Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

I never seem to be at MBTA stops when crazy stuff happens. Just last Friday, an MBTA train nearly ran over a drunk woman who fell off the platform…but thanks to people on the platform alerting the driver of the train, the drunk woman walked stumbled away.

Video of the event can be seen here.

I’m not here to diminish the significance of the quick action of the driver of the train, but what’s wrong with this article…?

The driver of Boston subway train that came to a screeching halt just before hitting a woman who had fallen onto the tracks has been hailed as a hero.

Charice Lewis got a radio call from fellow Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority employee Jacqueline Osorio, who was standing on the platform at North Station on Friday night when she saw the woman tumble.

Lewis, who saw passengers on the platform frantically waving their arms, immediately tugged her emergency brake.

The woman, whose name was not made public, suffered some scrapes and was taken to a hospital for evaluation. She told authorities she had been drinking.

Lewis and Osorio were recognized by state Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan on Monday and received a call of congratulations from Gov. Deval Patrick.

Is there any plan to recognize the good Samaritans on the platform at North Station who frantically waved their arms to alert the driver of the train to stop? They deserve more than just being a footnote in the article praising an MBTA driver for (actually paying attention to her job, and) hitting the brakes, and another MBTA employee for making a radio call.

Again, not to diminish the significance of the quick action of the driver of the train, but it sure seems like the credit is being doled out rather imbalanced in favor of the MBTA employees.

Let it be said…Congratulations to the unsung heroes, the non-MBTA employees who helped save the drunk woman’s life.

Don’t Drink and Ride The T

We’ve all had our fair share of unpleasant experiences on the MBTA, but few things are probably more horrifying than seeing someone fall onto the tracks just before a train is about to pull in.

The driver of Boston subway train that came to a screeching halt just before hitting a woman who had fallen onto the tracks has been hailed as a hero.

Charice Lewis got a radio call from fellow Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority employee Jacqueline Osorio, who was standing on the platform at North Station on Friday night when she saw the woman tumble.

Lewis, who saw passengers on the platform frantically waving their arms, immediately tugged her emergency brake.

The woman, whose name was not made public, suffered some scrapes and was taken to a hospital for evaluation. She told authorities she had been drinking.

Lewis and Osorio were recognized by state Transportation Secretary Jeffrey Mullan on Monday and received a call of congratulations from Governor Deval Patrick.

It’s a good thing that Charice Lewis wasn’t texting.

Think About The Future

David G. Tuerck: Gov. Patrick at a crossroads.

Now is when Gov. Deval Patrick decides his political future.

The Legislature has laid down the gauntlet: The governor can either sign legislation that will raise the sales tax or use his veto and let Beacon Hill thumb its collective nose at him and override the veto. For the sake of both the commonwealth and his political future, he should call the Legislature’s bluff.

What the governor needs to understand but what also runs counter to his political instincts is that this is not about teacher layoffs, human services cutbacks and all the other dire consequences that the increased sales tax is intended to avert. This is about politics and moral courage.

In the Legislature, politics has trumped moral courage. The Legislature knows that the increase in the sales tax will not bring in enough revenue to end the “crisis,” as it is commonly seen. But it also knows that it has to raise some tax – any tax – to show that it is willing to sacrifice a few thousand private-sector jobs in order to pacify the union bosses and other special pleaders to whom it is largely beholden.

It is this lack of courage that makes the Legislature so terrified of the “R” word. When Patrick tried to reform transportation by abolishing the Turnpike Authority and moving MBTA employees’ health care to the Group Insurance Commission, he got a poison pill from the Legislature. When he tried to cut back on overpriced police details, the Legislature thwarted him by tying the hands of local governments. When he tried to raise the gas tax, the Legislature decided a sales tax hike carried less political risk.

So now it’s the governor’s move. Now he gets to decide whether he can practice good politics and responsible government at the same time.

UPDATE: More from the AP.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Cape Cod Times, Herald, Phoenix and Globe.

The Anderson Tapes

Barbara Anderson on the Bay State’s tax fetish.

Governor Deval Patrick, in an effort to let us know how serious the budget crisis is, says that “if we fired every single state employee, we’d still have a billion-dollar hole.”

Of course we would. Many of those employees would go out on instant pensions. Others would collect unemployment, have state-subsidized health insurance, or get a job at one of the independent authorities where they would start to accrue bigger pensions like those available at the MBTA after 23 years.

Would we still have a $28-billion state budget to go with the billion-dollar budget hole? Who would be running it and spending the money? Governor, what’s your point? That payroll costs aren’t much of the problem?

Can we stop being silly now?

At least Patrick’s sticking to his demand for “reform before revenues.” Unfortunately, the Legislature is sticking to its resistance to reform.

As various Democrats have said: “We can’t reform our way out of this crisis.”

Translation: “Let’s go directly to the revenues.”

So the Senate opened its budget debate by passing a 25-percent sales tax hike and local option taxes. Maybe it will get to reforms after my column deadline. Darn, it’s hard to write while holding my breath.

UPDATE: More from Cape Cod Today, Wayne Woodlief, the AP and Boston Phoenix.

SECOND UPDATE: More from Adrian Walker, Scot Lehigh, WBZ, WCVB, Red Mass Group, the Globe and Herald.

You Can’t Legislate Good Parenting

Once again, in the aftermath of an accident, the sprint to write new legislation to curtail the problem is underway…

The Green Line wreck blamed on a text-messaging trolley driver isn’t the only example of distracted drivers fueling a tragic trend that Beacon Hill lawmakers have yet to take action against.

Even in “live free or die” New Hampshire, where motorcyclists aren’t required to wear helmets, lawmakers have sprung into action, seeking a swift ban on texting for drivers in the wake of the MBTA crash that sent 49 to the hospital.

“I feel it’s really playing Russian roulette,” said Melissa Martin, whose 17-year-old daughter Amanda was killed while apparently texting behind the wheel in a 2007 wreck in Charlton. “You’re taking your attention off the road. . . . It can kill. My daughter is proof of that.”

She added, “If there were laws in place, kids and adults would think twice about repercussions like fines or having their license taken away.”

Okay, who are we kidding here? Laws put in place to curb things like texting while driving will be about as useful as anti-drunk driving laws (which are a long ways away from vanquishing drunk driving). A law against text messaging while driving by itself would not have saved the life of Melissa Martin’s daughter. Not even close.

A Bay State bill to ban motorists from using cell phones, except for hands-free devices, passed the House last year but died in the Senate. A similar measure is pending and the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Peter Koutoujian, plans to push it aggressively in the coming weeks.

“There is no possible way you could convince me that hands-free use of cell phones wouldn’t make it a safer environment to drive,” said Koutoujian (D-Waltham).

A former prosecutor, Koutoujian added that text-messaging drivers already are guilty of driving to endanger and should be punished accordingly.

Clearly, the worry here is with younger drivers…the drivers without years and years of driving experience who are most likely to be in an accident. Now, whose job is it to reinforce safe driving practices to new and young drivers?

The parents.

Legislation that tells drivers not to text while driving is trying to pick up where parents are failing. It’s the parents that need to talk to their own children about the dangers of driving with distractions like cell phones, texting, or even just adjusting the radio.

Beacon Hill will not solve the problem. The place where the discussion about the dangers of text messaging while driving doesn’t belong in the State House, it belongs inside your house; inside living rooms and at kitchen tables across the Commonwealth.