Above the Law (II)

By Daryl Montgomery and Jack Kemp

The Governor of New Jersey exempting himself from seat belt laws recalls the in many ways similar situation after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. It was found that the co-owned NY State and New Jersey government agency, the Port Authority, had exempted itself from placing battery pack floodlamps in the stairwells of the buildings, forcing evacuees to climb down 80 flights or more in the dark.

Any private building, from the fanciest to the poorest, is required to have these emergency lights, but the state politicians, in their arrogance, "knew" they could get away with sparing the expense of installing them, the public (or tenant workers) be damned. That is, until the reality of a major emergency brought the issue to the press. The later installed emergency lights in the WTC helped evacuate the building on 9/11/01. Here's hoping that Gov. Corzine's disregard for the seatbelt laws leads to increased safety in the future.

(Jack Kemp is not the politician of the same name.)