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Assured Clear Distance

According to Ohio Revised Code- Title [45] XLV MOTOR VEHICLES – AERONAUTICS – WATERCRAFT-Chapter 4511: TRAFFIC LAWS – OPERATION OF MOTOR VEHICLES-4511.21 Speed limits – assured clear distance. (A) No person shall operate a motor vehicle, trackless trolley, or streetcar at a speed greater or less than is reasonable or proper, having due regard to the

1. traffic,
2. surface, and
3. width of the street or highway and
4. any other conditions,

and no person shall drive any motor vehicle, trackless trolley, or streetcar in and upon any street or highway at a greater speed than will permit the person to bring it to a stop within the assured clear distance ahead.

A high number of accidents occurred at the two eastbound exit ramps (SOM Center and Harper Road) of US Route 422 in City of Solon.  City of Solon is not authorized to install signs on the US Route.  Hence, City of Solon worked with Ohio Department of Transportation to design a new yellow HIGH CRASH LOCATION-FOLLOWING TOO CLOSE warning sign for the traffic study.  This was a non-conforming traffic sign that was approved by Ohio Department of Transportation for the purpose of the traffic study.  The study ran for 18 months.

Non-conforming traffic sign on ramps

At the toe of the ramp, some motorists at the rear were looking to the left and moving with less than assured clear distance, before the motorist in the front had moved on, resulting in rear end collissions. The severity of the vehicular damage due to the traffic crashes was not great but City of Solon Police Department staff was being called to the traffic crash location to process the traffic crashes and this took the Police Department’s time away from addressing other higher priority functions.  Traffic congestion on the two lane ramps can lead to very unsafe conditions for the backed up vehicles on eastbound Route 422.

Prior to informational warning signs being posted:

11-17-06 thru 5-17-07

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 19
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper Rd. – 14

5-17-07 thru 11-17-07

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 13
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper Rd. – 6

11-17-07 thru 5-17-08

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 20
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper – 7

After informational warning signs are posted:

5-17-08 thru 11-17-08

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 14
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper Rd. – 13

11-17-08 thru 5-17-09

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 14
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper Rd. – 5

5-17-09 thru 11-17-09

US422 eastbound exit ramp at SOM Center – 22
US422 eastbound exit ramp at Harper Rd. – 16

The traffic crash data from the informal study obtained from City of Solon Police Department Assistant Chief Raymond Tittl indicates that 52 crashes occurred prior to the posting of the informational warning signs and 50 crashes after.  Ohio Department of Transporation ruled that since the signs were non-conforming they should be removed.  The signs were removed.

I believe the signs were a fine example of cooperation between City of Solon and Ohio Department of Transportation.  The signs performed their function and it was the inattentive motorists that contributed to the disappointing quantitative results.  From a qualitative perspective, the low cost informational warning signs were probably a success and they should not have been removed.  We don’t live in the Garden of Eden; Ohio Department of Transportation’s take on the non-conforming sign is rational.

I am Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motor Corporation. I would first like to state that I love cars as much as anyone, and I love Toyota as much as anyone.  I take the utmost pleasure in offering vehicles that our customers love, and I know that Toyota’s 200,000 team members, dealers, and suppliers across America feel the same way.  However, in the past few months, our customers have started to feel uncertain about the safety of Toyota’s vehicles, and I take full responsibility for that. Today, I would like to explain to the American people, as well as our customers in the U.S. and around the world, how seriously Toyota takes the quality and safety of its vehicles. I would like to express my appreciation to Chairman Towns and Ranking Member Issa, as well as the members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, for giving me this opportunity to express my thoughts today.

I would like to focus my comments on three topics -

• Toyota’s basic philosophy regarding quality control,
• the cause of the recalls, and
• how we will manage quality control going forward.

First, I want to discuss the philosophy of Toyota’s quality control.  I myself, as well as Toyota, am not perfect. At times, we do find defects.  But in such situations, we always stop, strive to understand the problem, and make changes to improve further.  In the name of the company, its long-standing tradition and pride, we never run away from our problems or pretend we don’t notice them. By making continuous improvements, we aim to continue offering even better products for society.  That is the core value we have kept closest to our hearts since the founding days of the company.

At Toyota, we believe the key to making quality products is to develop quality people.  Each employee thinks about what he or she should do, continuously making improvements, and by doing so, makes even better cars.  We have been actively engaged in developing people who share and can execute on this core value.  It has been over 50 years since we began selling in this great country, and over 25 years since we started production here.  And in the process, we have been able to share this core value with the 200,000 people at Toyota operations, dealers, and suppliers in this country. That is what I am most proud of.

Second, I would like to discuss what caused the recall issues we are facing now.  Toyota has, for the past few years, been expanding its business rapidly.  Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyota’s priority has traditionally been the following:

1. First; Safety,
2. Second; Quality, and
3. Third; Volume.

These two priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers’ voices to make better products has weakened somewhat.  We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that.  I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.

Especially, I would like to extend my condolences to the members of the Saylor family, for the accident in San Diego. I would like to send my prayers again, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.

Since last June, when I first took office, I have personally placed the highest priority on improving quality over quantity, and I have shared that direction with our stakeholders.  As you well know, I am the grandson of the founder, and all the Toyota vehicles bear my name.  For me, when the cars are damaged, it is as though I am as well.  I, more than anyone, wish for Toyota’s cars to be safe, and for our customers to feel safe when they use our vehicles.  Under my leadership, I would like to reaffirm our values of placing safety and quality the highest on our list of priorities, which we have held to firmly from the time we were founded.  I will also strive to devise a system in which we can surely execute what we value.

Third, I would like to discuss how we plan to manage quality control as we go forward.  Up to now, any decisions on conducting recalls have been made by the Customer Quality Engineering Division at Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan.  This division confirms whether there are technical problems and makes a decision on the necessity of a recall. However, reflecting on the issues today, what we lacked was the customers’ perspective.

To make improvements on this, we will make the following changes to the recall decision making process.  When recall decisions are made, a step will be added in the process to ensure that management will make a responsible decision from the perspective of “customer safety first.” To do that, we will devise a system in which customers’ voices around the world will reach our management in a timely manner, and also a system in which each region will be able to make decisions as necessary. Further, we will form a quality advisory group composed of respected outside experts from North America and around the world to ensure that we do not make a misguided decision. Finally, we will invest heavily in quality in the U.S., through the establishment of an Automotive Center of Quality Excellence, the introduction of a new position – Product Safety Executive, and the sharing of more information and responsibility within the company for product quality decisions, including defects and recalls.

Even more importantly, I will ensure that members of the management team actually drive the cars, and that they check for themselves where the problem lies as well as its severity.  I myself am a trained test driver.  As a professional, I am able to check on problems in a car, and can understand how severe the safety concern is in a car. I drove the vehicles in the accelerator pedal recall as well as the Prius, comparing the vehicles before and after the remedy in various environmental settings.  I believe that only by examining the problems on-site, can one make decisions from the customer perspective.  One cannot rely on reports or data in a meeting room.

Three — through the measures I have just discussed, and with whatever results we obtain from the investigations we are conducting in cooperation with NHTSA, I intend to further improve on the quality of Toyota vehicles and fulfill our principle of putting the customer first.

My name is on every car. You have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers. Thank you.

Testimony of Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation

Business Strategic Mortgage Defaults

Roger Lowenstein, author of The Way We Live Now, Walk Away From Your Mortgage, gives an example of strategic mortgage default in the business world.  A Morgan Stanley fund decided to stop making payments on a real estate purchase in San Francisco because the value of the real estate had decreased.  He suggests that the owners of any company that defaults on bonds and chooses to let the company fail rather than invest more capital in it are practicing “strategic default”.

Maguire Properties, Inc. (Ticket Symbol: MPG) a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) with holdings in California walked away from buildings because they were worth less than their mortgages.  As the stock tumbled, I did roll the dice on its stock!

It was reported that Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, the owners of the huge New York residential real-estate complex consisting of 54 buildings and 11,000 apartments called Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village decided to walk away and hand over the property to the lenders because the complex was worth less.

Residential Strategic Mortgage Defaults

Luigi Guiso of European University Institute, Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University,  Luigi Zingales of University of Chicago, authors of Moral and Social Constraints to Strategic Default on Mortgages found that

1. 26% of the existing mortgage defaults are strategic.
2. No household would default on the mortgage if the negative equity is less than 10%.
3. 17% of households would default, even if they can afford to pay their mortgage, when negative equity reaches 50%.
4. With other things being the same, people who consider it immoral to default on their mortgage are 77% less likely to declare their intention to do so,
5. With other things being the same, people who know someone who defaulted are 82% more likely to declare their intention to do so.

Recourse States and Non-Recourse States

In a non-recourse state, the lender is not allowed to pursue the borrowers who walk away from their mortgages for the difference between the loan and the resale price of the primary residence.  The lender can sell the house through foreclosure.  If the foreclosure sale is deficient, that is, the sale price is not sufficient to satisfy the loan, the lender must accept the loss.  In non-recourse states, the lender is not allowed a deficiency judgement.

Now, how a lender may attempt to minimize its losses by resorting to what is being referred to as a bank walkaway (lender walkaway).   In a bank walkaway, the borrower-owner is no longer occupying the property but the lender is not the legal owner of the property!  With the lender not taking ownership, the borrower is on the hook for maintenance, property tax bill.

A study indicates that in recourse states, the cost of legal proceedings is sufficiently high that it is not worthwhile for lenders to sue a borrower under default unless the borrower has significant wealth that can be recouped.  Cost to benefit ratio/cherry picking applies.  But lenders are entitled to exercise their rights, depending on the borrower characteristics and local laws, to pursue unpaid mortgage balances by wage garnishments, tapping bank accounts and placing liens on assets held by wealthy borrowers.  The lender may also choose to sell these deficient mortgagge accounts to collection agencies and other parties who are likely to pursue the borrower.

Richard Thaler, author of Underwater, but Will They Leave the Pool? suggests that borrowers in nonrecourse states pay extra for the right to default without recourse.  These fees are not made explicit to the borrower, but if they were, more borrowers might be willing to default, figuring that they had paid for the right to do so.

Consequences of Strategic Home Mortgage Default due to negative equity

According to Stephanie Armor, author of More Walk Away from Homes, Mortgages, walking away from a home mortgage has a mild punishment.  It can knock 100 points off the credit score and make a borrower ineligible for a new home mortgage for 7 years.

Brent White, Associate Professor Law, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law and author of the excellent paper titled, Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis found that

Most homeowners do not strategically default as a result of two emotional forces:

(1) the desire to avoid the shame and guilt of foreclosures and

(2) exaggerated anxiety over foreclosure’s perceived consequences.

Moreover, these emotional constraints are actively cultivated by the government and other social agents in order to induce homeowners to ignore market and legal norms under which strategic default might not only be a viable option, but also the wisest financial decision.

Marcellus and Davonian Shale in Appalachian Basin

For new residents of Northeast Ohio, one of the lesser known facts about the region might be its association with its oil and natural gas wells. The State of Ohio has about 274,733 wells yielding 1.126 billion barrels of crude oil and more than 8.35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Research completed by Ohio Department of Natural Resources’s Divisions of Mineral Resources Management and Geological Survey indicates that Ohio has significant remaining producible oil and natural gas reserves.

The subject of natural gas well drilling has been controversial and contentious in the Northeast Ohio region. Like in any multi-faceted and complex issue, there are proponents and opponents. One side is concerned about the proximity of the drilling area to residential properties, pollution, decrease in property value etc. The other side contends that the drilling is done in a safe and considerate manner etc. Current lower gas prices, livelihood, dilution of home rule and royalties received by mineral rights owners from oil and gas wells form key components of this equation.

Citizens who relocate to Northeast Ohio area from those states which do not have a prominent oil and gas industry and plan on buying a home may not become fully aware of this inconspicuous facet of the area.

• Fee simple is the most basic and unconstrained type of land ownership. The owner controls the surface, the subsurface and the air above the land. Mineral rights is the privilege held by a person or business of exploring and making moolah from the sale of minerals (oil, gas, and other resources) found on the surface or below land. Mineral rights can be sold or leased separately from the land ownership. Prospective home buyers should do due diligence to find who owns the mineral rights for the parcel. Caveat Emptor.

• Prospective home buyers should note that the Ohio Residential Property Disclosure Form does have a disclosure related to wells.  However, the form also indicates that home owners do not make any representations about offsite conditions which a home owner may interpret to mean that he/she does not have to make any representations about wells located outside the parcel boundaries, even if this matter is actually known.  So, Buyer Beware applies and the form appropriately encourages a professional home inspection. However, an oil and gas well location study is probably outside the scope of a typical professional home inspection.

Ohio Geological Survey Emergency Oil and Natural Gas Well Locator

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Mineral Resources Management has established a Emergency Oil and Natural Gas Locator where information about well locations can be found.

States ranked by drilled oil and natural gas wells

Texas
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania and
Ohio

Some Cuyahoga County Communities with oil and natural gas wells

Gates Mills
Broadview Heights
North Royalton
Independence
Brecksville

Some Geauga County Communities with oil and natural gas wells

Chester Township
Munson Township
Russell Township

Some Lake County Communities with oil and natural gas wells

Kirtland
Concord Township
Willoughby
Madison Township

Reference: Water Resources and Natural Gas Production from the Marcellus Shale by Daniel Soeder and William Kappel, US Department of Interior, US Geological Survey and the Plain Dealer.

The glory of financial innovation

• Virginia
• Nebraska
• Colorado
• Maine
• Tennessee

Other top 529 College Savings Plans

• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Wisconsin

These states have laws that specifically protect the 529 plan accounts from creditors.  For example, Alaska’s creditor protection language is that

an account is exempt from a claim by the creditors of a participant or of a beneficiary.

Colorado’s creditor protection language states that

moneys credited to or expended from the savings trust fund by or on behalf of an account owner, depositor or designated beneficiary of a savings contract…. are exempt from all claims of creditors of the account owner, depositor, designated beneficiary or the authority.

Results: The first 14 years for the cohort resulted in cumulative 648,387 person-years and 140 incident pancreatic cancer cases. Individuals consuming ≥2 soft drinks/week experienced a statistically significant increased risk of pancreatic cancer (hazard ratio, 1.87; 95% confidence interval, 1.10-3.15) compared with individuals who did not consume soft drinks after adjustment for potential confounders. There was no statistically significant association between juice consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer.

Conclusion: Regular consumption of soft drinks may play an independent role in the development of pancreatic cancer. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention; 19(2); 447–55

Reference: Soft Drink and Juice Consumption and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: The Singapore Chinese Health Study by Noel T. Mueller, Andrew Odegaard,  Kristin Anderson, Jian-Min Yuan, Myron Gross, Woon-Puay Koh and Mark A. Pereira

1. 2009-10 Toyota RAV4 crossovers,
2. 2009-10 Toyota Corollas,
3. 2009-10 Toyota Matrix hatchbacks,
4. 2005-10 Toyota Avalons,
5. 2007-10 Toyota Camrys,
6. 2010 Toyota Highlander crossovers,
7. 2007-10 Toyota Tundra pickups and
8. 2008-10 Toyota Sequoia SUVs.

Check out this letter from Edolphus Towns, Chairman Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to Raymond LaHood, Secretary, US Department of Transporation.  Chairman Towns states that “the problem may not be limited to Toyota”!.  Secretary LaHood is reported to have called Toyota “a little safety deaf”.  When a senior government official comes out with such a strong statement, citizens have to extrapolate the nature of safety concerns that could have prompted this statement.

Letter from Chairman Edolphus Towns to Transportation Secretary Lahood

Christmas 2009

Something is not right when people have to informed through a sign that Christmas is about Jesus Christ and not shopping.

Municipal zoning or other rules may permit installation of non commercial opinion signs if the signs meet the size, color, location and other prescribed criteria.  These yard signs are a tribute to our First Amendment.

However, some yard signs or commercial electronic message boards, in particular, that are becoming too common on higher speed roadways, are likely to be cause of distraction to some iPhone slinging motorists and may lead to traffic crashes.

Related Post: Unhappy with Kathleen Falk and Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Atypical Stop Sign

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD defines the standards used by road managers nationwide to install and maintain traffic control devices on all public streets, highways, bikeways, and private roads open to public traffic.

This atypical stop sign is installed off of South Bissell Road at its intersection with West Pioneer Trail, near Walden of Aurora in City of Aurora Ohio.  Purists might find this City of Aurora sign unappealing but the City cannot be blamed, in this case, for being reactive to traffic issues.   A stop ahead warning sign, W3-1a, is installed in advance of this atypical stop sign on South Bissell Road.

According to James Jordan, Assistant Director, Department of Public Service, City of Aurora, this stop sign configuration is used because the stop sign area, ocassionally, get partially covered with vegetation.

At a few locations in City of Aurora, stop ahead warning signs are installed even where visibility is probably sufficient.  Traffic engineers whose motto is, Less is More, are likely to frown upon this.

W3-1a

MUTCD states that a Stop Ahead (W3-1 or optional W3-1a) sign shall be used where a STOP sign is not visible for a sufficient distance to permit the road user to bring the vehicle to a stop at the STOP sign.  This sign is prescribed for low volume roads.  MUTCD defines a low volume road as a facility lying outside of built-up areas of cities, towns, and communities, and having a traffic volume of less than 400 AADT.   Alleys and residential streets in a city or town are within the city or town and hence cannot be considered a low volume road for MUTCD purposes.

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