Viewers Voice: Suggestion for our traffic alerts

You may have noticed Karen and me asking people to tweet us any traffic accidents or backups so that we can get that information out to people in the hopes that they can then avoid getting caught in traffic.

Tim in Roanoke wonders if our idea is safe, emailing: "I have seen you guys do a number of stories on the dangers of using a cell phone while driving, so why do you all ask your listeners to "tweet" about any traffic problems they run into? If you guys are reporting to your listeners on how dangerous this why do you ask them to do it? "

WSLS responds: Tim, you make an outstanding point. We would never want to encourage someone to drive and text or tweet at the same time and if our tease sounds like that, we need to rework it. It is our hope that people can let us know about traffic back-ups perhaps as they are at a standstill in the traffic or maybe as a passenger and not the driver. But by all means, please don't text and drive.

Another loyal viewer emailed in to say that while our shows are professional and informative, she thinks they are missing one key element: major league baseball scores.

Libby Casey of Roanoke wrote, "Rarely is there even a mention of the fact that there is even a major league - I never see scores for the games played on any given day. Football coverage is not much better. I know that you thoroughly cover all local sports and appreciate that coverage, but covering the Salem Red Sox does not help those of us who follow the major leagues. Perhaps some of the time spent on the weather could be used to at least give us the scores even if you choose not to do highlights."

Libby, thanks for writing. I know that professional sports are important for a lot of viewers, but there are so many games that we simply can't dedicate a lot of our local newscast time to them. To make sure that you and other fans can get the scores, Sports Director John Appicello runs a ticker at the bottom of the screen during the 11pm newscast that has all the scores. It's not highlights, but it's at least the scores you're asking for.

Finally, Miranda Rakes of Dublin called in with kudos for WSLS and our news team.

"I think your news team does a wonderful job covering the news in our area. As a matter of fact it is the only newscast I watch for my local news. I enjoy how I can relate to your crew in the morning and in the evening and I appreciate all the hard work that you do,” she said.