Monday, May 3, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Web site aims to disarm speed traps
By Jennifer Roush
jrush@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Any student who's ever taken a driver education class has heard the admonition: speed kills.
A student at the University of Kansas was killed in March 1998 by another student who was driving a car while intoxicated and speeding.
Drivers are routinely cautioned that speed does indeed kill, and police officers monitor drivers with radar to catch those who exceed speed limits.
However, one Web site is allowing drivers to wage high-tech war against speed traps.
Web surfers can log on to www.speedtrap.com and find out when and where local police in each of the 50 states are most likely to be using radar to catch speeders. The site is searchable by state and also contains data submitted from other nations.
Readers can submit entries to the site, and most of the entries include what kind of
radar police use,
ticket costs whether the police car is marked and by how much a driver can exceed posted speed
1limits before being ticketed.
Sgt. George Wheeler, of the Lawrence Police Department, said there was no requirement for police to notify drivers of speed traps or checkpoints.
However, he said, Lawrence police do notify radio and television stations 30 days in advance if there will be a checkpoint in town.
Wheeler said officers at checkpoints did not look specifically for speeders. They check for anything from minor infractions, such as expired drivers licenses and burned-out headlights, to major violations such as drug possession or driving under the influence.
Radar detectors are heavily advocated on the speed trap site as a way to avoid speed traps. Wheeler said that although detectors were not illegal in Kansas, cities were permitted to restrict or防比 their use.
Wheeler also said officers in Lawrence would use radar in places where there had been problems with drivers speeding, such as Tennessee and Kentucky streets, West Sixth and Mississippi streets, and Massachusetts Street.
Each Lawrence police cruiser is equipped with radar and each officer is instructed to clock drivers with that radar in between calls. Wheeler said.
David Gottlieb, KU professor of law, said there were no legal problems with police departments setting up speed traps. He said problems only would arise if traffic stops were racially biased.
"If they catch you, they catch you," Gottlieb said.
Lt. Schuyler Bailey of the KU Public Safety Office said he hoped such a site would discourage drivers from speeding.
"Anything that would keep people from speeding, I'm 100 percent behind," Bailey said.
Some KU students were not concerned
Some KU students about speed traps and said they would not really use the Web site.
Other students said they were glad to know the site existed
"I might use it for road trips, but I wouldn't print it out or anything," said Aleka Apt, Neosho, Mo, freshman.
and would use it when planning extended trips.
Kim Brower, Overland Park freshman, said the site would have come in handy for her a few weeks ago. Brower works in Overland Park, and recently got a $90 ticket on her way home on Kansas Highway 10.
"I'd use it if I got on the Internet a lot," she said.
Edited by Aerica Veazey
State legislators battle EPA regulations
Rules could hurt small gasoline refineries
By Katrina Hull Special to the Kansan
Clean air is not priceless.
It costs money, and Kansas legislators are trying to head off environmental standards that will make Kansans pay more for gasoline that helps car exhaust stay cleaner longer.
State Sen. Dave Corbin, R-Towanda, chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said such EPA regulations would mean increased expense for Kansas consumers.
In early April, Kansas lawmakers passed a resolution encouraging the Environmental Protection Agency to take a regional approach to applying proposed regulations reducing sulfur levels in gasoline.
"Some states don't have air pollution problems and should be allowed to deal with air management and sulfur levels in gasoline differently," Corbin said.
Chuck Layman, researcher for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said air pollution was a complex problem with many factors — including political ones.
Layman, who helps formulate state regulations for the Air Planning and Assessment Section and the Bureau of Air and Radiation, said a national limit for sulfur levels in gasoline already existed and the EPA's move toward lowering the limit further would increase production costs.
Sulfur in gasoline is harmful because it damages the catalytic converters in automobiles. Gas vapors from the engine and the fuel tank flow past the catalytic converter and are treated for toxins before being emitted into the air.
"Sulfur causes the catalyst to work inefficient," Layman said. "Automobile air pollution makes up a large percentage of air pollution in metropolitan areas and anything that assists the catalytic converter to work longer and more efficiently is helpful."
Low-sulfur gasoline is most effective when a car is only driven in a low-sulfur gasoline area, Layman explained. Once a car is driven elsewhere in the nation, such as Kansas, higher-sulfur gasoline damages the catalytic converter and low-sulfur gasolines are no longer as effective.
Layman said this was the reason behind the EPA's push for a nationwide low-sulfur standard. California already uses gasoline with a lower sulfur content and the EPA may require other states' gasoline to meet California standards.
But the story has two sides. Small states, such as Kansas, have
several small refineries that possibly would not be able to afford the cost of producing low-sulfur gasoline.
Corbin said alternative means of reducing air pollution in Kansas should be considered. Lowering gasoline sulfur levels may not be the most cost-effective solution for the state.
The Kansas legislature's resolution reads that "new investments in clean air are needed," but encourages the EPA to have the "flexibility of a regional approach that maximizes air quality benefits where they are needed most."
Corbin said the resolution passed was not binding, but merely a request by Kansas legislators for further consideration before requiring a nationwide standard.
"Let states determine their own destiny instead of setting a nationwide standard," Corbin said.
Edited by Jodi Smith
Online enrollment tickles MBA students PINK
Special to the Kansan
By Scott Hollis
University of Kansas MBA graduate students who are planning to enroll for classes at Edwards Campus can now do so online.
Members of the School of Business management information systems, who participate in the PINK project, used new computer technology to upgrade the school's records systems and made it possible for all MBA students at Edwards Campus to enroll on the Web.
The acronym PINK has no particular significance.
The project is part of an ongoing process to upgrade the computer databases in the business department.
Jim Nelson, adviser to the PINK project, said the new software was implemented so Kansas City-area MBA students could enroll via the Internet because it was difficult for them to get to Lawrence.
"These people have real jobs, they can't come in and enroll because they have little time to do so," he said. "It's much more convenient for them."
The MBA graduate program at the Edwards Campus is the only online enrollment program at the University.
Nelson said the online enrollment also was convenient for international student applications.
"The goal is to train students in real-world training the way things are supposed to get done."
Jim Nelson advisor to the PINK project
Nelson said the computer upgrading project, which started in Spring 1996, was overseen and run almost exclusively by students through a series of classes offered in the business department.
Nelson said the new tracking system and online enrollment, which started a year ago, was far superior to the old paper filing system that the business school had before.
PINK also implemented a tracking system and online roster that follows information about teachers students have had and students demographics, course loads and grades. The system also tracks the grades given by each professor over the course of each school year and can carry out a 20-day report for classes in the department.
"The way things were being done was really bad," he said. "They were taking paper applications and everything was done on paper. There were no equipment standards."
"I mentioned to the dean that they should have an information system," he said. "The dean recognized the need for one, but there was no money to support the project, so I decided to do it with students through a series of classes with virtually no money involved."
The project allowed students get valuable hands-on experience working with the types of informational systems they would encounter after graduation when they helped the business department.
John Fischer, Chicago MBA student and project manager, said the structure of their information systems was good enough to be acknowledged as a level II system by the Software Engineering Institute last year. Level II status is at the same level as the department of defense. There are five levels in all, one being the most basic system and five being equal to the work of NASA.
"The goal is to train students in real-world training the way things are supposed to get done," Nelson said.
The University is the only college group in the country ever to reach level II status. It is something that PINK is proud of since the program has to cope with student turnover because of graduation. Fischer said.
"Over the last year the Web site has supported 1,000 users," Fischer said. "The school has got a lot of value out of it."
Edited by Juan H. Heath
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