A member of the Florida House of Representatives wants to make driving with a loud stereo a crime on the same level as driving with an open container of alcohol. State Representative D. Alan Hays (R-Umatilla) last month introduced House Bill 137 which modifies an existing loud stereo statute to double the cost of fines and make the offense a moving violation. Current Florida law makes it unlawful to drive with a stereo “plainly audible” from twenty-five feet away or that is “louder than necessary for the convenient hearing by persons inside the vehicle” when driving past a church, school or hospital. Law enforcement officers are exempt as are politicians who use loud soundmaking devices for “political purposes.” The typical fine is $78 with no points.
The panicked reaction that some drivers have to the sight of a speed camera may in fact be a significant cause of accidents. The group CameraFraud.com yesterday released an Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) accident report that describes a July 25 incident in which a gray Chevy Camaro collided with a red 1994 Toyota 4Runner SUV on Interstate 17 in Yavapai County, sending two people to the hospital. Although DPS maintains that it hired an Australian company, Redflex Traffic Systems, to operate speed cameras to improve safety, the department’s own report tells a far different story. “All the witnesses reported seeing the gray passenger car lose control of the vehicle as it passed the photo radar van, and was apparently trying to slow down for the photo radar van,” the police report explained.
Insiders are bankrolling the lone group that supports red light cameras in College Station, Texas. Last month, the Keep College Station Safe Political Action Committee (PAC) formed “to give a voice to local residents who support the significant safety benefits of the city’s red-light camera program.” Financial disclosure reports filed on Monday show that no College Station resident has actually supported the effort. The PAC reported collecting $19,000 in political donations, of which $10,000 was provided by ATS. Another $6,500 was provided as an in-kind donation from Questmark Information Management Inc, a company that holds a contract for printing toll road statements and tickets for Harris County. ATS happens to run the cameras that generate the citations for Harris County toll roads. The only other contribution listed was a $2500 contribution from a Houston firm, REM Services, Inc.
The UK Conservative Party, widely expected to replace the Labour government at the next general election, yesterday announced that it would continue issuing two million speed camera tickets each year. Shadow Secretary of State for Transport Theresa Villiers announced plans to tweak the current photo enforcement system while rejecting calls to scrap the devices altogether. “It’s time to put a stop to Labour’s cash cow camera culture,” Villiers said in a speech to the Conservative Party convention. “Ladies and gentlemen, a Conservative government would not fund any new fixed speed cameras because they are not the best way to make our roads safer.”
The Supreme Court of Ohio last Wednesday voted 4-3 to impose criminal sanctions for the first time on a motorist exercising his right to refuse to submit to warrant-less testing after being accused of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). Until recently, the only sanction imposed for such refusal was administrative. The decision came down in the case of Union County resident Corey Hoover who had been pulled over by Deputy Kelly S. Nawman on September 8, 2006. Nawman testified that Hoover’s tire crossed over the center line of the road, that he smelled of alcohol and that he performed poorly on field sobriety tests. Nawman arrested Hoover and asked him to perform a breathalyzer test at the sheriff’s office. Hoover refused.
On Wednesday, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned a speeding conviction because the state failed to prove that its laser speed guns were functioning properly. On September 5, 2007, Honolulu Police Officer Jeremy Franks stopped motorist Abiye Assaye, accusing him of driving 90 MPH on the H-1 freeway. Because the charge of driving 35 MPH over the limit carried the possibility of jail time, Assaye was represented by a public defender. At trial, Officer Franks gave the familiar and well-rehearsed testimony about how he had been properly trained in the use of the LTI 20-20 Ultralyte speed gun and how, in great detail, the device’s self-test had been performed. As soon as Franks concluded that his lidar gun was “functional,” Deputy Public Defender Summer M. M. Kupau objected that the state had laid no foundation establishing the accuracy or proper maintenance of the device.
A public company that allows its stock price to drop to A$0.001 per share is not normally considered successful, but the management of the BrisConnections toll road company are being rewarded as if its shares had never traded at bargain-basement prices. In fact, investors reading the Annual Report released yesterday would have no reason to suspect the company had ever been on the brink of collapse. “I am pleased to report that the Group has successfully tackled a number of early challenges, including establishing our organization, holding two member requisitioned meetings, forging solid relationships with project stakeholders, and working with our project partners to ensure a positive start to construction of the Airport Link Project,” BrisConnections Chairman Trevor C. Rowe wrote in the report’s introduction.
A second appellate ruling has struck down a California city’s red light camera program as illegal. On September 22, the California Superior Court for the County of San Mateo, Appellate Department overturned motorist Al Bullock’s $387 conviction for making a right turn on red. Presiding Judge Mark R. Forcum concisely found that San Mateo’s cost neutral contract with an Australian company, Redflex Traffic Systems, was in direct violation of state law. “Reversed,” Forcum wrote in a one-word decision.
Maryland officials wasted no time in kicking off the required warning period for the statewide interstate highway speed camera program authorized by a law that took effect yesterday. Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley announced that the first three locations for the cameras would target motorists in so-called work zones on some of the most heavily traveled interstates in the country. Starting November 1, privately owned speed camera vans will issue actual tickets to commuters and travelers headed between New York and Florida. For example, on an average day 184,152 drivers will pass the new speed camera location on I-95 between MD 198 and MD 216 in Prince George’s County. The Baltimore County I-95 location, between I-895 and White Marsh Boulevard, will target 162,812 drivers daily. On Interstate 695 at Charles Street in Baltimore, the cameras will record the passing of 159,021 cars.
An Ohio city is so desperate to prevent voters from having a say on the future of speed cameras that it filed a motion Monday asking the state supreme court to strip the public of its right to vote on the issue. In April, residents submitted more than double the number of signatures required to place a photo enforcement referendum on the November ballot (view initiative text). The move so infuriated Mayor Joseph Sulzer that he challenged the ballot with the Ross County Board of Elections earlier this month. Sulzer insists the board had no right to reject this challenge. “Chillicothe seeks a writ of prohibition to prevent the board [of elections] from placing the proposed municipal initiative petition on the November 3, 2009 general election ballot,” the city’s petition states.
Xerox Corporation announced yesterday that it would acquire Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) for $6.4 billion. ACS is a major, long-time player in the speed camera, red light camera, tolling and parking ticket business. Xerox, famous for its domination of the photocopying market from the 1960s to the 1980s, sees the purchase as a way to reinvent itself and dominate the business outsourcing market. “By combining Xerox’s strengths in document technology with ACS’s expertise in managing and automating work processes, we’re creating a new class of solution provider,” Xerox CEO Ursula M. Burns said in a statement. “A game-changer for Xerox, acquiring ACS helps us expand our business and benefit from stronger revenue and earnings growth.”
For the past several years, the UK Department for Transport (DfT) has heralded the drop in the number of serious traffic accidents as evidence of the success of its speed camera policies. For the first time, the agency admitted last Thursday that injury numbers have dropped because its statistical method is incomplete. Although DfT reported 230,905 injury accidents took place in 2008, the agency now believes the true number of accidents is actually three times greater. “Our best current estimate, derived from survey data with cross-checking against other data sources, is that the total number of road casualties in Great Britain each year, including those not reported to police, is within the range 680 thousand to 920 thousand with a central estimate of 800 thousand,” Matthew Tranter with DfT’s Road Safety Research and Statistics wrote.
With only 524 speed cameras and growing budgetary needs, the government of Spain felt an urgent need to act. On Monday, Direccion General de Trafico (DGT) announced the purchase of an additional forty-three Autovelox 105 speed cameras from an Italian company, Saima Sicurezza, at the cost of 3,099,182 euros (US $4,552,600). The cash-strapped agency would recover the amount of money invested in these new devices by placing them on the highway and issuing just six hundred tickets for driving 8 MPH over the highway limit. This figure could be achieved in less than two days in a typical deployment.
An Oklahoma sheriff and his deputy were sentenced to two years and three months in jail on Tuesday for the crime of stopping and searching motorists so that they could steal their cash. An undercover federal sting operation caught McIntosh County Sheriff Terry Alan Jones, 36, and Under-sheriff Mykol Travis Brookshire, 38, red-handed. The pair were forced to resign their positions in May and plead guilty to Conspiracy Under Color of Law to Interfere with Interstate Commerce. “The court imposed the maximum permissible federal prison term, consistent with advisory federal sentencing guidelines,” United States Attorney Sheldon J. Sperling explained in a statement. “These sentences will not be subject to parole.”
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday ruled that police may not search vehicle passengers without a specific reason to believe that they may have committed a crime. The case began on April 19, 2006 when Suffolk police officers pulled over a car with four people on board at around 3pm. Once stopped on the side of the road, Officer J.B. Carr used his drug-sniffing dog, Xanto, to check the vehicle in question. Xanto “alerted by sitting and waiting for his reward” on the rear passenger’s side. Officer Jay Quigley ordered the vehicle’s occupants out so that the car could be thoroughly searched. Nothing was found. The police officers then proceeded to search the driver and two of the passengers. Nothing was found. Finally, passenger Travis Stacey Whitehead was searched and officers discovered two syringes and a bottle cap later identified as containing heroin residue. Whitehead was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to serve twenty-two months in jail.
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