Helsinki is the same size as Nashville, and they had *zero* traffic deaths last year, while we had over one hundred. Lowering vehicle speeds and building safe infrastructure save lives. Helsinki committed to doing it, while Nashville just pays lip service. The results are predictable, and in the case of Nashville, tragic.
Remote
Peter Robison
@PeterRobison@nashtodon.com
mastodon 4.7.3Attorney & mediator in #Nashville, #Tennessee
Areas of practice: Employment, construction, estate planning & probate, general civil litigation.
Frequent transit user, bike rider, and walker in my city, which doesn't have enough sidewalks. I used to chair the Nashville Vision Zero Advisory Committee and still am a member, but don't speak for Metro or NDOT.
Abogado y mediador bilingüe en Nashville, Tennessee.
345 Followers
144 Following
45 Posts
Joined December 16, 2022
Previously::
I was reminded again today that it only takes one very bad experience to erase a lot of the joy of many good experiences. I had a really lovely bike ride this morning, punctuated by a guy in an SUV running a stop sign at the entrance to my neighborhood and nearly hitting me. I locked up both wheels and somehow managed to stay upright, but I was close enough to look right in his window and yell at him, and he wouldn't even look my direction.
We spent the evening at James Lawson High School watching the band and orchestra kids prepare for a competition. They have improved so much, it's fun to hear their progress. I chatted with several friends, and waved at many more. It was a nice way to spend the evening. That's the state of our union.
Tennessee's Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems—who admitted to NewsChannel5 that he and investigators knew there was no threat—just cost the county's taxpayers $835,000 plus legal costs.
Jailed for 37 days for a meme, Tennessee man reaches civil rights settlement
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/jailed-for-37-days-for-posting-a-meme-of-pres-trump-tenn-man-reaches-settlement-for-civil-rights-violation
Five months in prison because some half-baked generative LLM falsely identified her.
Police used AI facial recognition to arrest a Tennessee woman for crimes committed in a state she says she’s never visited | CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/29/us/angela-lipps-ai-facial-recognition
Roughly 200 years after the U.S. rail network began, it is still massively oriented around coal delivery. (Photo from #Nashville in April 2027.) #train #coal
Prepare for that Oracle North East Bank project to get scaled way back.
(Another reminder: Cities should never rely on corporations for city planning or infrastructure.)
Oracle begins layoffs affecting thousands, CNBC reports | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/oracle-begins-cutting-thousands-jobs-cnbc-reports-2026-03-31/
Ruling confirms the need for judicial records transparency - Nashville Banner
https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/05/21/tennessee-supreme-court-transparency-judge-cheryl-blackburn/
@CoolerPseudonym@wandering.shop
Misguided. Yes, fuel taxes won't pay for roads as more EVs get adopted, but the open secret is that the federal and state gas taxes are so low that they ALREADY don't pay for the vast majority of road maintenance.
I'd favor a scheme based on gross vehicle weight and miles traveled, but I don't know how difficult it would be to implement.
I do favor EV adoption, but they have the same congestion, sprawl, tire debris, noise, and safety problems as ICE vehicles.
I think most cities should do this. Larger and heavier vehicles damage pavement and pose safety risks far above smaller vehicles. The gas tax already doesn't pay for roads, and EVs will reduce that further. Usage and registration charges scaled to gross vehicle weight would help defray the cost and make bloated trucks and SUVs pay more of their share.
SUV drivers could face extra charges for driving in London
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/13/suv-drivers-could-face-extra-charges-for-driving-in-london?CMP=share_btn_url
"State Sen. Jack Johnson introduced legislation this week to create a state authority that would oversee subterranean transportation projects like the Boring Company's controversial Music City Loop."
👎
Axios Nashville
https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/politics
Replying to
@n8foo@macaw.social
If these dopey autonomous systems can't calculate how to avoid an oncoming train, I have no confidence for them to navigate traffic or a busy sidewalk. No thank you.
Once again, everything I learned in law school has been undercut or eroded.
US Supreme Court under Roberts takes 'wrecking ball' to Voting Rights Act | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-under-roberts-takes-wrecking-ball-voting-rights-act-2026-04-30/
Replying to
@macronencer@mastodon.scot Ooh, good rec, I liked Phantom Island, and that band seems like it has a lot of different sounds across its discography.
Hey #Nashville and #music friends, #BandcampFriday is coming up. Who have you enjoyed lately, what should I be buying?
I hate them already. (These things have been all over UT-K campus for years, where they are mild nuisances, but I don't look forward to them causing trouble in the few bike lanes we have.)
Lawmakers advance bill for delivery robots in Tennessee - Nashville Banner
https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/02/05/tennessee-legislature-low-speed-delivery-robots-bill/
Listening to Weezer's Blue Album blaring from my teenager's bedroom. I guess I'm pleased?
@multiverseofbadness@toot.wales
You are so right, this one holds up!
#Tennessee legalized sports betting, and how its lottery revenue has plummeted.
That means the HOPE scholarships funded by the lottery are drying up, they have a $114 million shortfall this year.
HOPE scholarships used to be supported by sports betting revenue, but the legislature took that funding away to pay for the massively expensive private school voucher programs, which it is in the process of EXPANDING.
This is bad policy at every turn.
Audit, low scores precede GOP push to drop voucher TCAP test rules
"In a move that would stifle accountability and transparency for Tennessee’s earlier school voucher program, Education Savings Accounts, Republicans on the Senate Education Committee voted to eliminate TCAP testing requirements and universal test reporting for participants."
@CoolerPseudonym@wandering.shop
Yes, or being charged for contributing power back into the grid! That's just objectively terrible policy for everyone except fossil fuel companies. I'd say it's much, much worse than EV taxes, it delays so many other grid/generation adaptations that would drive down power prices and improve our energy independence from shocks to the oil market by OPEC, geopolitical shenanigans, etc.
"[S]ponsor Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) pumped the brakes over questions about the bill’s fiscal note, which warned that by challenging the decades-old precedent set in Plyler v. Doe, the state could jeopardize over a billion dollars in federal funding if students were excluded from public education"
Translation: Performative, illegal cruelty towards children is only fun if we don't have to pay for it.
Glad to see this bill die, it shouldn't have been introduced.
https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/03/03/tennessee-bill-william-lamberth-schools-immigration-status/
This ongoing scandal about Elon Musk's xAI data center near Memphis keeps getting worse and worse, and yet it still doesn't seem to have drawn enough scrutiny.
It's worth noting that Elon Musk's companies have a long history of dishonesty/disregard of regulators, going back to Tesla (see Ed Niedermeyer's expose in 2015) and The Boring Co (repeated safety violations and broken promises) to even SpaceX and its destruction of property. xAI is part of that history.
$34M of graft. There is no win-win here, only a loss for taxpayers.
WKRN: $34M deal between BNA and The Boring Company advances
https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/bna-tbc-deal-advances/
The Short and Ridiculous Trial of a Protester Arrested in an Inflatable Penis Costume
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/22/renea-gamble-trial-penis-costume-no-kings-protest/
The U.S. needs strong privacy laws.
Your data is everywhere. The government is buying it up without a warrant : NPR
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5752369/ice-surveillance-data-brokers-congress-anthropic
"A Nashville woman who spent nearly six decades navigating life from a wheelchair — raising children, surviving cancer and showing up for the moments that mattered most — was killed Monday afternoon when an SUV struck her in a crosswalk while the driver was looking at her phone's GPS."
"The Board of Professional Responsibility finds that while still an attorney, Ewing misappropriated funds while serving as a trustee for a friend and failed to account for cash withdrawals."
"The panel called Ewing “dishonest and self-serving” and cited his “lack of remorse for his misconduct” in recommending that he be disbarred and that more than $300,000 be returned to his client."
https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/02/17/nashville-attorney-david-ewing-misappropriated-funds/
I've been watching this suit by law prof Eugene Volokh against the Williamson County Archives and Circuit Court Clerk over their Tennessee residency requirement for records requests. The court held he has standing and denied the motion to dismiss, but has ordered additional briefing on the First Amendment and Privileges and Immunities Clause.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.105062/gov.uscourts.tnmd.105062.23.0.pdf
This is the front page of WSMV right now.
Road deaths in Nashville are a clear and present danger. Our elected officials and administrators need to treat them that way rather than making excuses and then going back to business as usual.
"[M]any of the more than 40 people who directly addressed the commission said they did not know what to believe and distrusted ICE, whose initial statement about plans for the Lebanon detention center sparked a firestorm in the community after the Tennessee Lookout first broke the news Friday."
In a historic vote, Tennessee Volkswagen workers get their first union contract | WPLN News
https://wpln.org/post/in-a-historic-vote-tennessee-volkswagen-workers-get-their-first-union-contract/
NAACP goes to court over Tennessee redistricting | WPLN News
https://wpln.org/post/naacp-goes-to-court-over-tennessee-redistricting/?utm_source=npr.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=local_headlines&utm_content=homepage
App gambling is destroying Tennessee's scholarship program, and addicting a generation (mostly) young men. Sports betting companies even tailor prop bets to user's browser history, and dangle offers that keep people engaged—and losing. If you bet carefully and win, they kick you off the platform. We should not tolerate predatory practices.
US gambling addiction is ‘out of control’ as betting markets boom, policy expert warns
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/24/gambling-addiction-out-of-control-betting-markets
Replying to
@alecryan@mastodon.social
Also, if I can stalk your bio a bit, hell yeah on owned media! I have been harping that point ever since I lost my library of music when Google Play shut down. I've actually got back to CDs somewhat, which are pretty great, and a movie worth owning gets the Bluray treatment, but I also spun up a Jellyfin server for the digital stuff. Taking control of how I consume media feels like one of the few ways I can exercise consumer power.
From the Rev. Gordon Gibson:
Why the current redistricting of Tennessee offends me • Tennessee Lookout
https://tennesseelookout.com/2026/05/07/why-the-current-redistricting-of-tennessee-offends-me/
When hyper-gerrymandering is not enough.
Via #WSMV: Most TN House Democrats stripped of their committee assignments
https://www.wsmv.com/2026/05/12/multiple-tn-democrats-stripped-all-committee-assignments/
I am way more concerned with how property taxes affect housing affordability than I am about businesses on Lower Broadway.
Any sympathy I may have had about business owners on Lower Broadway paying property taxes evaporated last year when family visited and wanted to go downtown, and I got the tab for a round of cocktails. If Acme can't stay in business when they charge $22 a pop for cocktails called "Bridesmaid's Tears," I don't know what to tell them.
Supreme court’s Voting Rights Act ruling cited misleading data from DoJ
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/08/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-misleading-data-doj
When an airport rejected this harassment lawyer's small ad, she sued. Now she has a giant billboard | CBC Radio
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/sexual-harassment-billboard-9.7152106
ICE shooting passengers say agents rammed van before firing
The newly released, handwritten statements by two men who saw Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s shooting say he never threatened ICE agents.
https://www.texastribune.org/2026/07/21/texas-houston-ice-shooting-witnesses-statements/
This interview with outgoing Metro Legal Direcor Wally Dietz about the last 5 years of legal disputes between Nashville and the State of Tennesssee is a good read. #Nashville
Wally Dietz reflects on tenure as Metro Legal director - Nashville Banner
https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/05/14/wally-dietz-metro-legal-retirement-july/
Not only is the Tennessee Legislature gerrymandering out the last of any competitive districts, they are doing it in secret.
House rules committee rejects proposal to make redistricting maps public 72 hours before vote - Tennessee Coalition for Open Government
https://tcog.info/house-rules-committee-rejects-proposal-to-make-redistricting-maps-public-72-hours-before-vote/