Speeding trucker paralyzes region and editors shrug

Clues on this directional sign can tell you the town in which the intersection is located. The signs can be found all over New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For at least the past decade, The Record's editors have ignored speeding, tailgating and other aggressive drivers, and a dramatic decline in enforcement, especially on highways.

On Thursday morning, hours after a speeding trucker slammed into another tractor-trailer on the George Washington Bridge -- killing himself and paralyzing the region's traffic-- the clueless editors published a column on drowsy drivers. 

Today, even with more than 20 hours to work on the story of the 2 a.m. crash, the front-page map by Staff Artist R.L. Rebach looks like it was put together by a 4-year-old (A-1).

No New Jersey town is shown, not even Fort Lee, where officials coping with the resulting jams on Thursday could be forgiven for thinking Governor Christie was up to more of his dirty tricks.

But on the other side of the Hudson, the map shows the words "NEW YORK" and "New York City" stacked on top of one another.

Did anyone proof Page 1, the most important page in the paper? Where was six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, in bed?

Fat cats

The story on Christie's latest appearance on the "Tonight Show" is way back on A-9, where it belongs.

Should Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the Editorial Page, recuse himself when an important public policy issue affects his boss, Publisher Stephen A. Borg?

Fuhggetaboutit.

Today -- as the state's fiscal morass deepens, no thanks to Christie -- an editorial dismisses a senator's proposal to tax residents who make $350,000 a year or more (A-18).

Winging it

The clueless Road Warrior continues to make it up as he goes along, coining a strange acronym for NJ Transit ("NJT") and calling NY Waterway just "Waterway" (L-6).

In his Page 1 column on Thursday, Staff Writer John Cichowski, the confused reporter who writes the so-called commuting column, also "reported that a 2005 study showed that 18- to 19-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups," according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers. 

"The study actually reported that 18- to 29-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups."

Hey, that's only 10 years off. Maybe, he should get points and a bonus for trying to get it right.

That wasn't the only problem in the overlong column, which was padded with lots of stuff having nothing to do with drowsy driving. See:


 Road Warrior can't help making readers drowsy


Cold shoulder

In Better Living today, freelancer Julia Sexton pans the bistro fare served at Patisserie Florent in downtown Englewood.

Sexton brought a "shelf -temperature" bottle of white wine to the casual eatery, apparently expecting a bucket of ice to chill it, and in her data box, made a point of complaining none was available (BL-18).

At the end, a note informs readers "Elisa Ung's reviews will return Friday," but not whether she is having her stomach stapled or her coronary arteries cleared.