'Layaway Santas' bringing unexpected holiday joy

Travis Meriwether has been waiting around layaway counters for three years in a row to surprise people with cash, paying off balances of strangers during the holidays.

The owner of a custom motorcycle business, Meriwether has spent about $16,500 paying off layaway orders for people buying toys and games. He is a "layaway Santa" or as some prefer, a "layaway angel."

For years, others like him have also been stopping by layaway departments, shocking customers at stores like Walmart, Kmart and Toys R Us. This year, the trend is continuing with scenes of unexpected joy popping up across the nation.

"I like to go to the layaway area and stay two or three hours," said Meriwether, 29, of Burnet, Texas. "I know those people don't have the money right away. Everybody who goes back to that layaway line needs some type of help. This way, they get to get their stuff today and it frees up their money."

Meriwether started buying strangers gifts when in 2011 the credit card of a woman ahead of him in line at Walmart was declined. He stepped in and paid for everything in her cart. Since then, he has visited layaway departments at Target and Walmart in Texas and Oklahoma, where he grew up.

The owner of "Enzo Custom Cycles" said he usually sticks to buying people food and toys during the holidays. Most other layaway donors do the same.

Since September, Walmart has seen more than 1,000 instances of strangers paying off people's layaway accounts.

"We just think it's amazing and a real representative of the spirit of America during this time of year," said Deisha Barnett, a Walmart spokeswoman.

In 2012, people anonymously paid off 794 layaways orders in Toys R Us stores. The company matched each of those gestures with $200 donations to Toys for Tots, giving the program $158,800 to help less fortunate children get toys on Christmas Day. It's doing the same this year.

At Kmarts across the country, more than $1.5 million worth of items have been paid off by strangers over the years. The company also created an online map in 2012 where people can track the Good Samaritans and see what people are saying about the deeds on Twitter.

While such layaway Santas might get the same results, their methods vary. In Florida, a man and his wife overheard a woman talking about her money problems and decided to pay for her items, according to a Walmart spokeswoman. In California, a man planned to use $1,000 to randomly pay off layaway lists of people he hadn't met. Some, like 30-year-old Lee Karchawer, take their giving to the Web.

Karchawer, of New York City, works for a mobile marketing company and created payawaythelayaway.org in October 2011.

"I thought I would be able to round up donations for people who wanted to become layaway angels but didn't have the time to go to the store or have the money power to pay off the whole layaway," he said.

Through the site, Karchawer collects donations of any amount, with the average person giving $25. The first year, he raised $2,000 from 75 donors and bought gifts for people in the New York City area.

This year, some 350 people have donated about $15,000. That money will go to help others in New York, Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts and California.

Once the money arrives, Karchawer and others go to stores like Kmart, Toys R Us, and Babies R Us and store workers pick out random accounts that include children's toys. The stores then usually contact customers with paid off accounts and tell them of their good luck.

"Growing up, my parents were able to provide me with presents and I know how great that made me feel," Karchawer said. "I can't imagine a child not having that. This is an incredible movement to show how much compassion people have toward others."

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Source: Hattiesburg American (AP, 12/19)

402nd Field Artillery Brigade holds their first joint motorcycle ride to New Mexico

By Sgt. 1st Class Ernesto Camacho, 2nd Battalion, 362nd Field Artillery Regiment Division West Public Affairs

FORT BLISS, Texas – The 402nd Field Artillery Brigade, Division West, held its first joint motorcycle ride Oct. 24, which included riders from the 5th Armored Brigade, and 166th Aviation Brigade, out of Fort Hood.

The ride teamed experienced with inexperienced riders, but it gave all the motorcyclists an opportunity to gain group experience on their ride to Cloudcroft, N.M.

“Rides like this give weak riders an idea of what needs to be done to get better,” said DJ Dryer, Mission Training Center safety manager. “Experienced can learn new skills as well, but sharpen their old skills.”

The joint ride coordinated by Command Sgt. Maj. Ernest Bowen Jr., 402nd Field Artillery Brigade command sergeant major, and Sgt. 1st Class Jae Haney, 402nd Field Artillery Brigade medic, included Division West soldiers traveling from Fort Hood, Texas.

Command Sgt. Maj. Glen Vela, Division West motorcycle mentor, and Master Sgt. Ruben Samarripa, of the 166th Aviation Brigade, were among those that made the trek to Fort Bliss to join their comrades in the joint ride.

The day began with a thorough route and safety briefing conducted by Bowen.

“Anybody have a bike that doesn’t reach 70 miles an hour,” said Bowen. “The speed limit is there for a reason.”

Upon completion of the briefing, all riders were issued a first aid pack along with emergency contacts and locations of medical facilities in case an emergency were to arise or they needed assistance during an accident.

The soldiers conducted their final equipment and motorcycle checks and lined up in three groups of six riders per team, with the most experience riders of each team as their lead, and began their ride to Cloudcroft followed by the 402nd's Recovery Team.

Enroute to Cloudcroft, the riders stopped at their designated rest areas along the way in Alamogordo and Oro Grande. Riders arrived at Big Daddy’s Diner where they ate barbecue and then continued on their way through the mountain side.

Passing through Mayhill, one of the riders experienced some minor difficulties and pulled off to the side of the rode into the gravel path to clear his eyes, where he laid his motorcycle down. He endured minor injuries along with minor damage to his motorcycle as well.

“At the point of the incident, patient assessment, scene management and patient transport was performed flawlessly by all motorcycle riders and the scene was managed by numerous trained accident scene management trained personnel,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jae Haney, 402nd Field Artillery Brigade medic.

Haney provided medical aid until the emergency medical service technicians arrived on the scene. The rider was transported from the accident scene to Alamogordo Medical Facility where he was treated and released with minor injuries.

“Everyone reacted in exact accordance to what was briefed,” said Col. Raul Gonzalez, brigade commander of 5th Armored Brigade. “He was treated and taken care of before the first responders arrived. We just passed off all of the medical notes to the responders.”

Upon completion of the accident response and the sheriff’s accident report, the riders recovered the soldier’s motorcycle accordingly and continued along with their motorcycle ride around the mountainside back through Cloudcroft, where the teams conducted their after action review, and returned to Fort Bliss.

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source: Dvids (AP, 12/11)

Insurance Tips for Motorcyclists

Motorcyclists regularly encounter dangerous road situations.

A 2009 Highway Loss Data Institute report found more than half of motorcyclist deaths involved at least one other vehicle. Forty-two percent of two-vehicle fatal motorcycle crashes involved a vehicle turning left while the motorcycle was going straight, passing or overtaking.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2008 showed 47% of all motorcycles involved in fatal crashes collided with another type of motor vehicle.

Recent research by a Texas Tech University psychologist suggests that the regularity of this problem isn't necessarily a case of poor driving or carelessness, but may be related to a basic human miscalculation.

Pat DeLucia, the coordinator of the Human Factors Psychology Program at Texas Tech, says her research shows that small, near objects can appear farther away than larger, more distant objects. The study is published in "Current Directions in Psychological Science."

Through computer simulation, DeLucia had study participants view two objects simultaneously, one large and one small, coming at them. The viewer must decide which one will reach them first.

The study explores how the human brain perceives objects, their size and motion and time to impact. Her findings indicate that an object's size affects distance perception, causing drivers to miscalculate motorcyclists' distance and speed.

Visual cues go wrong

It seems the brain uses two visual information cues for judging time to impact. In the first, a moving object is reflected on the eye's retina. It expands as it approaches, providing the brain accurate information about when the object will hit. This is called an optical invariant.

"It's basically determined by how big that object is on your retina and how fast it is growing on your retina; those two things actually give you the right amount of information about how long it will take the object to hit you, and that's accurate information," explains DeLucia.

However, the brain also uses what you can think of as an artist's depth cue, as if one were sketching two trees, one close up and one in the distance. This cue is a shortcut, or a human "rule of thumb."

"Those depth cues are also available when an object approaches you but they don't guarantee the correct information," says DeLucia.

The study pitted the two different cues against each other by putting the artist's depth cue of which object is closer against the retina's way of viewing the object.

"People generally picked that simpler heuristic: Larger is closer," says DeLucia.

If something is big in your visual field you assume it's closer, but that's not always accurate. What seems to be happening is that when you have small vehicles that are far away and coming closer, they don't look as close as they really are, so you think you have more time before they reach you -- as opposed to a big truck where you think you have less time.

Optical illusion or human miscalculation?

Since motorcycles are smaller than cars, the brain may use this shortcut to decide that a smaller motorcycle is farther away than it actually is. This size-arrival effect can lead drivers to misjudge when a motorcycle will arrive at an intersection and could be considered a contributing factor in motorcycle/vehicle accidents.

"In 75% of crashes with other vehicles, motorcyclists hit a vehicle that was in front of them [according to NHTSA], so they should try to anticipate what other drivers may do and remain visible with lights and bright gear," says Hannah Kim, an analyst and insurance expert at NerdWallet, a personal finance site. Kim says motorcyclists should also avoid risky maneuvers, including lane splitting, weaving in and out of lanes, passing vehicles and trying to overtake other vehicles. Most of the time, drivers in other cars never see a motorcycle before it is too late.

Kim explains that despite the fact that over half of motorcyclists who died in 2011 were 40 years old and older, insurance rates are highest for those who are younger than 25 because they're considered the riskiest age group.

"It is important for motorcycle riders to act as if no one sees them and to use their horn whenever there is a chance that a vehicle will not see them," says Thomas J. Simeone, a personal injury attorney in Washington, D.C. "It is not uncommon to see accidents where a vehicle cuts off a motorcycle while turning left or enters the lane of a motorcycle."

Insurance claims for motorcycle accidents occur at a disproportionally higher rate during the initial months after the rider first purchases a motorcycle insurance policy.

Some studies from the Highway Loss Data Institute and elsewhere put the first-year motorcycle rider risk at almost four times the risk of the second-year rider. Good motorcycle insurance is especially crucial for protecting against loss.

DeLucia hopes her research will ultimately help reduce motorcycle accidents.

A tag line such as "motorcycles may be closer than they appear" could be a place to start.

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Source: Fox Business (Nelson, 12/03)