Page 2 March 17, 2016 TORRANCE TRIBUNE Wants to Show ExxonMobil Mutual Support ExxonMobil has been a visible corporate citizen in our community, sponsoring numerous programs and activities to support the City and its residents. They have a long history of supporting the school district and teacher development. Their employees support local non-profit organizations, both financially and through volunteer service. I just want to say that as a Torrance resident for 49 years, I have seen first-hand the direct community engagement and support that ExxonMobil has provided to our Torrance community. Now is the time for the community to return the favor and support the men and women who work at the refinery as they plan to restart their operations. – Dee Hardison, Former Mayor of Torrance Hopes Exxon Restarts Sooner Then Later I have worked in Torrance for many years and I travel 25 miles each way to work (I work near the Exxon plant). I am also active in the Torrance community. I realize that the price of gasoline fluctuates based on global conditions and supply and demand. California –blend gasoline minimizes environmental impact but only a few refineries, like the Torrance plant, produce it. The cleaner-burning gasoline, however, also comes at a higher price. It concerns me that the refinery is not online and producing because that effects my wallet each day. I am hoping that the refinery gets back to normal operations before we start to see the gasoline prices increase due to summer driving demands. It is important to everyone’s budget that the refinery restarts sooner than later. – Dan Feith Letters Community Briefs Assemblyman Hadley Honors Donna Duperron Google’s Test Car Makes a Rookie Mistake By Rob McCarthy California’s self-driving car project went six years and nearly 1.5 million miles without causing a crash until last month when a Google test car sideswiped a Bay area bus. The Google engineers took responsibility for the low-speed impact, and claimed the software-controlled car made a rookie mistake. It assumed the bus driver would wait. The Google car and the city bus were sharing a generously wide lane when the softwarecontrolled vehicle encountered “a tricky set of circumstances on El Camino,” according the Google team report. El Camino Real is a three-lane boulevard, much like Sepulveda A self-driving SUV with a Google employee aboard collided with a metro bus in Mountain View last month. Credit: Google Self-Driving Car Project. Boulevard, with right-hand lanes wide enough for two drivers. The Google team decided to teach its self-driving car how this is done. “We began giving the self-driving car the capabilities it needs to do what human drivers do: hug the rightmost side of the lane,” engineers said in their report of the Valentine’s Day crash. “It’s vital for us to develop advanced skills that respect not just the letter of the traffic code but the spirit of the road.” A Google engineer was in the car at the time, however, the software was doing the driving. The vehicle pulled toward the righthand curb to prepare for a right turn when it detected sandbags near a storm drain blocking its path. The Google car stopped, allowed some other drivers to pass, then angled back toward the center of the wide right lane at 2 mph when it sideswiped the city bus going 15 mph, the report describes. None of the bus passengers was injured, and a videotape released last week by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Agency backs up Google’s claim it was a minor incident. Passengers appear surprised when the driver asks them to step off the bus right after the incident. The Google engineer in the car at the time said that he also expected the bus driver to slow down and let the Google car back to the center of the lane. The videotape showed extensive damage done to the driver’s side of the autonomous vehicle, a Lexus sport utility vehicle. Google has 14 of the self-driving Lexus SUVs in Mountain View. Eight are in Austin, Texas, and one car is testing in Kirkland, Wash. “Our car had detected the approaching bus, but predicted that it would yield to us because we were ahead of it,” according to the February Google Self-Driving Car Project report. The engineers called it an everyday type of misunderstanding between human drivers. “This is a classic example of the negotiation that’s a normal part of driving -- we’re all trying to predict each other’s movements. In this case, we clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved there wouldn’t have been a collision. That said, our test driver believed the bus was going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and that there would be sufficient space to do that.” So far, the self-driving car project is a Northern California experiment. Critics of the self-driving car project think the state government and Bay area police should investigate each crash rather than take Google’s explanation at face value. Google says its cars have been hit nearly a dozen times since street testing began up north almost two years ago, and that other drivers were at fault each time. The February bus incident is the first time that Google took responsibility for the traffic collision. The federal Highway Traffic Safety Administration told the Herald that the need to track collisions isn’t there because of the limited testing of robot-controlled cars. Spokesperson Derrell Lyles told the Herald the NHTSA is taking a watch-and-see approach to regulating Google’s project in the early phase. “They are not being driven by the general public. NHTSA remains in close communication with the leading developers of self-driving vehicles regarding the testing of these vehicles. Given this very limited exposure and the controlled nature of the testing, there is no need for a formal system for tracking crashes involving self-driving vehicles at this time,” Lyles wrote in an email. Santa Monica-based Consumer Watchdog isn’t so trusting of Mountain View-based Google, which is best known for its web search engine and online tools for analyzing web traffic. The group issued a demand on March 9 that Google release its videotape of its robotic car crashing into the transit bus, now that the bus authority released its video of the incident. “Google undoubtedly has its own — and probably better — video showing how its self-driving robot car crashed into a bus,” said Director John M. Simpson with Consumer Watchdog’s Privacy Project Director. “Google needs to come clean and release their video, as well as all recorded technical details related to the crash.” The transit company’s video can be viewed at http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/ 2016/03/09/81526496/ Consumer Watchdog also renewed its call to the California DMV to amend its regulations and require that police investigate all self-driving robot car crashes and that video and technical details of the incidents be made public. The DMV earlier this year released the nation’s first proposed rules for the public use of self-driving vehicles. California’s rules are expected to provide a framework for other states and for the federal government to follow as they consider their own policies for See Google, page 7 Donna Duperron On March 14, South Bay Assemblyman David Hadley honored Donna Duperron as the 2016 Woman of the Year for the 66th Assembly District during a special Assembly ceremony at the State Capitol. Mrs. Duperron serves as President & CEO of the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce and is a respected community leader. “Donna Duperron has greatly benefitted our community both as a local business leader and as an active volunteer supporting many of our nonprofit organizations and charitable events,” said Hadley. “She makes an incredible difference in the South Bay every day, and is a clear choice to be honored as my Woman of the Year.” As president and CEO of the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce, Duperron helps develop and support opportunities for local businesses to start and thrive. She has had much success in revitalizing programs and securing financial vitality for nonprofit organizations for more than 18 years. Her key achievements include establishing such partnerships as the TACC Foundation, Adopt a School program, Business for a Day, Mentor Program, State of Education, as well as developing task forces to better serve the civic and business community. Duperron currently serves on the board for the Southern California Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives and is co-chair of the healthcare committee for BizFed. She serves as a block captain for the City of Torrance Neighborhood Watch program and is CERT certified. She and her husband Gary have three grown children and two grandchildren. “It is my privilege to be selected as the 66th Assembly District’s Woman of the Year by Assemblyman Hadley,” said Duperron. “Ghandi once said, ‘be the change you want to see in the world.’ This is my inspiration to go above and beyond every day to help my community and those who are in need.” Held annually, the Woman of the Year ceremony celebrates California’s extraordinary women. The first ceremony was held in 1987 to help commemorate Women’s History Month. The event has become an annual Capitol tradition to salute women who have done outstanding community service. During a special ceremony in the Assembly Chambers, honorees are presented with framed resolutions from the State Assembly recognizing their contributions. Annual Easter Sunrise Service at Green Hills Memorial Park The 68th Annual Easter Sunrise Service will be held at Green Hills Memorial Park, Rancho Palos Verdes, on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016 beginning at 6:00am. This annual event draws approximately two thousand worshipers and has been celebrated annually at Green Hills since 1948. The multi-denominational service is sponsored by Green Hills Memorial Park and is held in conjunction with the San Pedro Pastor’s Fellowship. Several area pastors and ministers from various denominations throughout the Harbor-Peninsula area will be participating in this celebration. Among them is Pastor Marlo Blandford of Westside Vineyard Church in Los Angeles, who will offer this year’s Easter message. There will also be musical selections by the Bethany Christian Fellowship Worship Team. El Camino College’s Annual Cherry Blossom Festival El Camino College’s 16th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival is scheduled for 1 to 2 p.m. March 31 on campus in the Student Activities Center, 16007 Crenshaw Boulevard, Torrance. The annual “Dr. Nadine Ishitani Hata Memorial Cherry Blossom Festival” is named after the college’s former Vice President of Academic Affairs, who passed away in 2005. Dr. Hata was an internationally known scholar who was extremely involved in academia and community work. She was instrumental in bringing the cherry trees to the campus 15 years ago, one of the many programs she supported during her 34-year career at El Camino College. Under Dr. Hata’s leadership, the Cherry Blossom Festival has become a college tradition – a way to ring in the spring season and celebrate friendship. Taiko drummers from the Taiko Center of Los Angeles will perform at the celebration and students from Clint Margrave’s “Creative Writing: Introduction to Poetry” class will read their original haiku compositions. Light refreshments will be served. The Cherry Blossom Festival is sponsored by the El Camino College Foundation and the Office of Staff and Student Diversity. For more information, call 310-660-3593, extension 3316.•
Torrance_031716_FNL_lorez
To see the actual publication please follow the link above