MAILBAG: Speeding needs to be stopped — now

With all due respect, I suggest Councilman David Golonski take a good look at his own record before he criticizes state Assemblyman Paul Krekorian’s support of Assembly Bill 64 (“Krekorian’s bill discussion interrupted,” Sept. 16). Golonski, more than any other member of the City Council, has helped to foster the speeding epidemic, which is rapidly turning deadly. I say this because he has been a member of the council longer than anybody else and yet done nothing to solve two of the root causes of this epidemic.

The first problem is a preponderance of traffic scofflaws who use motor vehicles to flagrantly demonstrate their contempt for the law by speeding (often at twice the posted limit), weaving in and out, passing to the right and cutting off other motorists. A corollary to this is the pedestrians who ignore the crosswalk signals and step out in front of moving cars, apparently feeling that it’s OK to cross as long as the traffic signal is green.

I notice in neighboring Glendale they’ve even gone so far as to post instructions on the signal posts explaining when you are permitted to cross and when you are not (not that it’s done much good).

Yet there has been no effort whatsoever to crack down on traffic and pedestrian scofflaws.

The second problem, which has been a “Burbank hot button” for more than a decade, is the adversarial signal synchronization.

With signals timed so that when motorists drive the posted speed limit they miss nearly every green light, it is only natural that a significant number of drivers are going to speed to avoid being trapped behind another red light or to make up for lost time.

Why doesn’t Golonski do something to address the factors that make it necessary to take action on the state level?

JOHN S. SOET

Burbank

What’s happening to Republicans?

Will somebody tell me what’s happening to the Republican Party? One representative screams at President Obama during one of his speeches that he’s a liar.

Another bunch of representatives bring their weapons to a rally for a new health-care plan. They show up like a military posse.

The implication is that government plans are all bad and the private enterprise plans are all good. Who invented Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the highway system throughout the country? It was federal government, not private enterprise.