In class on Veterans Day

I would like to thank all the veterans for their service and allowing me to write this letter. I attend school at Central Linn. I think that we as a district did not honor our veterans as we had to go school when all the other schools in Linn County closed for the day.

I feel it was not fair that students and parents of Central Linn were not able to honor the veterans with the rest of the county. Many students had to make a choice to attend school and go to class and could not participate in the parade.

I am a Boy Scout and my troop was in the parade. I have been in the parade every year since I joined Cub Scouts as a first-grader. I was planning to be in the parade this year until I found out that we had school.

I would like to ask the Central Linn School Board to explain to the students, parents, community and Linn County veterans why they chose to close school on Monday and not Tuesday.

Once again, thank you to all of the men and women who have served this country.

Tyler Canaday, Halsey

Police made road less safe

On Friday morning, Nov. 7, I also was cited for not making a lane change in the move-over saturation campaign conducted by Linn County and the state police.

In my opinion the officers created a chaotic situation, playing leap frog issuing citations. They were on both sides of the road during the busiest time of the morning (rush hour) intentionally creating an unsafe driving condition. No one knew what was happening; they had both sides of the road lit up like crazy.

I had slowed down but felt it unsafe at the time to change lanes. I was pulled over and issued a $242 fine for failure to yield and pull to the left lane.

I tried to explain to the officer my situation, but it fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t right that they, the law officers, intentionally created an extreme driving hazard that resulted in issuing citations to unaware drivers. I acknowledge the law that protects officers on the side of the road, but to intentionally induce a situation that creates an unsafe one is wrong!

Alan Pomerantz, Lebanon

Speeders go wild on 34

I am glad to see that the Albany post of the Oregon State Police are going to get more troopers. I had to drive from Lacomb to Corvallis every weekday for eight weeks and most of the drivers who use Highway 34 have no regard for the speed signs or for other drivers. The biggest disregard of the speed signs occurs near the overpass at Interstate-5.

I would slow at the 50 mph sign and the cars coming up behind me would pull over and pass with no sign of slowing down, and the same thing happened at the 40 mph sign.

I have seen drivers pull up to a stop sign to enter Highway 34 and no one moved over to the left lane to let those drivers enter.

From 4 to 6 p.m. the drivers travel at 60 mph or more and with no more than one or two car lengths between cars. I remember reading in the driver’s manual where they advise following at one car length for every 10 mph, so at 60 mph there should be six car lengths between autos. That’s a joke on Highway 34.

I would like to see a law passed that everyone would have to attend a defensive driving class, same as school bus drivers, in order to renew their driver’s license.

Howard Gabel, Lebanon

Stop the name calling

In your recent editorial “What New Politics?,” you quoted President-elect Obama’s words about “the temptation to fall back on the same partnership and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.” Now, tell me, how does saying, “appointing a pit bull to run his office” sound as if you are changing from the old, old Republican line? Also, I would say that calling a person who is a congressman and one who practices Judaism a “pit bull” is showing how some people are not changing their ways of derogatory name-calling. Name calling shows immaturity.

You can guess what I think of people who use the tasteless “watermelon patch on the White House lawn” sayings that they call “jokes” and feel quite sure they aren’t Democrats. Frankly, I am not laughing!

Why don’t you write an editorial on the list of things our current president and his vice president are trying to get approved that will be nearly impossible to change when the new president gets into office on Jan. 20? Why don’t you write about how the current President Bush owes the country to undo some of the things he has done that put us in this depression? What is he going to do for nearly three months? Some of us are definitely not looking forward to another depression, having lived through the Dirty Thirties. Let us see some work from the departing administration to get us out of this deep hole, and sooner rather than later.

Virginia Uhden, Albany

Confused by police moves

This last Friday, the Oregon State Police had four patrol cars engaged in a “saturation patrol” to enforce the “move-over” law. This saturation patrol was executed during peak morning commute times between Interstate-5 and Corvallis along Highway 34. In effect the saturation patrol itself promoted the very issues for which the state police were issuing fines.

With most drivers moving into the fast lane and maintaining speeds 5 miles or more over the posted speed limit, some drivers were delayed in their attempt to move over. State police cars would then rush in behind the cars still in the right lane and pull them over.

What is the driver to think when a patrol car rushes to the rear of their car without their lights on? They want to pass so you should move more to the right, pull off, or? But there are no lights. Perhaps the patrol car wants to take the next available opportunity to move into the passing lane and get around you, so you should stay where you are?

With four patrol cars the police produced an artificial situation, which was confusing and made it more challenging for drivers to comply with the law.

If there had not been so many, and had they not been strewn out as they were (keep in mind that this saturation patrol went around bends in the road and drivers were tasked with moving from the crowded fast lane back to the slow lane and back again) drivers would have had a better chance of complying with the law.

This is our tax dollars at work? Shame on the state police for using such tactics. They created artificial traffic situations and then penalized the drivers. The irony is that the drivers who stay in the right lane are those who don’t want to speed, the more law-abiding ones.

I would hope the state legislature and governor consider this type of abuse when crafting similar laws in the future.

David Champion, Lebanon