Tweet All About It: Ray "Distracted Driving" LaHood Steps Down
In what Reuters calls “the latest exit from President Barack Obama’s cabinet,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced today that he would not be staying on for the second term.
In a good-bye letter to DOT employees, he made only a passing three word reference the “Distracted Driving Initiative”, which was bunched in with many other achievements, from High-Speed Rail all the way to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. La Hood, like many others, took credit for helping to “jumpstart the economy and put our fellow Americans back to work with $48 billion in transportation funding from the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009,” and for pouring badly needed $2.7 billion into 130 transportation projects across the Nation. A $50 billion program probably would have made more sense.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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It WAS a $50 billion measure for those "badly needed 130 transportation projects across the Nation." After the earmarks for pedestrian bridges, bikeways, horse trails, mass-transit rolling stock and lots of feasibility studies, there was only $2.7 billion left for the actual construction projects. When I was a highway engineer, we usually took 5% of the DC numbers to estimate how much on-the-ground work could be done. The Wizard Of Id comic strip highlighted how it's done. King: Whats the cost breakdown of the X-14 failure? Lackey: $18 million for an analysis of the X-13 failure, $23 million for advertising and public awareness, and 1200 bucks for engineering. King: Fire the engineers and get going on the X-15!
Sad but true, can someone explain why California could repair all the highways and bridges after that quake in 89 in 2 months and here in the flatlands of NC, our DOT can't get a 4 lane built in a timely manner. Oh yeah, forgot that it has to surveyed at least 10 times, and then work 1 day a month for a few years before actually getting anything done. I only hope they finish the 401 by-pass around the little dingle-berry called Rolesville before I retire. I only have 13 more years.
LaHood was a control-freak tool. But expect his replacement to be an even worse car-hating maniac, given this administration's aggressive tone since re-election.
My most lasting memory of LaHood was watching him beclown himself in front of the attended automotive media at the NAIAS in January of 2010 talking about Chrysler's exciting new "cutting edge" vehicles when everyone knew that Chrysler had exactly bupkis in the way of new product. You could hear the laughter ripple through the crowd as they laughed at him. One reporter even challenged him, and LaHood doubled down. LaHood is the biggest chucklehead of any politician I've encountered.