New state laws on Jan. 1 to affect nearly everyone
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Several new state laws go into effect at the stroke of midnight Tuesday - making us safer, making it tougher to drink and drive, and making it a little easier to make ends meet.
On the safety front, all apartments, condos, hotels and homes will be required to have carbon monoxide monitors.
"It will make someone very sick and it will lead to death. We want people to take this seriously," says Bill Mace, outreach and education coordinator for the Seattle Fire Department.
In the winter of 2006, carbon monoxide killed eight people who were trying to stay warm or cook indoors.
Steve Quant from West Seattle says a detector saved his life when his furnace malfunctioned.
"I went out and bought a bunch of them and gave them to my closest friends and said, 'You must put this in your house,' because it literally saved my life and I want to save theirs," says Quant.
Another new state law makes it tougher for convicted drunk drivers to drive drunk. All ignition interlock devices in our state will now snap a photo as the driver gives a breath sample.
"It will help us to monitor those people and help us to prevent people other than those driving the vehicle from blowing into the vehicle to start it and keep it running," says Sgt. Ken Denton of the Washington State Patrol.
And starting Tuesday, tens of thousands of workers in Washington state will get a raise. On Jan. 1, the minimum wage will jump up 15 cents per hour.
At $9.19, it will be nearly $2 an hour higher than the federal minimum wage. The increase translates to $310 a year for the average affected worker.
So, coming in 2013, new laws could save your life and help you pay the bills.
The minimum wage will also go up in nine other states, including Oregon and Montana.
On the safety front, all apartments, condos, hotels and homes will be required to have carbon monoxide monitors.
"It will make someone very sick and it will lead to death. We want people to take this seriously," says Bill Mace, outreach and education coordinator for the Seattle Fire Department.
In the winter of 2006, carbon monoxide killed eight people who were trying to stay warm or cook indoors.
Steve Quant from West Seattle says a detector saved his life when his furnace malfunctioned.
"I went out and bought a bunch of them and gave them to my closest friends and said, 'You must put this in your house,' because it literally saved my life and I want to save theirs," says Quant.
Another new state law makes it tougher for convicted drunk drivers to drive drunk. All ignition interlock devices in our state will now snap a photo as the driver gives a breath sample.
"It will help us to monitor those people and help us to prevent people other than those driving the vehicle from blowing into the vehicle to start it and keep it running," says Sgt. Ken Denton of the Washington State Patrol.
And starting Tuesday, tens of thousands of workers in Washington state will get a raise. On Jan. 1, the minimum wage will jump up 15 cents per hour.
At $9.19, it will be nearly $2 an hour higher than the federal minimum wage. The increase translates to $310 a year for the average affected worker.
So, coming in 2013, new laws could save your life and help you pay the bills.
The minimum wage will also go up in nine other states, including Oregon and Montana.
I'll soon be in non-compliance.
It's just getting harder and harder to find new laws to write, not that they can even begin to enforce ALL the ones we already have. Have to justify the job they now hold and earn all those dollars/benefits they are paid. Just think they now have another whole new session to think up some more new laws.
The companies that make those interlock devices are going to make a lot of money - for a while. Â Then their sales will decline and they will need to figure out another "loophole" in the design so they can keep selling new ones.
I thought it was already a requriement to have Carbon Monoxide Detectors. I think it is called Building Codes. This article dont seem right to me. I think we better check the Political, Religious, GUN, Â Sexual preferences of the persons who wrote this article.
A better deal on drunk drivers... ones that have been convicted... crush their car that will keep them from driving! Keep doing it until they are broke and cannot keep buying cars... the only safety for others is to take frequent drunk driving offenders off the road.. permanently!
 @Freespeech Crush the drunk along with the car.
@Freespeech They could borrow or rent a car - you don't have to own a car to drive one.
 @Freespeech What if they are rich? Wail till they kill someone?
Just a thought on this picture taking breatherlizer. Most of the folks that have these things don't own new cars.
These "less than new cars", often end up in repair shops.
Being a auto tech, I see my share of them. So just how are we supposed to fix these cars? I have had to test drive many of them to see the reported problems. Even with the old systems, there are problems with the stupid breatherlizers that cause the car not to start.
Do we auto techs get a pass? Or do we call the installer to start the vehicle?
@smith401 I understand your fusteration; but remeber the owners of these cars you hassle with are the one's who drove drunk and got busted, more than once because you can defer the first one. I am pretty sure anyone can use the car but the picture is to just make sure no one else is using the blow and go to let the drunk drive.
Another spike in the Police State jackboot on our necks...
 @benjammindeth don't drive drunk, you will not have to have an interlock....easy as that.
It's "Don't Drink and Drive" not "Don't Drive Drunk" fyi.
@Matt Covington
Hey Matt...can you have a drink and not be drunk and be perfectly capable of driving?
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Your need to correct, and nitpick, makes you sound like an idiot.
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 @Matt Covington way to nitpick.....
Not sure how I feel about the carbon monoxide detector. You can't outlaw stupidity. What is going to happen is idiots will continue to cook inside, the alarm will go off, they will disable it or just ignore it. Guess we will also need a law to force people to listen to said alarm.Â
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I also don't see ignition interlocks doing anything.Â
so becouse a bunch of idiot foreigner bring an out door cooking stove inside and start cooking we all have to be protected by the state
E News will probably have a top 10 countdown of the funniest pictures of celebrities blowing into these things! LOL!!!
Well, you can't stop "stupid people" from doing stupid things...You can't solve everyone's problems.
Can someone explain to me... My house has electric heat. I'm not dumb enough to bring burning items ("for example - to cook") indoors. I have smoke detectors. Why do I need to have Carbon Monoxide detectors?
 @Bomarc Think of it this way. If your house catches fire, that detector will detect deadly gas right away that could kill you. Hence would save your life.
 @Bomarc Because, it's not just a good idea, it's the law.
 @Bomarc The government knows best, trust your government.
 @Blindman  @Bomarc Our government knows best? I don't believe anyone in our government knows a damn thing about anything.
@Bomarc I believe this only applies to new construction and to buildings/homes that are sold after Jan 1 -- not to existing dwellings that are occupied.
 @The WA Mama  @Bomarc It also applies to homes for rent, as the landlords must include CO detectors.
@Bomarc Yes, but other people are stupid enough to bring stuff to burn inside...
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 @citizen kane  @rwthw dunno about yours but mine works just fine without a battery...but then it is also wired into the building electric.
@citizen kane It's not the landlord's responsibility to ensure batteries are in a tenant's smoke detector. Almost (if not all) rental contracts makes it evictable grounds if a landlord finds out a smoke detector is not being kept maintained by a tenant. At least that's what it said in the last 2 or 3 rental contracts I've signed (and moved out of on non-eviction grounds :P)
@rwthw Yes but don't you think that just like smoke detectors, renters are going to either pull the batteries, or forget to put new ones in? They won't work without a battery, and the first time someone dies because the landlord didn't make sure there were batteries in them there will be a lawsuit. There is always some idiot that disables them.
@BlueJedi I bet you'd have (or already) kicked and screamed when smoke detectors became mandatory way back when.
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Installing the CO detectors will shed quite a bit of liability off of landlords if tenants were to ignore a screaming CO and die.
SO the new carbon monoxide law is supposed to make us safer, clearly from the nanny state point of view, all because of the number of morons trying to heat their indoors and cook indoors using barbeques. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Love to see the enforcement behind that one!
Didn't know about the carbon monoxide monitor law.
That $0.15 wage increase won't begin to cover the proposed increases in taxes and fees. Â It won't cover the PSE electricity rate increase in Seattle. Â
Not to mention gas prices are already starting to bump up again. Just wait until summer, especially if the gooberment gets it's wish for higher taxes on gas.
 @SgtPepperSpray The minimum wage should be dropped back down to the Federal minimum.
 @justmyopinion  @Stock Woodie since when is the minimum wage supposed to be a LIVING wage? it cannot be and will never be a living wage...its the MINIMUM IE: the poorest you can be and still be working.
 @Klondiko  @Stock How is that selfish? I get nothing for that?
 @justmyopinion Correct... If you're making $7.25, you should probably get some roommates, cancel cable and cancel your data/text plan.
@justmyopinion @Stock Woodie Plus in this state tipped employees still make minimum wage. So...educate yourself please.
@justmyopinion @Stock Woodie Minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage for a family. If after a year a person is still making minimum wage then they need to look within themselves to see what they aren't doing to provide their employer with more value. I wish people would stop trying to make the minimum wage a "living wage".Â
@Stock Woodie Pretty selfish comment.
 @Stock Woodie A person might be able to exist on the federal minimum wage in the southern states, but you sure couldn't pay your rent in this state on $7.25 an hour for non-tipped employees and $2.13 for tipped employees.
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As minimum wage increases there is a corresponding increase in prices.Â
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Someone has to pay for the increase and that someone is me and you.
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Just sayin'
 @HonkeyCat That's to ensure that one can afford those now required carbon monoxide detectors - ha!
 @JAP506  @HonkeyCat Yeah, and they'd only have to work about 5-6 hours at minimum wage to afford ONE run-of-the-mill one ;)
 @Thunder  @JAP506  @HonkeyCat Probably not... If they live in an apartment, it's required by the owner, not the dweller.
Thanks, you just made me picture some drunk guy in a Burger King uniform trying to blow into a carbon monoxide detector to start his car.
 @SgtPepperSpray Lol! That's a good one! Drunks tend to do stupid things they would not otherwise do - someone might think their carbon monoxide detector is a breathalyzer.
Hurrah ! Hurrah! Some will get a pay raise of 15 cents an hour. Then Obama will raise your taxes over $500 Â as he let's us go over the river and through the woods to the fiscal cliff we go. YEE HAW!
 @Maynard G Krebbs Actually, it will be the CONGRESS that will be responsible for the taxes rising as a result of not passing legislation to either extend the current tax breaks or enact new legislation modifying the laws that will change AUTOMATICALLY at midnight, December 31, 2012
 @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs Yes and No, as President it's his job to "rally the troops" so to speak, so while congress is acting like a bunch of babies, Obama is still responsible for this. Just my thought.
 @Whodat Pres. Obama is following through on his campaign promise, remember the one that got him re-elected in November? Why should he cave into the Republicans...again? They are the reason he couldn't fulfill many of his campaign promises from his first term, I think he's going to start this term with a stronger posture. If he doesn't hold his ground here, the Republicans will run continue to walk all over him.
 @Whodat  @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs It really is on Obama. Obama doesn't "really" seem willing to negotiate much.
 @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs OBAMA signs it, he owns it!
 @Insomniac Dreams  @justmyopinion Is that the best you can do? Insults? Must have hit home.
 @Ken Willy  @justmyopinion LOL Did you just say "Pinko"??Â
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Edith, get me a beer, huh?
 @justmyopinion Nice of you to bring race into it.  You also appear quite angry. The angry herd that hates anyone who thinks differently. The people who haven't been told what to believe by some pinko institution of higher indoctrination. An education is one that teaches you how to think and then still question that thinking. You have been told what to think so your herd mentality is obvious.
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No I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh. And Fox is but only one source. I don't believe any single reporting source because it will always be biased in the direction of the reporter.
 @lakeview You probably shouldn't confuse the Obama haters with facts, it's much more simple for them to blame all of the country's problems on the black president. They don't have to utilize any of their brain cells that way, they can just follow along with the angry anti-American  FOX herd.
@Tacobender50 That isn't true. It depends upon HOW the law was written. Some are temporary, some are not. The Bush tax rates were temporary. The Clinton tax rates that Bush inherited were not temporary.Â
 @lakeview No tax law is permanent. That way we something to look forward to if they taxes more or less.Â
If you read the comment, you'd see that the tax rates go up automatically. Nobody has to sign anything.
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If the Bush tax cuts were so wonderful, why didn't Bush make them permanent?Â
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Also, why do I have a feeling that you are a 47%er that pays nothing...
 @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs Who signs that into law?
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OBAMA!
 @Jalharad  @Tacobender50  @Maynard G Krebbs Not quite. The president prepares a suggested budget and forwards it to the House of Representatives where all spending bills originate. The House and Senate must agree in the final form of the budget and it is then sent to the president who must sign the bill into law. If the president vetoes the bill then both the House and the Senate can vote a two-thirds majority to override that veto and enact the bill into law.
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So from a very strict interpretation the Congress does NOT have the power to alter taxation EXCEPT in a very limited sense.
 @Tacobender50  @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs actually, congress can raise or lower taxes without the consent of the president. They are also the only ones who actually spends money...the president can make suggestions, and can allocate some of that money, but the people who actually spend are those who are in congress.
 @Furd  @Maynard G Krebbs And they've had two years to address this. Nothing like writing a paper the night before it's due.