Well, when you come right down to it, American class distinctions don't play out on the highway at all. Real Wall Street machers wouldn't think of traveling to the Hamptons sharing the roadway with the hoi polloi -- they go by helicopter.
In fact, the really surpising thing about NJ Gov. Jon Corzine's recent near-fatal road crash isn't that the governor's car was traveling at over 90 mph because of the dreadfully *urgent* necessity of getting Corzine to a photo op with Don Imus but that the governor was using humble surface transportation. That mistake will not be made again as Corzine rushes to make future dreadfully *urgent* appointments with media cameras around the state:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While recovering, Corzine touts state helicopter use Posted by the Ocean County Observer on 05/8/07 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As he recovers from serious injuries suffered in a high-speed car accident, Gov. Jon S. Corzine isn't shying from a political hot potato in New Jersey — using a state-funded helicopter to travel.
Recent Garden State governors have been chided for using state helicopters to travel to political and personal events. But following a near-fatal car accident on the Garden State Parkway crash, Corzine touted traveling by helicopter as practical.
"I have tended to use the helicopter a little more than some of the previous governors already," he said yesterday as he resumed work as governor. "It makes sense. And if there's anything personal I'll reimburse it, and if it's on state business I think it's appropriate."
During her successful 1993 gubernatorial campaign, Christie Whitman criticized Gov. Jim Florio's use of a state helicopter, while Gov. James E. McGreevey was criticized for using a state helicopter to take 14 non-governmental trips.
Corzine spokesman Anthony Coley said Corzine has used a state helicopter two to three times per month since taking office in January 2006, and a private helicopter three to five times per month.
"He rents and pays for a private helicopter when the event he was leaving from or going to is not official state business," Coley said of Corzine, a multimillionaire.
State police have said the state helicopter costs about $3,000 per hour for fuel and the pilot.
That's nothing compared to the hospital bill Corzine is expected to get and pay himself — estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — after breaking his leg, 11 ribs, collarbone and sternum, among other injuries in the auto accident.
On April 12, Corzine traveled by motorcade from the governor's mansion in Princeton to Pottstown, Pa., where he attended a funeral for an FBI agent shot and killed in Readington. He went on to Bergen County in northern New Jersey, then back down south to Atlantic City.
Corzine initially planned to travel via helicopter throughout that day. But they had to cancel the helicopter because of rain, meaning Corzine would be driven more than 400 miles that day.
The crash occurred as he was being driven back to the governor's mansion to meet with fired radio show host Don Imus and the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
"There was no way that anybody would rationally say, "I'm going to go to damn near the middle of Pennsylvania to Bergen County and Atlantic,' I mean, we didn't," Corzine said. "I didn't like the idea. I certainly wasn't encouraging it, but we had made commitments to be in certain places and so we made those commitments and fulfilled them."
Corzine's state trooper-driven SUV was driving 91 mph when it got into the crash, which occurred when a pickup truck clipped the SUV, sending it into a guardrail. The pickup swerved to avoid another pickup that drove onto the shoulder to avoid the onrushing SUV with flashing lights.
Corzine said he hopes a special commission co-chaired by Whitman that is reviewing the state police unit that protects the governor will determine "that we're a lot better off having a safe and a rested governor."
<http://www.ocobserver.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20070508&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=705080306&SectionCat=&Template=printart> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl
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