DailyMississippian The
thedmonline.com
Monday, October 24, 2011
Vol. 100 No. 209
Listen to Dex: ‘Don’t text and drive if you want to stay alive.’
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY PETRE THOMAS | The Daily Mississippian
Many students endanger themselves and others by texting while driving. Nearly half of all people polled by The Daily Mississippian text while driving.
BY LEE HARRIS ltharri1@olemiss.edu
The Ole Miss student body seems to have missed Dexter
McCluster’s plea to not text and drive. A recent poll conducted by The Daily Mississippian found that nearly half of all respon-
dents text while driving, an additional 24 percent only text at stop lights and another 24 percent talk on the phone but don’t text. Only 6 percent
of those polled do not use a cell phone at all while driving. There were 123 respondents to the poll. Most students seem to acknowledge the dangers inherent with distracted driving, but many are still comfortable enough to do it anyway. “It’s very dangerous,” managerial finance senior Bo Windham said. “I text and drive more often than I should, but I try to do it when I know that there are no cars around me for a few hundred yards.” Some students, such as Windham, said they use different tactics to minimize the risk involved with texting and driving. Ann Atkinson, an accountancy senior from Memphis, said she also tries to be careful about when or where she does text. “I try to just do it at stop signs and stop lights,” she said. “But when I am driving, I definitely don’t look down for more than a second.” Despite the efforts by students to be careful about texting while driving, studies have shown that texting invariably
lowers the ability of drivers to cope with encounters on the road. One such study, by the Texas Institute of Transportation, found drivers’ reaction times slowed from one to two seconds to more than three to four seconds. At highway speeds, two and a half seconds is enough for a car to travel the length of a football field without the driver ever looking up. Another study taken by Car and Driver Magazine found that individuals who text while driving have slower reaction times than drivers who are legally drunk. It is findings like these that have caught the attention of Mississippi State Representative Tommy Reynolds. Reynolds, who has served in the Mississippi Legislature since 1980, said the evidence suggests a need for legislation to prevent drivers from texting and driving in Mississippi. “I think it’s something that we’re going to have to try to address,” he said. “We’re goSee TEXTING, PAGE 4
Oxford Fire Department enforces occupancy load checks BY KATHRYN WINTER kathryn.winter2011@gmail.com
The overcrowding in bars, restaurants and hotels during the University of Mississippi football season has the Oxford Fire Department concerned about the city breaking fire codes. The OFD serves approximately 19,000 Oxford residents and 14,000 Ole Miss students on campus, according to Oxford’s website. Fire Chief Mike Hill said the department has been conducting occupancy load checks on various locations. “We’ve been doing occupancy load checks recently, and obviously you don’t want to overcrowd because that’s how people get killed,” he said. “Businesses and mercantile have a large group of people that assemble there, so
inside
they have a chance for a large loss of life.” Every business, assembly or mercantile has a certain number of people that can be in there at once, which is known as an occupancy load and is determined by the fire department. Hill said there is a difference between occupancy load checks and fire code inspections. “We do fire code inspections once a year, where we go into businesses and look at their electrical wall coverings and make sure their sprinkler systems are up to date,” he said. “I don’t go into a place and decide how many people can be in there; it’s all based on math. You measure your business and how big it is and how many net square feet you have in that space, and you divide by a predetermined number in our code books.” An event that changed fire code and occupancy laws was
Get your dream car without breaking the bank
P. 7
ALEX EDWARDS | The Daily Mississippian
Students and Oxonians crowd together in a building for a concert. The OFD is concerned about occupancy loads in city buildings.
the 2003 Rhode Island fire at the Station nightclub. The fire was the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in American history,
killing 100 people, according to the Providence Journal. In five minutes, the club was destroyed by flames. Out of 462
Soccer wins 2-1 at Kentucky, keeps SEC Tournament hopes alive P. 11
people in attendance, many were injured from smoke inhaSee CODES, PAGE 5
Ole Miss upset bid falls short against No. 10 Arkansas P. 12