Lady Liberty of Las Vegas

Driving home around 5:30pm last week . . . this is one of the sites along the way. Driving in Las Vegas has some unique and iconic moments.

Driving Fun

On the backroads of Las Vegas, beware! The old folks are menacing!

Ever-present Cones

Traffic construction cones are EVERYWHERE in Las Vegas. These are on Paradise and Desert Inn.

For your amusement and general overall enjoyment, here's a link to one of my favorite blogs:

http://www.27bslash6.com/index.html

Believe me, it's a lot more amusing than traffic cones.

Fun with DMV Folks

Hilary Swank was fantastic in "Million Dollar Baby" with Clint Eastwood. It's one of my favorite movies. But neither the movie nor Hilary Swank have anything to do with my story about a recent experience I had at the Las Vegas Department of Motor Vehicles. I had to go there before my last birthday to get a new license. Every ten years you have to go there in person to get a new picture taken for your license. So I did. I paid them eight dollars and they told me I'd get my new license in the mail in a week to ten days. After almost a month waiting for it to arrive, I called to see what was up. A guy told me there was a problem with the picture and I would have to go back to the DMV and redo things. I was overjoyed. I could think of nothing better to do than to go back and redo something I already did at the DMV. When I got there they were nice enough to expedite me through the waiting list and I got to visit with Ray at booth #7. As I completed the paperwork Ray said, "Eight dollars." I said, I already paid for this. Ray said, "you left without getting your picture taken last time." I said, "No, I got my picture taken. Apparently your equipment malfunctioned." Ray, whose shirt buttons strained against a large belly said, "It says here you didn't get your picture taken." But I did, and reluctantly I dropped my credit card on the counter for Ray and asked, "Where do I file a complaint?" He told me and I went over. Ray went over to the supervisor too when he saw I wasn't kidding about a complaint. You have to stand by a waist-high swinging door that's just beyond two desks occupied by large, unattractive women. I don't know what Ray said to her, but one came over to me and said, "You have to pay." Disgruntled, but determined I asked, "Who's your supervisor?" "He's out to lunch." "Is there a form I can submit?" She got me the form and then told me I could get reimbursed for five dollars. "But I paid eight dollars." She said, "You have to pay for the replacement card." "But I never got the card." The reply fell on deaf ears so I filled out the complaint form and brought it back to her. She gave me my receipt for five dollars. The DMV still is up three dollars on this raw deal. I wonder how many others have a similar story to tell. I wonder how much the DMV rakes in on their "broken cameras?" At least the sensual beauty of Hilary Swank gives me some solace.

Parking at UNLV

It used to be free to park on the UNLV campus--15 years ago. Today it costs a considerable number of pennies to get a pass. Even with a parking pass, finding convenient parking is problematic. Some tips:

1) Even if you have a parking pass, if you park at a meter and feed the meter, you will get a ticket. Yes, even if you pay the meter, the parking authorities have, in their kindness, deemed this ticketable. So take your pass off if you want to use a meter.

2) Put some sort of Hawaiian bumper sticker or window decal on your car--you will be less likely to get a ticket if you park illegally by accident or on purpose. This is a rumor I heard--due to the large number of Hawaiian-born students who get jobs as parking ticketers, this trick may work.

3) If you don't have a parking pass, no change for the meters, or simply can't find any convenient parking, park in the In-and-Out Burger lot adjacent to the campus.

4) There are some side streets across Maryland Parkway that I've heard are good for parking if you don't mind walking a bit and crossing Maryland Parkway. Heck, get a coffee at Einstein's on your way to campus and use the crosswalk.

If I think of some other tricks I'll post them. Until then, remember to lock your doors.

Pink Ticket Fixer

This gaudy building on the corner of Flamingo and Rainbow is a traffic lawyer's office. The fact that it is on Flamingo and Rainbow makes the bright pink building quite appropriate. Even though pink isn't typically thought of as part of a rainbow's spectrum of colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet), the reference to pink flamingos is completely fitting. (You might also notice from the palm trees that it was very windy this day).

I imagine traffic lawyers do very well in Las Vegas. There are accidents all the time in this town. This is a party town after all and people get stupid. And if you're a pedestrian or a pedestrian on a bike, be extra careful walking or riding the streets of Las Vegas. I think some drivers actually aim for these slow-moving targets. Yes, Vegas has an extremely high rate of pedestrians getting run over by cars and trucks. And god forbid you walk in a crosswalk--you might as well put a sign on your back, "Hit Me." One time I was walking across Maryland Parkway in a very brightly flashing pedestrian cross-walk and pick-up truck failed to yield and passed right in front of me as I negotiated the middle of its 7-lanes. Swearing as he passed by, the driver flipped me off. It was hair-raisingly laughable. Be careful out there friends.

It's been almost a year since I last posted on this blog, but now I pick up the banner again to report on the various ins and outs of driving in Las Vegas. I'm doing this primarily because I'm currently teaching a course at UNLV about social media and the need to do what I preach seems relevant.

Secondarily, the topic of driving, roadways, and transportation issues in general are of some scholarly interest to me, a media studies professor. Media studies?! Transportation?! What's the link, you, good reader, may be asking yourself (if indeed any readers at all are seeing this--which so far looks doubtful)? Well, historically, in the area of social research, transportation and communication were part of similar research area. Malcom Wiley and Stuart A. Rice's (1933) classic volume, "Communication Agencies and Social Life" is an example in which one can see academic critique of newspapers and transportation discussed as related communicative agencies. Not until later that century did transportation split off from its study as a communicative form to become a civil engineering sub-discipline. Through this blog, I, in my minute way, bring these two entities back together. I believe my former mentor, John Durham Peters, would take some delight in this move.