[Scan-DC] VSP on I-95 / Dispatching Calls

[b_thom@juno.com]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002 22:36:53 -0400 kd4iiw@juno.com writes:
> I had information that it was a 10-50F involving a trooper.  

I am not familiar with details, but whatever it was, it was on southbound
I-95 near Backlick and Fullerton Roads. This is from WTOP. It's not on
the website, 
http://www.wtopnews.com.

If I may add a comment. 

Yesterday, in search of a car battery and lithium cell and some time out
of the house, I went shopping along Route 1 south of Alexandria. Wal*Mart
was crowded, and Lowe's had customers too. Home Depot, though, had almost
no customers inside. The Michael's parking lot in Penn Daw was virtually
deserted. Though the roads were crowded, the sniper was making some
people reconsider their destination.

I was on my motorcycle while shopping. On the way back home, I was
driving north on Route 1 in downtown Alexandria, doing the limit of 25
mph. There is a traffic light on every block. A young woman in a small
white car was following me so closely that she could not be seen in my
mirrors. (For those who have not driven a bike, it is possible for a
following driver to be so close to you that your own body hides his or
her car from your mirrors.) The tailgating driver had to be just a few
feet behind my rear tire. If I had to stop for any reason - a red light,
perhaps? - she would run me over.

There are some five million people living in the area that the sniper has
been frequenting. On a day when he goes out to shoot someone, your odds
are thus one in five million that you will be his victim. I'm going to
guess that the odds of being in a motorcycle wreck on any given day have
to be much closer to one in fifty thousand. This is one hundred times, or
two orders of magnitude, greater than the odds of death by sniper. In
electronic terms, if the motorcyle wreck is the signal, and the death by
sniper is the noise, then the signal to noise ratio is 40 dB. Did I get
that right?

I've decided to pay far more attention to the signal than to the noise.
And I was awfully glad when that young woman finally passed me. It took
her only two attempts. First, she tried to pass by going to the right
into a right turn only lane. Then she crossed two lanes and finally
passed me on the left.

My next topic will be "drivers on cellphones".