Simple. Virginia’s highways are already carrying four times as much traffic as they were designed to handle, and half the vehicles are large trucks. The average speed is 10 miles over the existing speed limit, and in many stretches the trucks are literally bumper to bumper — drafting to save fuel. The horrific accident rate on these roads has already prompted press attention.

So the idea of increasing speeds has to be one of the world’s dumbest ideas. Maybe Virginia should issue a new license plate — “See Virginia and Die.”

McDonnell’s rejection of tax increases is correct, but his budget cuts will attract business if they are primarily based on cutting the overpay of state employees — most of it in the form of lavish retirement benefits — which have been pumped up while the private sector has been eliminating them. If McDonnell does not attack the overpay and overstaffing problem, his program to attract business will fail.

All in all, a nice, handsome young chap. But not very smart.

Richard C. Kreutzberg

Chevy Chase

Education is many children’s only way out

Re: “Obama’s education rhetoric doesn’t come close to reality,” Feb. 3

Unlike the vast majority of The Examiner’s readers, I actually spend a little time in the “hood” and have been in the worst ghettos of this country … always in the morning, since no one in their right mind wants to be there when the predators wake up.

In far too many of these communities, children are forced to live with a crime rate that matches war-torn countries. They are screwed from the womb and their only hope is a decent education. That this country forces these vulnerable youngsters into a life of almost guaranteed failure is an obscenity.

If more people had seen what I have, no politician would survive the voters’ wrath for keeping these unfortunate children in such chains of misery.

John Conlin

President Conlin Beverage Consulting Inc.

Reid too politically correct for his own good

Re: “Reid’s numbers go from bad to worse,” Jan. 9

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says his description of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential bid as “light-skinned” and “with no Negro dialect” was a poor choice of words.

I have one question: When is telling the truth a poor choice? Do we always have to deny the truth and accept what is considered good politics?

Wendel Allen

Alexandria