Newspaper Page Text
2
December 28, 1995
Violent crime in area
down from 1994 levels
By Rhonda Jones
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
Finally there is some good
news about violent crime: it
seems to have decreased locally
from last year, with the excep
tion of rape and child abuse,
instances of which seem to be
increasing. By Dec. 1 last year
there had been 73 rapes, which
increased to 83 by the end of the
year. By Dec. 1 this year, there
were already 79. Figures for
Dec. 1995 have not yet been
computed.
Child abuse, which includes
molestation, has increased from
6 for the whole of 1994 to 19 so
far.
Arson isn’t a big threat for the
Augusta/Richmond County
area, as there hasn’t been a case
reported since January, and
there were no cases the year
before. But robbery is a differ
ent matter.
By December last year there
had been 171 cases of unarmed
robbery, and 168 cases of armed
Georgians conflicted
about raising speed limit
■ In 1996 the state
legislature will
consider raising the
speed limit in Georgia
to 65 mph. Not every
one is in favor.
By Dick Pettys
..Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA
Gordon Shenkle’s daily com
mute puts him on Atlanta’s
interstates a couple hours a day.
He thinks some of his fellow work
aday nomads drive too slow.
“You know the movie Sleepless
in Seattle? I think of Atlanta driv
ers as Clueless in Atlanta,” he
said.
Truck driver Clifford Williams
of Rossville, who has muscled an
18-wheeler over the roads of the
South for 33 years, says too many
people drive too fast.
“It’s unreal what some of the
speeds are getting up to. I can run
65 mph and they’ll come by me in
their cars like I’m stopped,” he
said.
Like Shenkle and Williams,
Georgia drivers are deeply con
flicted about raising the speed limit
on state highways, a step state
officials are considering since Con
gress abolished the national limit
of 65 mph on rural freeways and
55 mph in urban areas.
Legislation to raise the speed
limit is being readied for the 1996
General Assembly, which con
venes Jan. 8.
But even among state officials
there is disagreement on whether
the limits should be raised.
Public Safety Commissioner Sid
Miles, who is in charge ofthe state
patrol and recently launched a
crackdown on speeders in the At
lanta metro area, adamantly op
poses raising the speed Emit. “It’s
definitely going to cause more fa
talities,” he said.
Transportation Commissioner
Wayne Shackelford said he could
support raising speed limits on
many sections of rural interstate
to 70 mph and on some state high
ways with divided medians from
55 mph to 65 mph.
But Shackelford said that would
occur only on roads that engineer
ing studies showed were capable
of handling such speeds.
A recent poll for The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution and WSB
TV found that 69 percent of those
surveyed wanted to keep the speed
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AUGUSTA FOCUS
Regional News
robbery, which later increased
to 191 and 179, respectively, by
the end of the year. This year,
there have been 101 reported
cases of unarmed robbery, 123
cases of armed robbery. There
doesn’t seem to be clear evi
dence that the robberies occur
more frequently during a par
ticular season, although Sept,
and Oct. of this year scored
high with both types of robber
ies. There were 65 total robber
ies in that two-month period.
Aggravated assault was at
169 by last December, and lat
er increased to 183. Assault
count a month ago was 122.
July carried 24 of those.
So far there have only been
11 murders in the area, which
is down from last year’s 18 be
fore December, and 20 for the
whole year.
County investigator Kenneth
Boose isn’t sure why local vio
lent crime rates have decreased
since last year. “It could be any
thing,” he said, but it seems to
be happening “all over the na
tion.”
limits unchanged. It was based on
surveys with 945 registered vot
ers and had a sampling error of
plus or minus 3 percentage points.
“People pass me at 75 and 80 as
it is now,” one of the respondents,
Doris Edelman of Warner Robins,
told the newspaper. “If you raise
it, they’ll only go faster.”
Susan Baker, a Johns Hopkins
University professor who has stud
ied road safety since the mid
-19605, agreed. “Whenever the
speed limit is increased, the gen
eral speed of traffic is certainly
going to increase, and that can’t
help but increase both the likeli
hood of crashes and the severity of
injuries when a crash occurs.”
Safety advocates often cite the
sharp decline in road deaths in
1974 when Congress, in the wake
of the Arab oil embargo, imposed
a 55 mph speed limit on the na
tion’s highways. Highway deaths
plummeted nationally and in
Georgia. From 560 fatal accidents
in 1973, Georgia dropped to 226
such accidents in 1976.
But those who want to raise the
speed limits also cite statistics.
The number of fatalities per 100
million vehicle miles of travel has
declined steadily across the na
tion, from 3.5 in 1974 to 1.7 in
1994. The decline continued even
after Congress raised the nation
al speed limit to 65 mph on rural
interstates in 1988.
“What happened, I believe, is
that driving habits changed tre
mendously,” said Rep. Bart Ladd,
R-Atlanta, sponsor of a bill to raise
the speed limits in Georgia to 75
mph on rural interstates and to 65
mph on urban freeways.
Speed limits have to be changed
to restore credibility because peo
ple aren’t obeying the law any
way, he said.
“If you have stupid laws, people
don’t want to follow them. You
have roads built for 85 and 90 mph
and you’re forcing everybody to go
55. We’ve raised a generation of
lawbreakers.”
Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard, who
presides over the state Senate,
calls that a lame argument. “Be
cause we have a rash of murders,
does that mean we should change
the law? That’s a nonsensical ar
gument,” he said. “It might mean
you should enforce the law.”
Miles and his state troopers are
trying. In three months of “Oper
ation Hardnose,” they’ve nabbed
4,890 speeders on metro Atlanta
interstates where the speed limit
is 55 mph. More than two-thirds
of them were traveling between
71 mph and 80 mph.
Kerosene heaters pose threat
By Rhonda Jones
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
They’re still out there. Hun
dreds, maybe thousands of the
heaters like the ones that caused
the Christmas tragedy resulting
in the death of actress Thelma
(Butterfly) McQueen.
“Quite a few” fires are started
by them each year, according to
Battalion Chief Eddie Gay of the
Augusta Fire Department. “A lot
of people use them,” he said.
Carelessness is one factor as
sociated with accidents from the
heaters, he said. “The main thing
is people don’t keep them in good
mechanical condition.” He said
people also tend to put the heat
ers too close to flammable mate
rials like clothing, drapes and
furniture, or use the wrong kind
of fuel, or spill the fluid when
filling the heater.
Some people buy them at ga
rage sales, or use weather-dam
aged heaters other people have
thrown away. This is especially a
problem for homeless people, he
said, who may be desperate for
heat in the winter.
But, though much of the prob
lem is that people either do not
know the proper way to use ker
osene heaters or are careless
about it, care only goes so far.
“So many things can happen to
them,” he said. “It could be brand
new and have mechanical prob
lems ...”
The biggest problem he sees is
that the heaters are not ventilat
ed for the inside, and are a car-
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(Above) The charred remains
of cottage where Butterfly
McQueen was fatally burned.
Photo by A.C. Redd
bon monoxide hazard.
Caroline Guay, secretary/trea
surer of Gas Heat, Inc., says she
doesn’t know much about kero
sene heaters, but guesses the fire
hazard is built into the unit, since
liquid kerosene is poured direct
ly into it. “You should never have
your supply (of fuel) in the house,”
she said, and explained how nat
ural gas heating works.
Natural gas is used under ex
tremely controlled circumstanc
es, she said. Just enough comes
into the house for each use, al
ready in vapor form, and it can
be turned off and on as needed.
With kerosene, the fuel is all
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right there in the heater and, if
there is an accident, the entire
supply could potentially burst
into flames and quickly get out of
control.
In 1994, there were 38 fires
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associated with non-central heat
ing units — kerosene heaters,
gas heaters, electric space heat
ers. The Augusta Fire Depart
ment has not yet compiled statis
tics for 1995.
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Kerosene
space heaters
can be a
menace
j. unless ex
treme caution
is used.
j (Below)
; investigators
pore through
1 rubble where
famous
f actress died.
I Photo by A.C. Redd