Readers Write

cigarettes in car

For your passengers, there is no escaping

I am usually a live-and-let-live kind of person. However, when I read the March 4 Letter of the Day from the father whose justification for smoking in his car is that "most of the smoke is sucked out the window," I had to cry baloney.

I grew up driving in a car with a smoking parent, and I spent hours upon hours trying to adjust the windows so more of the smoke would go out her window instead of straight into my face.

I'm telling you from experience: It was torture. In the house, I had the option of going outside or upstairs, but in the car, there was no escape.

Erin Cooper, St. Paul

buckle up or pay up

Pure and simple: Seat belts save lives

Minnesota is considering giving law enforcement officers the authority to stop and ticket drivers for not wearing their seat belts. As an emergency nurse and as president of the Greater Twin Cities chapter of the Emergency Nurses Association, I routinely see what happens when people who aren't wearing seat belts are involved in crashes. And I know that laws encouraging drivers and passengers to wear seat belts do save lives.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, last year there were 504 passenger-vehicle fatalities in Minnesota, and 186 of those were people not wearing their seat belts.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than telling a fearful parent, spouse or child that the person she or he loves more than anything in the world has died. It's all the more devastating when I know that the death could have been prevented if the victim had been wearing a seat belt.

There's no denying it — seat belts save lives.

Ryan Aga, Woodbury

Class warfare

The wealthy have been waging it for years

A March 5 letter writer accuses President Obama of declaring "class war" on the rich, thereby pandering to "the ignorant masses." He suggests that it's the rich on whom "the economy depends to prosper."

That's just backward. I don't know how many hedge fund managers could grow their own food, pave their own roads, purify their own water or build their own homes; I suspect they need other people — working people — to do those things for them.

We all know now that the operators on Wall Street could not have amassed the fabulous fortunes that the writer celebrates if they had been forced to work with only their own money. The financial system needs other people's retirement and savings funds, invested in every dubious instrument Wall Street can dream up, to amass the capital funds that they claim for their own.

The letter writer threatens that the rich may decide to "take their ball and go home." Where would that leave the rest of us? Right where we are — trying to scratch out a living.

Perhaps we would be a little better off without the economic predation that has passed for the market these last three decades.

Neil Elliott, White Bear Lake

the senate contest

Coleman needs to abide by results of his lawsuit

Norm Coleman is a lawyer, so he ought to know that there is no basis in Minnesota law for a "sore loser's second chance" election, no matter how narrow the margin of defeat.

After the November election, there was a recount — not because Al Franken's campaign asked for it, but because state law automatically required a recount. Coleman wasn't happy with the outcome of the recount, so he contested it, as was his right.

Now he isn't happy with the way his lawsuit seems to be going, so he is calling for a revote, even before the court case is finished. Showing disrespect, or perhaps contempt, for the people of Minnesota, Coleman chooses to place his own ambition above the law.

Coleman should let the court conclude its business. And then, whether the outcome is in his favor or not, take it like a man.

Oliver Steinberg, St. Paul

this is a bright side?

Fewer jobs, fewer cars?

I was happy to see some optimism in these bad economic times ("Lost jobs add up to speedier commute," March 5). Even though 75,000 Minnesotans have lost their jobs in the past year, a good way to look at it is that the roads are less congested due to fewer people going to work. Even though the reason for this "good news" is because we have more people sitting at home unemployed, we can see the glass half full!

Sara Anderson, Glyndon, Minn.