Behind the Wheel of America’s Worst Driver

By Ashley Oates

Q: So, you’ve got a show about the worst drivers in the country. You basically found all these awful drivers, threw them in a car, and told them to drive in stressful situations. Which cities did you visit? And how did you get people on the show?

A: We have eight different cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Boston, and New York City. The contestants need to be nominated for some driving deficiency. Then the nominator must ride along shotgun with the person they nominated.

Q: It sounds like it’s more of a double-challenge. Both the nominated and nominator are in it together.

A: Definitely. You can’t just call-out your buddy, your sister, or your mom. You have to stay with them and try to help them through these challenges, which hopefully will bring awareness of their problems behind the wheel. Eventually you get down to the worst driver in those cities. In a two-hour finale in Los Angeles, there are all-new challenges for these competitors. Ultimately, we crowned America’s Worst Driver.

Q: From what I understand, if you want to win America’s Worst Driver, you want your car to be crashed.

A: It’s a reversed competition show. You want to be voted off. You’re voted off by being the better driver of the group. Everyone starts off with 100 points, and if you have the most points at the end, congratulations, you’re the best in the city challenge. You’re not Dallas’ worst driver, and you’re allowed to keep your car. Plus, we had another prize, which was a trip to Florida. Then it’s down to three, where we have a closed-obstacle course. We have a professional diver set a course and we eliminate one at a time, and it gets down to two left. Then, one person has their car blown up.

Q: Is this the contestant’s own car?

A: Yes. These are their own cars they brought, and there is a deep connection with these cars. One gentleman from Seattle proposed to his girlfriend just recently in that car. A contestant from Dallas had a car that was a gift from her grandfather who recently passed. There’s a big-time connection with these cars.

Q: What stunts did you have drivers in Dallas do?

A: One of the challenges was to navigate their way to E-Bar-S Ranch, just outside of Dallas. At the ranch the contestants had to don a straw cowboy hat, sit in the front seat of a big farm truck, and back up a gooseneck trailer loaded with the 1,200-pound bull, named Wobbly, into a small parking space outlined in hay bails. I was actually at the shoot of this challenge, and it was a hoot. All of the contestants took it very seriously, and had to prove they could back up a trailer in Texas.

Q: What was the other Texas-themed challenge you had them do?

A: Another great thing about Texas, and there are many of them, is high school football. Texas has a reputation of having some of the best high school football in the country, if not the best. We thought it would be great to weave in football somehow and, of course, the Dallas Cowboys. They had to navigate Fretz Park, where the parking lot had been closed off and a professional driver had set up a course. The drivers pulled up, and we very innocently told them to drive three figure-eights without hitting any cones. They also had to keep their windows rolled down. Just before they started, they were introduced to at least 25 youth football players, who came screaming out of nowhere carrying Nerf soft footballs. As the contestants began driving their figure-eights, the kids would try to throw the footballs through the open window. Many of the footballs went through. One of the funniest things is one of the teams, Tara and John, weren’t getting along so well and disagreeing. Tara, as the driver, would drive very slowly when John’s side of the car was facing the football throwers. All of the boys would drill him as he came by. She’d then pick up the pace for her side. That was her revenge. It was hysterical. The football players had a ball. How many footballs got into the car is how we determined the points.

Q: Did you speak with someone from Dallas to come up with this stunt?

A: America’s Worst Driver is an international format that’s been in more than a dozen countries and territories as a smash success in every one. So going into it, we had a Bible, if you will, of competitions and obstacle courses. That’s all well and good, but we had to do it our own way on the Travel Channel’s terms. We needed to showcase the destinations, and that’s where the football was homegrown by us and our production team. We wanted to find challenges that did showcase an element of the destination. And again, football and Texas go along pretty darn well.

Q: How did you decide on the “notoriously difficult” driving cities?

A: For the first season you want to make your point the most clearly, and you want to go to cities with big personalities themselves and have a lot of drivers. I think all these cities hit it well.

Q: Were there any real tickets issued?

A: Yes, there were a couple of times contestants were pulled over. It was all being very closely monitored by our off-duty police officers who were following right behind them.

Q: And now the most important question: what does the winner receive?

A: We thought, “How do we make sure and incentivize these folks?” The answer was if you were the worst driver in your city, we would destroy your car. We’re going to blow it up, drop a wrecking ball on it, or drive a monster truck over it. We’re going to do whatever it takes to get you off the road. At the end of every city episode, a car is destroyed. That person is the worst driver in that city. Then for the two-hour final in Los Angeles, the eight winning teams are there. Seven of the eight are going to win back a brand new car. That’s the incentive. However, the winner of America’s Worst Driver wins a bus pass and bicycle. That’s it. We truly want this to be about raising awareness for your driving, and the finale is about redemption.

2. The mayors of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Arlington are all on the same page regarding their priorities for Super Bowl XLV. The weird thing? It’s page 275 from The Da Vinci Code.

3. “An off-duty police officer is accused of hitting two bar workers and pulling a gun on them because they refused to let him back inside after closing.” Kind of getting deja vu, as that’s exactly how my career in law enforcement ended. Now, I just fight crime in my spare time.

Produced by KERA in partnership with CBS 11 and TXA 21, the live, hour-long debate at the CBS/TXA studios in Fort Worth was for the most part a gentlemanly affair, with little of the hard-punching acrimony that marked the two previous Republican debates.

Shami, a self-made guy who was born in Palestine and still speaks with a thick Middle Eastern accent, is running in a nutshell on his success creating jobs as a Houston hair-products magnate. “When I’m governor, everyone’s going to go to work,” he declared tonight. But beyond vowing to create more ”green” employment in the solar energy field, he never really said exactly how he’d accomplish this. His mantra: “The governor is the CEO, the leader, the team builder, he increases revenue. … And I’ve been a CEO.”

White, on the other hand, backed up his positions with great specificity, pounding home his business experience–he’s been involved in energy, construction, and real estate over the years–and his three terms as a popular and generally successful big-city mayor. 

In Houston, for example, he increased access to affordable health care, White said. He cut taxes and improved the city’s bond rating.  And he implemented a system to weed out undocumented workers, he said (though he’d be loathe to force the state to mandate the same).

The two candidates did have their differences. Shami called for a moratorium on the death penalty, for instance, saying, “We have killed lots of innocent people in the state of Texas.” White ripped Gov. Rick Perry over his handling of the Todd Willingham case but disagreed on the need for a moratorium, contending that one would dishonor victims and juries. “By and large,” he said, “this is a just system.” 

The two also clashed over natural gas, Shami advocating a drilling moratorium because of excessive benzene levels found at some wells. “Human life is more precious than digging for gas and oil,” he said during a post-debate news conference. Again White disagreed, saying he’d prefer to strictly enforce the rules on the books: ”We will go after particular sources, but not condemn an entire vital industry.”

Going into tonight’s dust-up, a recent Rasmussen Report showed White losing to all three Republican candidates: to Kay Bailey Hutchison by 15 points, to Rick Perry by nine, and (even) to Debra Medina, by three. It will be interesting to see how those results might change, now that many voters statewide have had their first real look at the former mayor.

With the tea-party movement seemingly on the rise, are Texans looking for a sober, come-let-us-reason-together type? Houston “City Hall was acrimonious before I was mayor,” White said tonight. “I know how to bring people together, to treat every view with respect. We can find common ground.”

DALLAS ISD CAMPUSES MAKE 2009-2010 DISTINGUISHED SCHOOLS LIST
TEA Recognizes Title 1 Schools Demonstrating Strong Academic Performance For a Three-Year Period

DALLAS—The Texas Education Agency’s Division of NCLB Program Coordination has recognized 24 Dallas ISD elementary schools as distinguished campuses for their outstanding performance over the last three years.

Schools making the list are Title 1, Part A campuses that were rated exemplary for 2009-2010, met AYP for 2008 and 2009, and have a student population of 40 percent or more low income students.

The list recognizes schools in two categories, Distinguished Performance and Distinguished Progress. Distinguished Performance schools achieved a minimum of recognized status for the two previous years and are exemplary this year. Distinguished Progress schools increased their status from either academically unacceptable or acceptable two years ago, to recognized or exemplary last year and exemplary this year.

“Students in the Dallas Independent School District continue to make our entire community proud by making impressive academic gains,” said Superintendent of Schools Michael Hinojosa. “To have schools recognized by the NCLB program as distinguished is encouraging, because it shows that progress is being made to close the achievement gap. This is a tremendous accomplishment by the students and staff.”

Dallas ISD Distinguished Performance schools are:
· Arthur Kramer Elementary School
· Charles Rice Learning Center
· Elisha M. Pease Elementary School
· Erasmo Seguin Community Learning Center
· George Peabody Elementary School
· H.S. Thompson Learning Center
· James B. Bonham Elementary School
· John Neely Bryan Elementary School
· Julia C. Frazier Elementary School
· Mount Auburn Elementary School
· Phillis Wheatley Elementary School
· Ronald E. McNair Elementary School
· Sidney Lanier Expressive Arts Vanguard
· Victor H. Hexter Elementary School
· William Lipscomb Elementary School

Dallas ISD Distinguished Progress schools are:
· Harry C. Withers Elementary School
· J.P. Starks Elementary School
· James Bowie Elementary School
· James W. Fannin Elementary School
· Jimmie Tyler Brashear Elementary School
· Julius Dorsey Elementary School
· Nathan Adams Elementary School
· Oran M. Roberts Elementary School
· William B. Miller Elementary School

Last year, eight Dallas ISD schools made the Distinguished Performance list and no schools were on the Distinguished Progress list.
Title 1, Part A schools have a high concentration of students from low-income families and receive supplemental funding to provide a high-quality education that will enable all children to meet the state’s student performance standards.
For more information, visit the Web site.

From: William J. Lindquist

Chief Executive Officer

Waste Control Specialists LLC

To: Tim Rogers

Executive Editor

D Magazine

It is apparent from your February 2010 article on Harold Simmons and Waste Control Specialists (WCS), titled Evil Genius, that D Magazine has no interest in providing an unbiased or accurate depiction of Harold Simmons, the man, and the disposal operations at WCS’ site in Andrews County, Texas.

[LP: The D Magazine article is an investigative report. Many people were interviewed and the issues considered from many angles. Harold Simmons, one of several people mentioned in the article, is depicted as a person of complexity. The same is true for NL Industries and WCS. If we entertain the recent SCOTUS ruling that corporations are people, it is fair to conclude, that if people are fallible and complex, then so too are business entities. The nature of WCS’ services--involving PCBs, a broad spectrum of radioactive waste, and possibly 13,000-15,000 metric tons of mercury--should be expected to arouse a great amount of public scrutiny. Certainly more so than if we were discussing a donut factory.

To write accurately and truthfully is a task requiring work and thoughtful examination. To write otherwise is to engage in a type of tautology centered around positive PR that is not meant to be questioned, but rather accepted uncritically as fact or as unexamined flattery. It is clear what type of article D Magazine chose to publish: an investigative report.]

Characterizing as “evil”  a well-known philanthropist like Mr. Simmons who has contributed more than $450 million to mostly Dallas-based charities is deplorable especially for a magazine that purportedly promotes Dallas and its charitable events.

[LP: Paragraph 1 of the story opens with Simmons’ charitable giving, with a word count of 76. Paragraph 6 begins with “Simmons has been generous with his wealth,” with a word count of 54. This would work out to a total of 130 words on the topic of Simmons’ philanthropy whereas only 85 words were devoted to Luis Sepulveda’s contributions appearing in paragraph 20. If one were to read the on-line version, paragraph 6 is featured as a pull-out quote, doubling the word count and appearing in a larger font for greater emphasis.]

Every characterization regarding the geology and alleged groundwater issues associated with the WCS site in Andrews County is either false or represents a reckless distortion of the facts. The site is the ideal location for disposing of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW)–its arid climate and unique geologic formation make it perfectly qualified. More than 18 years of extensive geologic testing and review–not to mention a century of oil and gas exploration in the area–makes this one of the most studied, analyzed and researched geologic formations in the country. Without any factual or scientific basis, your author makes numerous assertions and conclusions that are simply inaccurate.

[LP: Without specific examples on what is being characterized as errant, it is not possible to respond.]

The attacks contained in the article on the community of Andrews aren’t just wrong, they are mean-spirited and inaccurate. The citizens of Andrews County have a 20-year investment in making WCS a success and fully support WCS’ business of providing a solution to a very real and growing problem facing our state and nation. LLRW is currently being stored at universities and hospitals all across Texas, including Dallas, with limited safeguards in comparison to the alternative that the WCS site will provide.

[LP: Without specific quotes to substantiate the conclusion that the article contains mean-spirited or inaccurate attacks on the community of Andrews, a response is not possible.]

A long term solution for the storage and disposal of LLRW is a critical national need and the WCS facility provides the safest solution to address this need. The strongest attribute of the site’s location in Andrews County is that–in fact–it does not sit atop or adjacent to any underground drinking water supply. The near-surface disposal facilities which will include a state of the art liner system will be constructed atop several hundred feet of nearly impermeable red bed clays which are ten times less permeable than concrete.

[LP: There is agreement with the first part of the first sentence. We are in a critical situation with over sixty years of accumulated radioactive waste from atomic exploration combined with a much smaller, daily accrual of waste generated by hospitals, research facilities and nuclear reactors.

The statement that the strongest attribute of the site is that “it does not sit atop or adjacent to any underground drinking water supply” is misleading. It sits atop the Dockum, a minor aquifer. In matters of radioactive material, any water is a potential pathway. The travel of radionuclides is not determined by potable or non-potable distinctions. Bradley and Kalaswad have written extensively about "The Dockum Aquifer in West Texas." They write that the "poor water quality, low yields, and declining water levels have generally discouraged its use except locally," though "the Dockum aquifer can be an important source of groundwater for irrigation, public supply, oil-field activity, livestock and manufacturing purposes."]

This past year, WCS was proud to play a part in the final disposition of waste generated from ore mined in the former Belgian Congo which was used as part of the Manhattan Project. The ore was initially processed and shipped to Oak Ridge, Tennessee where it was enriched into weapons grade uranium. 80% of this uranium was used to make the first nuclear weapon, detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, which helped end World War II. The tailings from the Belgian Congo ore contained wastes that were shipped to Fernald, Ohio, beginning in 1951, where it was stored for more than 50 years until it was safely disposed at the WCS site. The former Fernald, Ohio storage site has been returned for use by the community as a park.

[LP: The park referred to is the Eco Park, located within the DOE Legacy Management site. There is much to be said about the park from local residents. People I spoke with said they only allow their children “to ride their bicycles on the sidewalks there and never allow them to take off their shoes, sit on the ground or touch anything.”

In addition to the park, the 1,050-acre site has a visitor’s center and teaching facility that houses archives. The person who was interviewed and quoted in the article is the DOE Legacy Management site manager for the Fernald Preserve.

She described the waste as from the Cold War-era. An identical description is contained in a WCS Status Report from September 2009. In reference to the byproducts disposal, the report states, “With the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) approval, WCS contracted to store Cold War-era radioactive waste from Fernald, Ohio in 2005.” This is in contradiction to what is written above as it is generally accepted that the Cold War-era began after the Manhattan Project. The National Archives defines the Cold War-era as occurring “from the end of World War II through the dissolution of the Soviet Union into the Commonwealth of Independent States.”

It is clear that a definitive answer on this matter has not been established. The foremost authority on the forensics of the Fernald site is Dr. Arjun Makhijani. I did speak to him in reference to the percentage of uranium content in the Belgium Congo ore, but did not have a discussion on the history of the residues in Silos 1 and 2. He stays very busy with research and publishing though he is generous with his time in answering questions along these lines.

I think the intent of the discussion of the Fernald waste and the inaccuracy of local media reports is clear. It is owed to readers that news reporting handle subjects with some degree of specificity and independent analysis.]

All of this information was shared with the author, but you wouldn’t know it from her article.

[LP: The interview with WCS spokesperson Chuck McDonald did not include a discussion of the Fernald waste beyond asking for a verification of the weight of the canisters as reported in local media. The first part of the interview consisted of a review of numbers and dates (e.g. confirmation of the acreage of the site, disposal dates); the remainder was devoted to a discussion of aquifers, the revised TWDB maps, and the underground disposal system WCS has installed to “pump moisture out.”]

Following are just a few of the key facts about the WCS site geology that she failed to mention or just got wrong:

▪ More than 18 years of local geologic and hydrologic investigations at the WCS site show there are no shallow aquifers. None of the Ogallala, Trinity-Edwards [sic] or the Pecos River aquifers is present at the disposal site. The only aquifers are contained within the nearly impermeable red bed clays, almost 400 feet below the bottom of the site.

[LP: Issues regarding the aquifers are discussed in the article at great length with sources amply noted.]

▪ The finest hydrological experts in the county have determined that the first almost 400 feet of the red bed clays is dry and vertical movement of any potential water is not possible. Water in the Trujillo aquifer, which is trapped 400 feet below the landfill between two zones of red bed clays, resulted from a lateral flow of water during the last Ice Age more than 16,000 years ago. WCS’ extensive drilling and testing, which was reviewed for 5 years by state regulators, confirmed there is no water in the clays themselves and water, including the Trujillo aquifer, does not move vertically at the WCS site. Put simply, no contamination of this aquifer from the WCS site is possible.

▪ WCS has drilled almost 500 boreholes to characterize the subsurface geology and hydrologic conditions. This unprecedented level of characterization provides and accurate portrayal of local conditions that is not possible with broader, less-focused regional tests and reports.

[LP: Drill logs from the RCRA Investigation (Exhibit 5-1 A) reported moisture throughout the WCS site. Core from the majority of logs was described as moist. There is also a report obtainable through the TCEQ (Interoffice Memorandum, Jan. 26, 2009, WCS Site Visit report) that contains a detailed description of when groundwater was “unexpectedly” encountered during the excavation of the byproduct landfill. The same report contains pictures that show standing groundwater, and soil stratum that have portions that are moist.

As for a discussion of the Trujillo Aquifer, more information would be needed. I am not aware of the naming convention that is being used or how it was arrived at. In the interview with McDonald, he mentioned the Trujillo Formation. (Formation, according to USGS convention, is used to denote a geologic unit that has the potential to bear water.) He described the the Trujillo Formation as 500-600 ft. below the surface. He had earlier said that the Dockum Aquifer was located 500 ft. below the site.

The information in this response letter states that the Trujillo Aquifer is “trapped 400 feet below the landfill.”  It could be assumed what is being called the Trujillo Aquifer or Trujillo Formation is being used interchangeably and may relate to the Dockum Aquifer, but even then, the depths are not consistent. In addition, both the singular and plural form of aquifer is used in this letter. It is unclear how many aquifers WCS believes are on-site. Clarification is needed in order to understand what is being conveyed.]

The article contains many other grossly inaccurate statements that are too numerous to list; however, I hope you will use the information ignored or misrepresented by the author to correct some of the most significant inaccuracies of your article in your next publication. Please contact me if you would care to have your readers see a correct article on WCS and the community of Andrews, Texas.

SIncerely,

William L. Lindquist

Chief Executive Officer

Waste Control Specialists LLC

Some in the audience chuckled, but others weren’t so amused. One younger faculty member rose during the Q&A period to offer a thoughtful, and heartfelt, challenge:

“To say things with clarity is not to be the Catholic Taliban,” she said, adding that she found the phrase “profoundly offensive.”

“There are no suicide bombers in the Catholic church,” she said, “but we have had an epidemic of Catholicism Lite for the last 30 years.” Younger Catholics, she insisted, should not be dismissed as fanatics simply because they seek “fidelity and clarity.”

Her remarks were met with applause, suggesting she had struck a chord, though others later pulled me aside to say they found them strident.

The exchange reinforces the description Allen wrote about the University of Dallas itself. The way Allen reports it, it’s an institution that has not always been open-minded in its brand of Catholicism, but that there have been signs that it has tried to change that outlook:

One place to watch these tensions play out is the University of Dallas, where I took part in a panel discussion Monday night devoted to “the identity of a Catholic university.” The point of departure was Bishop Kevin Farrell’s commencement address last May, in which he warned against “dogmatism, closed mindedness, judgmentalism, [and] suspicion of another’s motives” in the life of a Catholic university.

Here’s what makes the situation especially interesting.

A strong current in Catholic life these days is what I’ve called “evangelical Catholicism,” meaning a drive for clarity and courage about Catholic identity. It’s both top-down, the most important policy-setting instinct in Catholicism, and also bottom-up, especially palpable among a cohort of younger Catholics usually tagged the “John Paul II generation.”

Dallas has just such an evangelical ethos. Given its recent history and the kind of person it tends to attract, the university is popularly regarded as a “conservative” alternative to Catholic institutions sometimes seen as more secular and liberal. (I chatted with one young man Monday night, for example, who told me there’s a cluster of students at UD from California who came here because they didn’t feel they could find a “serious” Catholic university back home.)

In other words, if you’re looking for an experiment as to whether it’s possible to be both unapologetically Catholic and yet civil in engaging disagreement, the University of Dallas represents a mighty interesting laboratory.