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Informational Meeting:
Tuesday, December 1, 11:00-12:00
251 Bizzell West
Panel urges lowering BAC limit
allowed drivers of heavy trucks
By Deborah A. Haring
Reporter
A Texas Research Board has rec
ommended that the legal blood-alco
hol concentration limit for Texas
commercial truck and bus drivers be
lowered from 0.1 percent to 0.04
percent, a Texas A&M professor
who served on the board said.
“A lot of people have strong feel
ings about this because they are at
greater risk with large trucks,” said
Dr. Olga Pendleton, a researcher for
the Texas Transportation Institute.
“They’re like time bombs rolling
down the road. It takes a lot more
skill and a lot more alertness to drive
one of those heavy pieces of machi
nery.”
After a year-long study that
ended in August, the majority of a
Texas Research Board committee
recommended the 0.04 percent level
as the point where fixed penalty
structures called for by the Commer
cial Motor Vehicles Safety Act
should be applied, Pendleton said.
Pendleton, a statistician and visit
ing associate professor in Texas
A&M’s statisrics department, was se
lected as a member of this panel of
experts because of her past research
with alcohol-related accidents.
The panel was convened by the
National Academy of Sciences
through the board to study the ef
fects of alcohol on commercial truck
and bus drivers.
“A lot of people have strong feelings about this be
cause they are at greater risk with large trucks. They’re
like time bombs rolling down the road. ”
— Dr. Olga Pendleton, Texas Transportation Institute
researcher
The limit will apply to drivers of
medium to heavy vehicles (those
weighing 26,000 pounds).
Pendleton said the legal BAG in
the past for commercial drivers driv
ing under the influence has been the
same as for drivers of passenger
cars, 0.10 percent — which can be
defined as the consumption of six
beers by an average-sized man in
half an hour. But the board mem
bers’ opinion was that drivers of
commercial heavy vehicles should be
under stricter rules than drivers of
passenger cars.
The board-recommended 0.04
BAC limit is the current limit for pi
lots and train engineers. Use of this
same number for commercial driv
ers should become a law within a
year, Pendleton said.
Although the recommended BAC
limit still must be adopted, penalty
structures were set before the panel
began. A commercial driver could
have his license suspended if his
BAC is higher than .04 percent and
could have his license revoked for a
second offense.
A majority of the panel also rec
ommended that truck drivers with
BACs higher than zero but less than
.04 have their licenses revoked for
up to 30 days on the first offense
and 30 days to one year on subse
quent offenses, Pendleton said.
“I think people would agree with
the fact that truck drivers should not
be drinking,” she said. “People are
surprised to find out that there is
any drinking on the job. Some com
panies like Greyhound and Trail-
ways already have very strict rules —
drivers get fired if they show up af
ter having been drinking.”
Part of this study included drivers’
opinions on lowering the BAC legal
limit, Pendleton said. One of the
drivers’ biggest arguments was the
fact that it would be hard to enforce
this lower figure and that drivers will
keep drinking anyway.
One method of enforcement dis
cussed was screening drivers as part
of the weigh-station process. The
panel tried to take cost and feasibil
ity of enforcement into account.
The study’s data show that enforc
ing a zero BAC level would save 130
to 250 lives a year but would cost $49
million to $54 million. Enforcing a
.04 limit would cost $37 million to
$41 million and would save 110 to
190 lives a year.
No data had been collected on al
cohol-related truck accidents and
Pendleton received funding to come
up with some.
“It was quite an honor for me be
cause statisticians usually take a
backseat role,” Pendleton said. "W?
crunch the numbers. It’s unusual for
us to have any input in policy-mak
ing. As it turned out I played a crit
ical role here because they didn't'
have any data for this study.”
Pendleton used the Fatal Accident
Reporting System (PARS), a census
of all fatalities in the United States
and the Texas State Accident Data,
which gives cost estimates for acci
dents as well as f atalities.
“I provided most of the figures
which appear in our reports,” she
said.
“There may be some ramifications
to this study,” Pendleton said. “As
one of her last acts as Secretary of
Transportation, Elizabeth Dole said
they should consider a zero percent
BAC for pilots and train engineers.”
Air Force investigator faces
court martial for methods
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — An Air
Force investigator credited with
breaking up a drug ring among
crewmen serving AWACS surveil
lance aircraft in the Persian Gulf
faces a court martial for the tactics
he used to infiltrate the ring.
The military trial of Special Agent
James E. Flannigan at Lackland Air
Force Base could explore whether
officials of the Office of Special In
vestigations condoned agents mak
ing sexual advances to informants.
The investigator claims his superi
ors approved of his relations with
two women during the investigation
last summer at Tinker Air Force
Base in Oklahoma. One of the
women was the wife of a staff ser
geant targeted by the investigation.
The investigator also looked into
reports that some servicemen may
have been active in black market
smuggling in Saudi Arabia during
their frequent rotations between
Tinker and the Saudi city of Riyadh,
where the American-crewed
AWACS are stationed.
The AWACS are used as part of
the U.S. presence in the Persian
Gulf.
When defense attorneys for two
of the four maintenance technicians
charged in the drug probe com
plained of Flannigan’s tactics, his su
periors filed charges against him, he
claims.
Air Force officials charged Flanni
gan with becoming “intimately” and
“emotionally” involved with the
women during the investigation.
“I’m being railroaded,” the 29-
year-old staff sergeant said in an in
terview with the San Antonio Light
last week.
Flannigan has been reassigned to
kennel duty — training police dogs
— at Lackland pending his court-
martial.
“It was obvious from the very be
ginning that I was getting through to
these AWACS people through these
girls,” Flannigan said.
As a result of Flannigan’s investi
gation and a subsequent inquiry,
four maintenance technicians were
charged with marijuana use and dis
tribution.
Three will be tried in coming
months and the fourth is expected to
accept an administrative punish
ment, Air Force officials said.
The Air Force first offered to ad
ministratively punish Flannigan for
his alleged violation of Air Force
regulations, but he turned down the
offer and demanded instead a public
court-martial proceeding.
Capt. Ingrid K. Bradley, a spokes
man for the Office of Special Inves
tigations’ district headquarters at
Randolph Air Force Base, said Sat
urday that officials could not be
reached for comment on the Flanni-
John Economidy, Flannigan’s ci
vilian attorney, said the unusual na
ture of the case will entitle him to
delve into the military’s techniques
for undercover operations during
the court-martial proceedings.
Flannigan was formerly charged
last week with dereliction of duty.
He faces a maximum six-month sen
tence, a bad conduct discharge and a
forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay
upon conviction.
Economidy, a former Air Force
legal officer, said he expects the
court-martial proceeding to be held
in January, though a precise date
has not been set.
Job requires
couch potato
for research
HOUSTON (AP) — Richard
Fitzpatrick has become a full-time
couch potato, courtesy of NASA.
Following a round-the-dock
schedule of relaxation for 17
weeks, Fitzpatrick is taking part
in a study to determine the effects
of long-term weightlessness and
the progressive loss of bone mass
suffered by astronauts.
For reading library books,
watching television, eating snacks
and taking it easy on his Her
mann Hospital bed, Fitzpatrick is
getting $ 187.60 per week.
For NASA, the study is a vital
component of learning man’s
ability to adapt to space.
“It’s one of the important ques
tions for the space station right
now,” Dr. Victor Schneider, co
investigator of the study, said. “If
you have astronauts up for three
months, you want to know if they
recover and the effects over their
careers.”
The longest period U.S. astro
nauts have been in space thus far
was during the Skylab 4 flight in
1974, which lasted 84 days.
NAACP rejects Warped
measure to end
forced busing
by Scott McCullar
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FORT WORTH (AP) — The Fort
Worth chapter of the NAACP has
rejected a proposal to end desegre
gation busing in Fort Worth schools.
The Saturday vote by the NAACP
Board of Directors came hours after
about 20 people criticized the propo
sal as being too general and lacking
guarantees.
The vote was a reversal of the Na
tional Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People’s stance two
weeks ago when its attorneys, His
panic leaders and school officials
drafted an agreement that would
end 16 years of court-ordered bus
ing.
The agreement called for in
creases in black and Hispanic rep
resentation among faculty and ad
ministration of the Fort Worth
Independent School District and ad
ditional money for minority schools.
Ray Bell, local NAACP president,
said the vote, in a closed meeting of
the 31-member board, was unani
mous. It means there will be no
agreement among the three sides
Dec. 7 when a 28-year-old busing
lawsuit is to be reviewed by U.S. Dis
trict Judge Eldon B. Mahon.
“We just didn’t like the wording of
it,” Bell said. “We’re going on to
court and see what the judge has to
say.”
The NAACP would not continue
negotiations with the school district,
Bell said.
Dee Jennings, a member of the
board and chairman of the Fort
Worth Black Chamber of Com
merce, said, “The board felt the
community was being backed into an
agreement without any guarantees.”
The NAACP board was angry
that the school district had ignored a
citizens’ committee proposal in 1986
that would tie the end of busing to
increased achievement levels at
schools, Jennings said.
The decision is consistent with the
NAACP’s position in 1985 and 1986
when it fought school district offi
cials’ attempts to end busing.
Waldo
by Kevin Thomas
THROUGH EQUALLT RIDICULOUS
PLOTS, WVtBUR AND WALDO
FIND THEMSELVfS LOST IN
TIME AND IMPRISONED TOGETHER.
THEIR CAPTOR IS THE MEAN
AND VICIOUS KUBLAl KHAN/
af\M
THE ENTERPRISE IS UNABLE
TO INTERVENE BECAUSE OT
ITS PRIME DIRECTIVE...
WELL, THEY'RE UP
A CREEK; GUESS
I'LL GO PLAY
CARDS...
MEANWHILE IN HOLLYWOOD,
NED USES HIS FEMALE
BODY TO FILM A DENTAL
FLOSS COMMERCIAL WITH
SHIRLEY MACLAINE...
Joe Transfer
by Dan Barlow