Emergency Lights

ON THE face of it, there is nothing wrong with the governor exceeding the speed limit on the turnpike. Our governor is a national figure, and the best way to deter an attack on a moving vehicle that is unescorted is to travel at a high rate of speed. Furthermore, a Pennsylvania State Trooper is the driver of the vehicle. I drive the Pennsylvania Turnpike is excess of 4-5 times a week, and I commonly see Pennsylvania State Troopers exceeding the speed limit. Many complain of the risk associated with the high rate of speed that Executive One travels.

Initially, a state police crash investigator found that Gov. Corzine's driver did nothing wrong, despite barreling down the Garden State Parkway at 91 m.p.h. with his police emergency lights flashing moments before a harrowing crash that severely injured the governor. Instead, the investigator's report said the "primary cause" of the accident was the driver of a red pickup who swerved onto the shoulder and then back to the road, setting off a chain reaction that sent the governor's Chevy Suburban spinning into a guardrail.

A Williamstown man was charged yesterday with eluding police after surrendering in the parking lot of the Winslow Police Department. Edward Fletcher, 38, of the 1000 block of the White Horse Pike, was also charged with drunken driving and other traffic violations. Winslow Patrolman Michael Kelly reported that he tried to stop Fletcher shortly before 5 a.m. on Sicklerville Road for a traffic violation. Instead of stopping when Kelly turned on his emergency lights, Fletcher continued driving the 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier, police said.

A West Philadelphia woman and a police officer responding to a call to assist other officers were injured when his cruiser collided with her car, flipped, and hit two parked cars early yesterday morning, police said. At 5:30 a.m., 18th District Officer Randall Goodson was heading south on 48th Street, responding to a call to assist Southwest detectives serving a warrant, police said. At Locust Street in West Philadelphia, the police cruiser collided with a Chevrolet Malibu driven by Josephine Trimble, 58, of West Philadelphia, heading east.

An independent panel said in a report yesterday that Gov. Corzine's state police drivers should not far exceed the speed of traffic or use police emergency lights unless there is a specific roadway threat. The panel was not charged with analyzing the actions of Corzine's driver on April 12, when he was driving 91 m.p.h. and using his police emergency lights moments before crashing on the Garden State Parkway and severely injuring the governor. At a news conference yesterday, state Attorney General Anne Milgram said repeatedly that the panel's report was designed to improve the Executive Protection Unit, not to critique it. She said that all 18 of the panel's recommendations, which include training, staffing, and what kind of cars are driven, would be adopted.

Gov. Corzine limped out of Cooper University Hospital yesterday morning, three days after having excess bone surgically chiseled from his left leg, and declared himself ready to go back to work. Corzine, who turned over his executive powers to state Senate President Richard J. Codey before the surgery on Monday, resumed his duties at 10 a.m. He was released from Cooper an hour later. "I'm quite optimistic about the long-run outcome, and the short run as well," he told a scrum of reporters waiting in front of the Camden hospital.

First they took over our radios. Then our televisions, stereos, watches, toys, telephones, computers, and just about everything else. So is it any wonder that semiconductors are threatening to transform the lighting industry? That's the lesson of this week's Lightfair International at the Convention Center, where light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are the obvious stars of the show. These electronic devices already have a bright history. LEDs have come to dominate in niches such as automobile brake lamps, emergency lights, and decorative displays - in Philadelphia, witness the colored LEDs outlining Boathouse Row, flashing civic pride on the facade of the Cira Centre at 30th Street Station, or tinting buildings in the nightly light show on Avenue of the Arts.

Kevin Hubbard remembered thinking he could get away. By his own count, he had guzzled six beers. Then, as he steered his red Toyota though the almost-deserted streets of Yardley, Bucks County, a police car turned around to follow him. Hubbard flicked off his headlights and floored it, he later confessed. By the time the cop caught up to him, the Toyota was a mangled heap. Smoke and dust clouded the intersection of the quaint river town's Main Street with College Avenue.

Bensalem Township has ordered the owner of a farm stand who was cited for 27 problems with his building to correct them or shut down, but officials admitted they were partly at fault for not cracking down earlier. Darrell Zaslow, the township attorney, said Bensalem was "negligent" in inspecting the building of the owner. But he added, "It's his fault for doing the wrong thing from the beginning. " Lou Tarlini, owner of Lou's Farm Mart on Bristol Pike, was first cited in September 1987 for building an addition to his stand without a permit.

Gov. Corzine's state police chauffeur will be disciplined for speeding and using police emergency lights in the SUV crash that severely injured the governor. Trooper Robert Rasinski's driving was "culpably inefficient" and violated policy with his 91-m.p.h. speed and use of emergency lights when he spun the governor's Chevrolet Suburban into a Garden State Parkway guardrail 10 weeks ago, said the state police superintendent in a letter released yesterday. Rasinski, 34, who has been a state trooper for seven years, will be punished for lacking the "appropriate level of situational awareness," Col. Rick Fuentes, the state police superintendent, said  in a June 20 letter to state Attorney General Stuart Rabner.

First they took over our radios. Then our televisions, stereos, watches, toys, telephones, computers, and just about everything else. So is it any wonder that semiconductors are threatening to transform the lighting industry? That's the lesson of this week's Lightfair International at the Convention Center, where light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are the obvious stars of the show. These electronic devices already have a bright history. LEDs have come to dominate in niches such as automobile brake lamps, emergency lights, and decorative displays - in Philadelphia, witness the colored LEDs outlining Boathouse Row, flashing civic pride on the facade of the Cira Centre at 30th Street Station, or tinting buildings in the nightly light show on Avenue of the Arts.

TODAY'S FISCAL climate has resulted in cutbacks in emergency services. Fewer police, fire and paramedics result in longer response times - further compromised by the driving of many vehicle operators. Every operator has to take and pass a state driver's test. In Pennsylvania, the Drivers Manual, Chapter 3 ("Learning to Drive") has a section on "Emergency vehicles and situations. " I know this because the situation is so bad I thought it had been removed from the manual. Well, it's still there, right between school buses and funeral processions: "Certain vehicles have sirens and flashing red lights or a combination of flashing red and blue lights.

New Jersey State Trooper Robert Higbee testified yesterday that he did not see a stop sign at the Upper Township intersection where two teenage sisters died after he plowed his police cruiser into their minivan in 2006. "The last few frames in my mind are braking, looking, and darkness," Higbee said during an emotional day on the witness stand. Higbee testified in his vehicular homicide trial in the deaths of Christina Becker, 19, and Jacqueline Becker, 17, of Upper Township, killed when he crashed into them while chasing a speeder.

It wasn't until school the next day, when he learned that a classmate and her sister had been killed in a car accident, that Joshua Wigglesworth realized he had played a role in the tragedy. "I just broke down," Wigglesworth, 20, testified yesterday at the trial of a New Jersey state trooper charged with two counts of vehicular homicide in the deaths of Jacqueline and Christina Becker on Sept. 27, 2006. No one disputes that Trooper Robert Higbee raced through a stop sign at Tuckahoe and Stagecoach Roads in the Marmora section of Upper Township around 10 that night and broadsided the minivan the girls were in. But a Cape May County Superior Court jury must decide whether his actions were criminally negligent.

South Jersey police officers involved in the 100-m.p.h. pursuit that led to the fatal crash of a stolen SUV yesterday appear to have acted "appropriately," a spokesman for the Camden County prosecutor said. Officers like the ones in Waterford Township, who weren't identified by their department or the Prosecutor's Office, are discouraged from chasing stolen cars, according to the state attorney general's guidelines on police pursuits. Still, the guidelines give officers wide discretion.

Gov. Corzine limped out of Cooper University Hospital yesterday morning, three days after having excess bone surgically chiseled from his left leg, and declared himself ready to go back to work. Corzine, who turned over his executive powers to state Senate President Richard J. Codey before the surgery on Monday, resumed his duties at 10 a.m. He was released from Cooper an hour later. "I'm quite optimistic about the long-run outcome, and the short run as well," he told a scrum of reporters waiting in front of the Camden hospital.

An independent panel said in a report yesterday that Gov. Corzine's state police drivers should not far exceed the speed of traffic or use police emergency lights unless there is a specific roadway threat. The panel was not charged with analyzing the actions of Corzine's driver on April 12, when he was driving 91 m.p.h. and using his police emergency lights moments before crashing on the Garden State Parkway and severely injuring the governor. At a news conference yesterday, state Attorney General Anne Milgram said repeatedly that the panel's report was designed to improve the Executive Protection Unit, not to critique it. She said that all 18 of the panel's recommendations, which include training, staffing, and what kind of cars are driven, would be adopted.

Initially, a state police crash investigator found that Gov. Corzine's driver did nothing wrong, despite barreling down the Garden State Parkway at 91 m.p.h. with his police emergency lights flashing moments before a harrowing crash that severely injured the governor. Instead, the investigator's report said the "primary cause" of the accident was the driver of a red pickup who swerved onto the shoulder and then back to the road, setting off a chain reaction that sent the governor's Chevy Suburban spinning into a guardrail.

It's necessary, but not very satisfying, to discipline the state trooper who crashed Gov. Corzine's SUV on the Garden State Parkway in April. A state police review panel has found that Trooper Robert Rasinski, the governor's driver that day, lacked "situational awareness" and used poor judgment in the moments leading up to the crash that seriously injured the governor. Rasinski was operating the SUV at 91 m.p.h., 26 m.p.h. over the speed limit, and had the vehicle's emergency lights flashing.

Gov. Corzine's state police chauffeur will be disciplined for speeding and using police emergency lights in the SUV crash that seriously injured the governor. Trooper Robert Rasinski's driving was "culpably inefficient" and violated policy with his 91-m.p.h. speed and use of emergency lights when he spun the governor's Chevrolet Suburban into a Garden State Parkway guardrail 10 weeks ago, said the state police superintendent in a letter released yesterday. Rasinski, 34, who has been a state trooper for seven years, will be punished for lacking the "appropriate level of situational awareness," said State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes in a June 20 letter to state Attorney General Stuart Rabner.