subject: What State Is The United States In? [print this page] Hawaii - as of July 2015 - will be the first U.S. state to ban disposable, plastic bags. Honolulu County will also ban paper bags that aren't at least 40% recycled paper. This comes at a time when the Scripps Institution for Oceanography reports the plastic debris in the area of the Pacific Ocean called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" has grown a hundredfold in 40 years. An estimated 1.4 billion tons of trash - including plastic bags - find their way into the ocean each year. What about the plastic bags littering the land? They are referred to as "modern day tumbleweed".
Montana and Ohio rank lowest when it comes to safety laws. In a 2012 Trust for America's Health report, researchers determined which states had laws covering such things as seatbelts, drunk driving, bicycle/motorcycle helmets, booster seats and prescription drug monitoring. Montana and Ohio had only 2 of the 10 safety laws. Twenty-nine states didn't require bicycle helmets, 31 didn't require motorcycle helmets, 34 didn't require ignition interlocks for people convicted of drunk driving and 18 didn't have a primary seatbelt law. California and New York were the safest states, having 9 of the laws - but is there really "safety in numbers"?
Nevada is the state where you are likeliest to get a speeding ticket, followed by Georgia and Alabama. That's according to the 2012 National Motorists Association's ranking. In 2010 Florida took the top spot and Georgia and Nevada tied for second. Maryland, Louisiana and California joined the top 10 states in 2012. The state where you are least likely to get a speeding ticket is Wyoming. Montana was a close second and both states also ranked at the bottom in 2010. The NMA got the information for its ranking from 8 ticket-related search queries on the internet - probably by speed reading.
Finally, isolated state capitals are more corrupt. This was the finding by political scientists from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Singapore Management University. They compared federal public corruption convictions from 1976 to 2002 with the population surrounding state capitals. Isolated state capitals also tended to spend less than other states on "public goods" - like education, welfare and public health. Voter participation in state elections was less in these states too. Whether it's because they think fewer people are watching them or there's less medias coverage, lawmakers "capitalize" on being far from major population centers.
