcement of those other laws also a checkpoint for safety belts...
While both politicians and the press have been quick to remind New Yorkers that substance abuse was the tragedy's principal cause, they have chosen to focus on Ms. Steel's ostensible abuse of alcohol instead of the behavior of the driver who struck her down. After all, she used a fake i.d. to buy drinks at Dorian's Red Hand, the same bar that Jennifer Dawn Levin visited on the night of her gruesome murder two months...
...inexplicable. To blame the victim, on the other hand, is to reassure ourselves that we live in a just and harmonious world, a world in which no one who follows the proper path is victimized. Therefore, New Yorkers must believe that the real enemy is not the drunk driver, but the teenage drinker, the proverbial sinner upon whom God wreaks vengeance...