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The University Daily Kansan
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: The Kansas baseball team is out to a 4-0 start for the first time in coach Bobby Randall's career.
SEE PAGE 1B
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 110 NO. 97
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2000
Inside: A KU senior is capturing the 1999- 2000 year on tape.
SEE PAGE 3A
Kansas considers new DUI laws
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Drunken drivers could face stiffer costlier penalties
By Katrina Hull writer @kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
TOPEKA-The cost of drinking, driving and getting caught could be going up.
Kansas legislators are considering new laws that would be costly to would be drunken drivers, including implementing the ignition-interlock device — a Breathalyzer linked to a car's ignition system.
Jerry Gentry, from Kansas Ignition Interlock, said the cost to the driver at $2
per day was less than a few beers at the bar. However, the year-long total is about $750 per vehicle.
"It's very economical comparable to drinking and driving and what that would cost," Gentry said.
The Senate and House Judiciary committees heard testimony yesterday on proposals requiring a twice-convicted drunken driver's vehicle either to be impounded, immobilized or have an ignition-interlock device installed.
Impounding would confiscate the vehicle, while immobilizing would deactivate a vehicle. Both would occur during the yearlong license suspension for a second DUI conviction.
Ignition-interlock devices would be required for one year after the suspension was completed.
Sheila Walker, director of vehicles for the Department of Revenue, said that
impounding and immobilizing were virtually impossible to enforce
"We have no effective way to match drivers to their vehicles." Walker said.
At least 534 licensed Kansas drivers have some form of the name John Smith and 822 vehicles are registered to a John Smith,
The Kansas Department of Transportation urged legislators to pass at
If legislators don't elect to enforce one of the three options by Oct. 1, federal highway money will be transferred out of the state's road construction and maintenance fund and into a safety fund.
least one option, but senators questioned the consequences of not complying with federal law and the proposal's usefulness.
"I was under the impression that we were making progress in drunk driving," said State Sen. Edward Pugh, R-Wamego.
Rosalie Thornburgh, KDOT bureau chief of traffic safety, said that in general, drunken-driving fatalities and accidents were going down.
The department won't lose money for not complying, but up to $6.4 million per year would no longer be available for the department's main expense of maintaining and building roads. Thornburgh said.
The Senate committee took no action yesterday, and legislators said they were sketched new laws would be effective.
"The goal is reducing DUIs," said State Sen. Marge Petty, D-Topeka. "It seems to me that a lot of these methods are Band-Aids."
IGNITION-INTERLOCK DEVICES
False or filtered breath:
With the newest ignition-interlock devices, a car will not even start if its driver doesn't pass an installed breath test. And technology has made beating the system pretty difficult:
Devices require a hum tone during the test to prevent intoxicated drivers from breathing through charcoal, which absorbs alcohol or breathing through a plastic bottle with a hole in the bottom to force clean air into the machine.
Fake test:
Having a sober person take the test to start the car won't work, either. The devices have a rolling retest, requiring drivers to take the test at intervals while driving or the car's lights will begin flashing and the horn honking.
Source: Traffic Safety, May/June 1998
Above: Jessica Rucker, Burdett sophomore, delivers flowers to Jefferson Flowers, 2511 W. 31st St., for University Floral.
Delivery drivers have had troubles getting into gated communities to deliver their products. Right: A Pizza Hut delivery driver pulls through the gate at Jefferson Commons.
Some complexes leave their gates unlocked during the day, making daytime deliveries a snap and late-night deliveries more of a hassle, drives say.
Photo illustrations by Christina N. NEVICANI
Neff/KANSAN
Deliveries aren't easily carried out
By Jessie Meyer
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Gated apartment complexes create obstacles for drivers
Several times a night, Sarah Mai sits in her car outside apartment-complex gates with pizza in hand — waiting.
She waits for customers to buzz her in and unlock the gate so she can deliver the pizzas.
"It's very time consuming," said Mai, a delivery driver for Papa John's Pizza and KU graduate, of buzzing customers who may not answer. "The more time it takes to get in, the more behind we get and the less money we make."
The flower rush on Valentine's Day didn't cause as much unwarranted frustration for local florists, however.
"It's not a real big deal for us," said
Susan Engle, co-owner of Englewood Florist, 1101 Massachusetts St., of the gated complexes. "Most of our deliveries go out in the day when the gates are unlocked."
Some complexes leave the gates unlocked throughout the day and then lock them in the evening — making daytime deliveries a snap, but the late night ones more tricky, Mai said.
"It's not a safety feature," Duckworth said. "It's an access gate designed to control traffic and for the most part it works really well."
Tuckaway Apartments, 2600 W. Sixth St., and Jefferson Commons, 2511 W. 31st St., both have gated systems and are two of the most inconvenient complexes to make deliveries to, Mai said.
Ryan Duckworth, leasing agent at Jefferson Commons, said the gates were only intended to control traffic around the complex.
"It just doesn't make sense to me," Mai said. "If some customers hand out the code to any delivery person, ther what's so secure about it?"
"I don't think it's necessary because it doesn't do what it is supposed to do." Coenen said of the gate. "It had been broken open for the past couple days, and last night when I came home someone had shut it and it wouldn't open."
Delivery drivers and residents disagreed.
Coenen said that guests and delivery drivers could just follow other cars though once a code had been entered.
Stephanie Coenen, Overland Park senior and Jefferson Commons resident, said the gate had been broken for portions of the past few weeks.
"I don't think it really makes a difference." Coenene said. "It stays open for a long time and like five cars can go through at a time."
Some residents and drivers say the gates are not a problem, however.
Matt Klein, shift supervisor at Yello Sub, 1814 W. 23rd St., said finding a resident's last name on a complex directory and punching in that code wasn't much of a hassle.
"Once you find the place, it isn't really tough," Klein said.
David Gottlib, professor of law, left, moderates a discussion among Nicole Garnett, representative for the Federal Society; Nadine Strassen, national president of the ACU; and Mike Davis, professor of law. More than 200 people attended "Religion, Government and the First Amendment" last night at the Kansas Union. Photo by Craig Bennett/KANSAN
Opposing panelists argue KU seal, evolution issues
Kansan staff writer
By Jim O'Malley
The KU seal probably can survive First Amendment challenges, but the Kansas State Board of Education's decision to deemphasize evolution won't if the purpose of the decision was to advance religion, panelists agreed last night at the Kansas Union Ballroom.
It was surprising because the discussion on religion, government and the First Amendment was sponsored by two groups often perceived as opposites.
The KU chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union brought in Nadine Strossen, national president of the ACLU and professor of law at New York University.
The KU Federalists, the local chapter of the conservative Federalist Society, brought in Nicole Garnett, professor of law at Notre Dame and a former clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Mike Davis, KU professor of law, was the third panelist.
Garnett said the First Amendment required the government to be neutral toward religion. At first glance, the seal doesn't look neutral, she said, but many religious expressions in government exist — including Congress starting the day with a prayer.
None of the legal tests used by the Supreme Court to resolve religion cases work, she said, so she came up with the "no way in hell" test.
"There's no way in hell the Supreme Court is going to tell the University of Kansas it can't use its seal," she said.
After all, the Supreme Court sits in a courtroom that displays the Ten Commandments and Moses, Garnett said, and would justify the symbols by calling them secular.
But Garnett said that as a religious person, she wasn't entirely comfortable with that because she saw them as religious symbols.
Stossen said that was one of the reasons the ACLU supported the separation of church and state: Government involvement corrupts religion. She said many people the ACLU represented were religious.
Strossen said the KU seal might be constitutional.
Davis said the long history of the seal would support its constitutionality. He also referred to another recent campus controversy — the one about the Christmas tree in Strong Hall. He said Christmas trees were secular symbols.
"You don't have to take it down, which we did." Davis said.
The panelists agreed that if the Kansas State Board of Education had a religious purpose for de-emphasizing evolution, that would violate the First Amendment. But Garnett said she didn't think the removal of evolution violated the Constitution.
Davis said that he wasn't so sure but that there probably couldn't be a legal challenge until a school district took some action based on the standards.
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