We’re Mad as Hell and We’re not Going to Take It Anymore! Police Detail Protesters picket Revere Manhole and Sewer Cleanout

Discretion being the better part of valor, Massachusetts police should give it a rest. DLA research, the public, and common sense are working against them.

Police protesters in Revere, MA, fight for their right to detail
Boston Herald Photo: Patrick Whittemore

You can’t make up headlines like that. Well, you can: we did. But it was, as they say, inspired by true events. Boston drivers took to the roads this weekend with the assurance that Massachusetts police forces were doing their best to protect the safety and traditions of Massacusetts motoring. The first of what some police official say will be an ongoing protest against the state’s new regulations allowing civilian flaggers at road construction sites took place in Revere on Friday when about 30 protesters picketed a manhole where routine sewer maintenance was scheduled. Moving to another site, the work crew was told by a Revere police captain that the work site was a hazard and unsafe.

For years, paid police details in Massachusetts have remained one of our great state’s most sacrosanct symbols, something found in no other state, right up there with the Red Sox, Cardinal Medeiros, Rose Kennedy, Arthur Fiedler, Aerosmith, and Dave Cowens…icons so deeply associated with Massachusetts psyche that only non-residents would suggest that it be otherwise.

That is, until this year when the state passed a Transportation Bill authorizing the use of civilian flaggers and bringing Massachusetts into step with other 49 states.

Police groups have continued to counter that:

a) the detail policy exists to ensure public safety

b) that police are trained to deal with any “problems” that might arise from motorists at the site

c) that it doesn’t actually cost the public since it is paid by the construction companies and utilities

d) that police are empowered to make arrests if needed.

“Ensure public safety? ” A 2007 WBZ study of more than 2,600 state cruiser accidents between 2000 and 2007 found that more than 500 of those accidents were trooper-caused…and the “vast majority” of those took place not while the trooper was chasing scofflaws but, rather, while the trooper was commuting to work, on a detail, or simply on patrol!

“Trained to deal with problems?” How come police groups think it is OK to have 68-year old retirees responsible for ensuring that cars stop for 8 year olds on their way to school?

“Doesn’t cost the tax payer?” Almost too preposterous to even respond. Not only passed on to consumers when used to justify rates increase with PUC, the overtime pay—even though paid by outside sources—is used to calculate police pensions…which ARE paid by the taxpayers.

“Can make arrests?” Most people would pay twice that amount to have them go down to Ruggles Avenue and make some arrests. And police don’t seem to have same incentive to stand at intersections and distribute traffic citations.

What’s Wrong With this Picture?

In 2007, the average Boston police officer made roughly $14,000 in overtime and $20,500 in detail pay, or about 18 hours each week. 124 of the top 125 wage earners in Boston last year were police officers, with 25 earning more than $200,000.

There are darn few people in this state that begrudge police the salaries they make, especially city cops. But, if the issue is “public safety” is anyone concerned about the fact that the police on the street who may, at anytime, be called upon to respond to situations more frightening or delicate than most of us can imagine, are regularly putting in more 15 hours a day, six days a week?  

Using salary data released by the City of Boston, the table below shows salary and hours for three Boston policemen, chosen from the 108 highest paid Boston police. Based on the combination of salary, overtime, and detail pay, and using average pay rates for overtime and detail work, DLA calculated the total hours worked by these three policemen in a typical week. In order for an officer to work a 91 week, he or she would have to work six, 15 hour days each week, all year long. And this does not account for holiday or vacation time.

No wonder they are sleeping while Verizon pokes some fiber cable under the pavement.

Driving studies make it to NPR and The New York Times! Summer reading lists come alive! But it ain’t us!

Illustration by Joon Mo Kang

A few weeks ago I got an urgent call from someone who—knowing my interest in all manner of things related to inexplicable behavior behind the wheel—wanted me to listen to an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with someone discussing his book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us). I would have changed right away except I wasn’t really sure where NPR was and, besides, I was already listening to a pretty good rant on WEEI AM Sport Talk radio between two guys who couldn’t stand one more day of Manny-being-Manny and wanted him dumped to the NL for some left-hitting fielder who didn’t mind shagging a few balls around the outfield.

So that was that.

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In which DrivingLikeAss tries to explain its absence of posts for the past six weeks.

The DrivingLikeAss Research Labs were decimated by the annual frenzy which is Boston area graduations. Beginning in early May, more than 3,900 Boston-area colleges commence to pass out degrees to more than 4.8 million graduating seniors and grad students. The papers are filled daily with pictures of jubilant graduates and their financially eviscerated (yet equally jubilant) parents, plus long lists of honorary doctorates doled out for accomplishments real and imagined.

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Only Massachusetts requires police details at road work sites. Boston drivers are from Massachusetts. Coincidence? DrivingLikeAss.Com continues its study of the dual phenomena which are Boston: Police road-work details and Boston drivers.

Combining innovative technology with creative research design, DLA develops a psycho-motor test measurement of police detail impact on Boston motorists. Using the Galvanic Skin Sensitivity Index (GASSI) meter—a device that measures electrical conductivity on the surface of the skin to generate a numeric value of the relative “nervousness” of the subject—and the Foot-Leg Attenuation and Latency Normative Comparison (FLATULNC) meter to produce a reaction time score, the Sensate Balanced Derivative (SBD) DLA research finds that police details at road construction sites have virtually no effect on the behavior of Boston drivers.

The new DLA Labs study, Traffic Authority Figures & Their Effectiveness in the Modification of Ass-like Driving Behavior: A DLA Research Study, points to a possible sensory cortex dysfunction among Boston drivers. On the other hand, it could also be that they just like driving like ass.

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In which the DLA Research staff feels unappreciated and misunderstood, but learns a valuable lesson about the power of the printed word!

Things got a little heated last week here at the DrivingLikeAss Labs following the publication of Pete DeMarco’s otherwise laudatory column, Who Taught YOU to Drive? ,in the March 30 Boston Globe. The research staff grumbled through DeMarco’s description of their efforts to bring academic rigor to the study of Boston driving behavior as “tongue-in-cheek” and “under the guise of.” They were even willing to let the “you might actually believe them” crack slip. But what really got them steamed were the quotes attributed to DLA’s spokesperson, Jonathan Dower, in which he took single-handed and unabashed credit for everything from DLA’s inception and mission to the actual research itself.

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Only Massachusetts requires police details at road work sites. Boston drivers are from Massachusetts. Coincidence? Risking a lifetime of tickets for riding their bikes on the sidewalks and for missing license plate lights, DLA researchers take a look at paid police details.


A dream police detail:  Ensuring public safety in front of Dunkin' Donuts!
Photo Credit: DLA Labs 

On March 12, justanothertrooper posted this entry on the MassCops.Com blog (a web site for New England law enforcement professionals): “NECN is reporting on detail pay for BPD (Boston Police Department).....can always tell when spring is here!”

Can’t argue with him there. Local and state police salaries, swollen by overtime “detail” pay (directing traffic at street or highway construction, special crowd details, etc.), draw the focus of media and (much less frequently) politicians on a perennial basis. The issue is always simmering in the minds of the motoring public since virtually every trip to D’Angelos Marketbasket includes dodging an open manhole or a DPW backhoe digging up a storm sewer…always under the careful supervision of a state or local police office. But it moves to the front burner with the annual news story reading something like “Police Top State’s Highest Paid List”, or –in the case of the Boston Herald—“Cops Cop Top Take-home!”

And so it was earlier this month when the Globe and other news media....

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Previously, on Driving Like Ass, DLA researchers were struck by this question: why does Boston—a city known for the impatience and intolerance of its drivers—have one of the country's lowest adoption rates of electronic toll collection (ETC), or FAST LANE system? In Part Two, DLA heads to the RMV in search of answers. (Click here to see Part One)

It would be easy to pass Boston’s FAST LANE disinclination as just another case of New England Luddism. But, at DLA, when in doubt, we like to head for the data which, more often than not, means “let’s conduct a survey.”

A DLA survey instrument was developed to collect data on drivers’ awareness of the FAST LANE systems, perceived benefits of the FAST LANE system, motivation, and pricing sensitivity.
Photo: FreeFoto.Com

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Electronic toll collection makes so much sense…which, of course, is why Ass-Like Drivers don’t use it.

Last month a friend offered to drive me to New York in her spanking new Prius, of which she was enormously proud and, in an effort to minimize her already dwindling carbon footprint by pursuing some sort of gas mileage record, she had taken to coasting whenever possible. Despite a somewhat erratic driving style, I was impressed with her enthusiasm and commitment, and those quiet, gravity-powered, battery-charging interludes began to lull me into a world far removed from the venalities of Boston driving.

Boston drivers, eschewing all things logical and reasonable, hurry to get in the Cash Only lines
Photo credit: DLA Research Labs

As we approached the Mass Pike toll booths, all the “Get Ticket” lanes were backed up hundreds of yards. The FAST LANE lanes were either wide open or blocked by drivers who didn’t remember that they didn’t have a FAST LANE pass until they were ten feet from the gate and were now trying to squeeze left or right while digging quarters from under the seat.  My friend pulled into a “Get Ticket” lane.

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Does cell phone use while driving make your driving more ass-like? You’d think so, but a hundreds of thousands of Boston drivers can’t be wrong…and our research can’t prove them so. DLA research shows that Boston drivers using cell phones are no worse than a 12 year-old and 87 year-old Uncle Heshi up from Boca. In Boston, nothing prevents us from driving like ass.

We driving research academics are part of a small community so it doesn’t take much to get things buzzing. Last month two things dominated the DLA latte-and-muffin circuit here in Boston: the release of findings from a study by University of Utah driving cognoscenti David Strayer entitled Drivers’ Lane-Changing Behavior While Conversing on Cell Phone in Variable-Density Simulated Highway Environment, and the passage in the Massachusetts House of Representatives of H-4477 which would ban use of cell phones while driving.

Professor Strayer proved to be more media savvy than the State legislature by timing his release for the post-New Year’s news vacuum. The Mass pols, on the other hand, were—not surprisingly—a pound short and several years too late—and their announcement got a balled up in Boston’s Super Bowl paroxysm: Strayer’s announcement made the Boston Globe; passage of H-4477, a bill that could make Massachusetts one of only five states in the nation to fully ban cell phone use while driving, did not.

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Driving in India: Taking it to the Streets with the Mahatma

Don’t just take our word for it. Driving in India is tough and they know it. DLA research staff was impressed by the number of sites and blogs dedicated to confronting national plague of mayhem, danger, and discourtesy. And although I have been firm in reminding them that mayhem, danger, and discourtesy can be found on any corner here in Boston, the DLA staff was equally adamant in maintaining that India’s story was one that had to be told. I relented and agreed to one more posting on driving in India, something of a bibliography of DLA’s web research.

 
Street Signs in India:  Yeah, this will be on the test!

Many of these sites seem to be a result of the gandhigiri wave which struck India following the 2006 musical comedy, “Lage Raho Munna Bhai,” in which an underworld bigwig sees the light after beginning a series of conversation with a picture of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhigiri, essentially the practice of Gandhi’s tenets of truth and “truth force”, is something of a phenomenon in India. Disdained as “flower power” by some, practitioners hand out roses, apply its non-violent approach to social issue protest, launch volunteer work, and, yes, even work to bring gandhigiri to the nation’s driving problems. Thankfully, the DLA staff is made up mostly of MIT grads or near-grads so it isn’t likely that they will be swayed by the idea of handing out roses at the Andrew Square off-ramp. But you never know.

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