Unlicensed drivers, wind turbines and whale deaths
A dead humpback whale that washed ashore in Long Beach in 2023. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Tech can help with unlicensed drivers
This problem of unlicensed drivers can be fixed over time by two technological innovations [“Unlicensed on LI’s roads,” News, May 4].
First, all U.S. driver’s licenses should be required to have an enhanced programmable chip, like a credit card. It would be needed to start a motor vehicle’s engine or allow its transmission to be engaged. Driver’s licenses should also have an electronic identification address so that the issuing state’s motor vehicle department could be instantaneously contacted by U.S. law or justice agencies.
Second, each vehicle manufacturer, domestic or foreign, should be required to have an ignition or transmission interlocking device that would be unlocked by tapping a REAL or enhanced license on a touch screen.
If a vehicle’s operator has a suspended or revoked license, the court should immediately notify the issuing state that unlocking has been disabled. If a license is eventually restored, the state DMV could instantly restore the functionality.
— Burt Feilich, East Rockaway
Turbines do not cause whale deaths
A reader applauded the Empire Wind project pause, claiming that the halt was the reason no whales or dolphins washed ashore on Long Island in the past few weeks [“Conflicting views of Empire Wind pause,” Letters, May 1]. This linkage is false for two reasons.
First, offshore construction on the turbine project had not even started. Second, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, after analyzing years of data, has stated, “There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.”
I have studied whales for over 30 years, helped conduct necropsies on dead, stranded whales, and attended science conferences on the issue. Claims of whale deaths linked to offshore wind have no basis in fact. The main causes of whale deaths, when determined, are ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement.
— Douglas Schmid, Northport
The writer is an adjunct professor of environmental science at Nassau Community College.
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