Sound Off highlights anonymous, brief takes on the news offered via telephone by Daily News readers.

For the Washington Daily News: I think your readers should be warned, or at least the readers who get their papers, delivered. The other morning, I almost threw the paper away and saved the plastic cover.

After stewing for years about slow drivers “parking on the road” and holding up traffic, I suddenly realize that those who want to feel safe and leisurely have just as much right to drive like they want to as I do to be able to get where I am going more rapidly. And, no, it is not illegal in the state of North Carolina to drive in the “passing” lane.

The bug that the woman described in Tuesday’s paper is called a fuzzy bill. They don’t bite, they just get in your face and get in your car, house or wherever they can get into.

For the caller asking about the insects, they are midges or gnats, and they spend most of their life in the water as aquatic larvae. As adults, they emerge and fly around and mate so that they can lay eggs back into the water. They should be gone pretty soon, but there’s been so many of them because of the warm weather. They’re related to mosquitoes, but don’t bite. But don’t worry, with all the warm weather we’ve been having, the mosquitoes should be here in no time.

Could the Daily News find out if the pumps on Jack’s Creek at Park Drive are capable of pumping out more water than the culverts under Charlotte Street allow to pass through?
Editor’s note: The answer is no, according to Allen Lewis, Washington’s public-works director.

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