If some Ohio legislators have their way, those cameras will have to be unplugged. Statehouse correspodent Bill Cohen reports critics of the cameras are once again proposing a statewide ban, and local officials are fighting back.

Click the play button above to hear Bill’s reports.

Union officials said on Friday that they would strike even if they reached an agreement. The strike means there will be no fixed-route service today, but Will Call and non-ADA trips will not be affected.

Union members are expected to vote on the deal at a meeting tonight.

Transport Workers Union Local 208 President Andrew Jordan says the strike is planned for July 2nd.

The union represents drivers, mechanics and other staff at COTA. Officials involved in talks throughout the Spring say at issue is worker wages.

If a strike does occur, it could disrupt Red, White and Boom July 3rd. Traditionally,  COTA provides rides for thousands of people to and from the downtown event.

An extension of the Union’s old contract expired in April.

As many as 788,000 people commute each day in the Columbus Metro area. And The US Census Bureau says they’re lonely – riding alone, no one in the passenger seat. For years, MORPC has pushed different campaigns to promote less driving, like this week’s “Car Free Day.” The commission does not have a specific goal as to how many cars it would like to take off the roads.

But what if, say, 10 percent of us stopped driving alone. So what would happen if 78,000 Central Ohioans permanently parked their cars? Right away we’d see…

“Less congestion.”

Melissa Ayers speaks for the Ohio Department of Transportation. She said taking nearly 80,000 cars off Central Ohio’s state roads like Route 315 and Interstates 70 and 71 might make the drive to and from work a little easier. But would it save ODOT any money? Would fewer commuters extend the lives of the highways? Only if big trucks joined them.

“If you’re looking at cars volume is definitely a part of it, but when it comes to wear and tear on our roads it really the heavy vehicles that contribute to it,” Ayers said.

So ODOT would not necessarily save any money if fewer people decided to stop driving. Actually, ODOT could lose money. But we’ll come back to that in a minute.

Cars take fuel. And fuel provides money to state and local coffers from the gas tax. Last year, the state collected more than $1.6 billion in gas taxes. Columbus got nearly $24.3 million of that.

Gary Gudmundson is a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Taxation. Gudmundson said taking nearly 80,000 cars off the roads in Columbus would have minimal affect on the money Columbus receives.

“The impact will be, it will be felt, of course, everybody likes every dollar they can get. But it will not be that profound,” he said.

It’s worth noting, simply reducing fuel consumption would have a minimal affect on Columbus’ gas tax dollars. But if the number of cars registered in Columbus drastically declined – by say 80,000 – then gas tax revenue could take a bigger hit because gas tax dollars are distributed based on registered vehicles.

So, the state and Columbus would fare OK if 80,000 of us stopped driving tomorrow. But if 80,000 people in cities all over Ohio boot their cars, ODOT might actually feel the change in transit habits. And ODOT’s Melissa Ayers said there’s already uncertainty in funding.

“Cars are already fuel efficient. With the sluggish economy people are already driving less. So we’re seeing those decreases. Our goal here is to get the most value out of every dollar we spend so we’re definitely keeping tabs on that,” she said.

What about the air quality and asthma sufferers? Surely taking 78,000 plus cars off the roads would help. The short answer is yes. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said getting 10 percent of Columbus area drivers to stop driving would not hurt, and it would definitely help on ozone alert days. But the agency said it’s difficult to quantify just how much of a difference 80,000 fewer cars would make.

Barbara Hickcox coordinate’s the Ohio Department of Health’s asthma program. Hickcox also said it’s hard to say just how much relief Columbus-area asthma sufferers would get from a 10 percent decline in drivers, but it certainly could not hurt.

“I would like to see enough taken off the road so we don’t have these air quality alerts,” Hickcox said.

OK, so we’ve covered how such a decline in drivers would affect traffic congestion, tax dollars, air quality and respiratory issues, but commuters have to get to work some how. What about the bus? Could COTA handle a quick increase of 78,000 new riders?

“We would be severely strained to handle that in a very short period of time,” COTA President and CEO Bill Lhota said.

Lhota said they already serve 35,000 riders a day. He said COTA would need more lines, buses and drivers. But he said if that increase happened over time, COTA could handle it. He said they’re already planning to add service.

“If we were to get 78,000 riders tomorrow morning we would be in a world of hurt. But incrementally, we can monitor capacity and as capacity fills up we can add additional service. As I think realistically I think that’s the way it’s going to happen. I don’t think 78,000 people are going to show up on our doorstep tomorrow,” he said.

Bob Lawler directs transportation at MORPC. He’s the brains behind “Car Free Day” and other campaigns. Lawler said there are up sides and down sides to choosing not to drive. But he argues fewer cars means fewer road expansions.

“So I think the benefits outweigh the costs. And I don’t think anyone is expecting people to just give up their cars. I think that you know all over the country and all over the world people value the personal, the ability to travel. And we’re anticipating that would continue to be the major way people move,” Lawler said.

Patricia Kovacs, who has been biking for years, has had her share of run-ins.

“We get yelled at all the time to get on the sidewalk. We have to yell back it’s illegal in Columbus to ride on the sidewalk. We get passed too closely,” she said.

Kovacs is a League of American Bicyclist Instructor and an Ohio Bicycle Federation board member. Kovacs said she has been trying, for two years, to get the Ohio Department of Public Safety to include more bicycle law-specific questions added on the state’s driver’s license written test. Questions like when can a cyclist ride in the center of the lane or can you pass a bike in a no-passing zone?

“They were receptive, but then that person left their job and someone else just started. So it’s like a slow process,” she said.

Michigan has included specific questions about bike laws in its written exam for at least 15 years. Kelley Chesney speaks for the Michigan Secretary of State.

“Well actually we would talk about bicycles and mopeds and motorcyclists pretty much the same, you know, giving tips on how to handle those types of operators on the roadways. And, yes, we do cover it. And we cover it in-depth in our driver (education) program. And there are questions on our test,” Chesney said.

Kovacs said state officials have given her a number of reasons for the delay in making changes.

“Well I’ve been told the reason is, at least for the (Ohio) Department of Public Safety, is they’re looking at where the most problems are. There’s a lot more people killed in car crashes. And the next highest is motorcycles, pedestrians, and motor vehicles passengers and drivers. There aren’t as many bicycle deaths so it’s not as high priority is what I’ve been told,” Kovacs said.

According to the state department of public safety’s most recent crash report, there were 18 fatalities involving bicyclists in 2008 and nearly 1,600 injuries.

The state’s highway laws are summarized in the Digest of Motor Vehicle Laws, which is offered to driver’s license applicants. It dedicates one page to bicycle laws and there’s a picture of a bike crossing warning sign. Kovacs said there should be more information in the digest. But Lindsay Komlanc, who speaks for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, said state agencies are doing “everything possible” to educate drivers on sharing the road. And she added the digest cannot address every law.

“It has to hit in a very small amount of space the main points out there for those laws and it does go into some detail as far as bicycle safety. That digest has to cover a multitude of different laws, and it is also understood that while that is the digest of the main laws, if you are to be operating a motor vehicle in the state of Ohio you are required to know all of the laws out there,” Komlancs said. The driver’s license written exam has 40 randomly selected questions out of a pool of 600.

Jenna Lynn Meadows recently took the written exam. She said there were two details questions on her test about bikes.

“How do you get around bicyclers when you’re like in your car? How would you do that? And that one, I didn’t know the answer to that one. I just skipped that one. One of the ones said would you honk your horn to get try to get them off the road? And I knew that couldn’t be the answer. You wouldn’t honk your horn at a bicyclist. Would you?,” Meadows asked.

Briana Yarbrough just took the test. There was one question about bikes on her exam.

“It showed the sign to say you know what does this mean? And it was that bicycles may be around or crossing or something like that,” Yarbrough said.

The Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Komlanc said the current driver’s education curriculum addresses specific laws pertaining to sharing the road with bicyclists including what to look for from cyclists and actions to take as a driver. She said the current curriculum was written in 2002 and is being updated this year to include more bike-specific information.

Safety officials said Wednesday the problem was highlighted by a wrong-way crash involving a woman in New York last month that killed 8 people.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the number of women arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs increased nearly 30 percent between 1998 and 2007. The number of men arrested under the influence fell 7.5 percent during the same period.

The department says the number of impaired women involved in a fatal crash increased in Ohio and nine other states from 2007 to 2008.

Ohio had a 17 percent increase in the number of drunken women drivers involved in fatal crashes between 2007 and last year. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration says Ohio had the largest increase in impaired women drivers of the 10 states that registered higher numbers.

Governor Ted Strickland plans to sign the idea into law next week, but civil libertarians warn they might challenge the plan’s constitutionality in court.

Statehouse correspondent Bill Cohen reports .

The Ohio House has passed a bill declaring that 16-year-old motorists may not have more than one non-family member in the car with them. The measure also says 16-year-olds may not drive between midnight and 6 in the morning. The bill’s sponsor, Tom Raga, says there’s good reason to crack DOWN on the youngest inexperienced motorists. “According to the Journal of Safety Research, the risk of a fatal crash is three times higher after 9PM for 16-year-old drivers,” says Raga.

The measure approved by the House would also toughen Ohio’s mandatory seat belt law. It would require everyone younger than 15 to be restrained by seat belts or special booster seats whether they’re in the front seat or the back seat.

Now, state senators plan consider the proposal.

“At the same time we recognize and celebrate the reports like this that show that we have made substantial progress, the fact remains that too many teen drivers are still getting into accidents. And we attribute that to inexperience and distractions,”Stratmann said.

Spokesperson for the Ohio Insurance Institute, Mary Bonelli, agreed. Bonelli said while teenagers make up only seven percent of drivers they have the highest crash rates. She said it is very important for teens to be able to focus on driving and should limit the number of people in the car with them.

“It is very, very important to eliminate all distractions or as many of those distractions as possible. And it’s found that the more passengers that a teenager has in the car, the higher the chances are of being distracted and the possibility of being in a crash,” Bonelli said.

Bonelli said the state’s current graduated driver’s license has somewhat reduce the number of crashes and fatalities among teen drivers. Currently, a teenager must be 15-and-a-half years old to be able to test for a permit. New legislation before the General Assembly would increase the age to 16. It would also limit the number of passengers a teen could have in the car and restrict late night driving.