What do you think about Gov. Patrick's proposal to deploy civilian flaggers, rather than police officers, on certain state road projects? (Poll Closed)

The results are deceiving. Options #1 and #3 are too similar.
Combining their totals would outweigh the total responses for #2...

How sweet it would be, if Public Safety were free! Public Safety should ,of course, be the number one issue here. Public Safety, however, takes a back seat to Public Liability. Now, some groups want to put Public Spending in the driver's seat. Well guess what? In the long run Flaggers or any other entity besides trained police officers will cost us much, much more. For example, just one lousy lawsuit against the town or state could negate years of savings. Flaggers or whatever is proposed to replaced Police will require training. Soon, after much abuse by the motoring public, these Flaggers will form a union, want more money, more training, and eventually, after a few are run down, police powers, guns, and vehicles with distinct markings. What does this sound like??? Yup. Another Police department replete with nepotism and scandal. The current system isn't broken, its just a lot of people cannot stand that the Police earn so much money. Well, they do put in their time, and their departments do set restrictions and guidelines regarding details. As a former police officer who has worked in the capacity of detail assignments, I can tell you that I have determined that some sites do not need a detail, but the contractor wanted an officer present for his own liability. No matter how many officers we have out on the streets, we are still going to have morons driving around on a cell phone with a Yorkie on their lap. Don't take cops off the streets for money issues, our Public Safety depends on them.

If it really were safer to use police officers, why don't the other 49 states do it? It's time to acknowledge when the results are in and an experiment has failed.