A sound of gnashing of teeth was heard as I read this morning’s Boulder Camera, as the spectacular and basically ungrammatical overuse of dashes, about which I have railed previously, continues.

This morning, from the “Around the County” news roundup on page B1:

The driver of the jeep — the girl’s mother — complained of whiplash but had no other injuries.

I would have written or edited it to read, “The girl’s mother, the driver of the jeep,” since there is no reason to use a dash to signal some surprising new development (it was hardly unsuspected that the driver was the girl’s mother).

And then (same mini-dispatch, and this one more egregious):

The woman — who MacPerson said was in her 40s — was arrested on suspicion of careless driving” etc.

Clearly, unquestionably, commas would have sufficed here.

Please, someone out there in the Camera offices, out there beyond the railroad tracks: Stop the Horror!