Student pedestrian ticketed for Ponce accident
Joseph Iannelli, a freshman, was issued a citation for disregarding a traffic signal on Oct. 14.
Iannelli was ticketed after being struck by Lynette Otwoma, a UM alumna, at the Ponce de Leon Boulevard crosswalk.
The crash report said Otwoma had a green light and that she was not at fault, noting that Iannelli entered the crosswalk as Otwoma was traveling through the intersection.
Iannelli was treated at Doctors Hospital for cuts to his arm and Otwoma was treated for glass in her foot as a result of the windshield being shattered.
Hurry Cane shuttle route changes
Two upcoming Real Estate and Facilities road construction projects will cause Hurry Cane shuttle route changes starting Thursday, Oct. 25. Road construction will begin on San Amaro Drive, and will be completed on Oct. 31. The shuttle routes will change as follows:
-When the northbound lane of San Amaro is closed (Oct. 25 – 10/27), instead of picking up at Hecht Athletic the Shuttle will pick up at the corner of Corniche Avenue and San Amaro .
– When the southbound lane is closed (10/29 – 10/31) the Shuttle will pick up at the corner of Corniche Avenue and San Amaro.
Beginning on Oct. 29, road construction will change the shuttle routes in and around University Village.
– The road construction is a three-phase project, each phase approximately 4 weeks in duration (Phase I: 10/29 – 11/26; Phase II: 11/26 – 12/24; Phase III: 12/24 – 1/21).
-The project affects the Fountain Route, the Stanford Route, and the UV/Communication Route.
-3 new temporary shuttle stops at San Amaro/Dance Studio, Liguria, and Village Drive will substitute for the three temporarily closed stops at Brescia, Liguria and UV Scodella Garage. Both Brescia shuttle stops are temporarily closed. Students must use the alternate shuttle stop at the corner of San Amaro Drive and Levante Avenue.
The road construction projects affect only Hurry Cane shuttle traffic, not other vehicular traffic. For more information, contact Parking & Transportation Services at 305-284-3096, option 1.
University analyzes last week’s emergency test inefficiencies
By Blair Brettschneider // Contributing News Writer
The Emergency Notification Network (ENN) test last week may have something in common with cooking, according to Vice President of Business Services Alan Fish.
“It’s sort of like baking a pie, you’ve got to get all the ingredients right for it to come out right,” he said.
Fish discussed the weaknesses of the test, noting that the sirens at the Pavia Garage and Law School did not activate, and personnel located on the edge of campus reported a “low sound.”
Additional sirens will be added, and in an actual emergency the sound will last at least three minutes instead of one.
Many students also received multiple text messages because the text was too long to fit into one message. Fish said that the number of text messages would depend on the information that needs to be delivered.
“We would like to make it one text message, but that will be contingent on the emergency,” he said, also noting that students agreed to the text message charges when they registered their cell phones on MyUM.
Fish aid data showed mixed indications on whether cell-phone carriers impacted the time of text-message receipt.
In addition, the test did not exercise the “acknowledgement function,” which would reduce the number of ways information would be communicated to each individual and reduce the time span of the system. With this function, a student would “acknowledge” the text, e-mail or phone call reived, and would no longer receive redundant messages.
“In a real emergency the ‘tell others’ request would spread the message faster than what technology can provide,” Fish said. “We have over 5000 pages of data to review and a variety of issues to address. Our team is currently working on the optimum call process by analyzing the data.”
Fish said the university is looking into conducting annual tests, but they will be smaller in the future, using only a sample of about 200 people.
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The university’s test was one of six conducted by universities throughout the United States, and 80,000 messages were sent out on the day of UM’s test.