Category: Crime & Punishment
High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras as a tool to fine innocent drivers in a game, according to the Montgomery County Sentinel newspaper. Because photo enforcement devices will automatically mail out a ticket to any registered vehicle owner based solely on a photograph of a license plate, any driver could receive a ticket if someone else creates a duplicate of his license plate and drives quickly past a speed camera. The private companies that mail out the tickets often do not bother to verify whether vehicle registration information for the accused vehicle matches the photographed vehicle. In the UK, this is known as number plate cloning, where thieves will find the license information of a vehicle similar in appearance to the one they wish to drive. They will use that information to purchase a real license plate from a private vendor using the other vehicle’s numbers. This allows the “cloned” vehicle to avoid all automated punishment systems. According to the Sentinel, two Rockville, Maryland high schools call their version of cloning the “speed camera pimping game.”
Vigilantes in the UK and Italy used gunfire and flames to express their displeasure with photo enforcement. Last week, Italian activists blasted a pair of speed cameras late at night in the Campania town of Teano, Cassertasette news reported. Only the camera housings for the devices located on the Appia and Casilina roads suffered damage because local speed camera operators remove the machinery from the housing each night. It is not cost-effective to run the cameras overnight when traffic volume slows.
On December 3, a South Yorkshire speed camera was also set on fire. The device located on Barnsley Road was saved from more serious damage as firefighters from Brampton Station arrived on the scene in time to extinguish the blaze with buckets of water, according to the South Yorkshire Times.
Most of the attention drawn to Rod R. Blagojevich’s arrest has focused on the Illinois Governor’s attempt to sell the Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. Also according to the indictment, on October 6, a wealthy contractor for the the giovernor’s “Tomorrow’s Transportation Today” promised to make a $500k donation to the Friends of Blagojevich campaign account. Nine days later, the governor announced the $1.8b program. It’s centerpiece: the addition of High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes to the Illinois Tollway. “I could have made a larger announcement but wanted to see how they perform by the end of the year,” Blagojevich said in private conversation. “If they don’t perform, fuck ’em.”
Via The International Herald Tribune: “ZAGREB, Croatia: Croatian police say a driver has deliberately crashed his car into the entrance of the Parliament building. No one was injured. Zagreb police spokeswoman, Aleksandra Ljuba, says the 34-year-old was arrested on the spot Monday. Police did not identify him. Ljuba says the motive is not known, and the man is being kept for questioning. Both the car — an old Yugo, a cheap vehicle once produced in Serbia — and the building’s doors were damaged. The driver apparently surprised the guards at the St. Marc’s Square, which is also a site of the government building and the Constitutional Court.”
The European Union is spending 8.1m Euros (US $10.3m) on wireless tracking systems designed to allow authorities to issue automated tickets. Pilot projects underway in Finland, France and Germany use systems designed by the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland as part of a project called ASSET-Road. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key component in achieving the goal described as “traffic violations detected in a flash.” “The intention is to elaborate for public authorities new innovative solutions and technology to gather traffic data and utilize it in traffic enforcement and surveillance,” VTT explained in a statement. Prototype units of the Finnish technology issue automated tickets commercial vehicles for violations. Last month, Arizona-based camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) announced it would begin selling a similar system to jurisdictions interested in ticketing truckers.
On Wednesday, Arizona state police arrested a man suspected of whacking a speed camera with a pickaxe. The incident took place in the city of Glendale just before midnight near the 59th Street overpass on the Loop 101 freeway. Police estimate the camera was hit at least six times in an attack quite similar to one that took place in the Czech Republic last month. Arizona Department of Public Safety officials wasted no time in exploiting the incident to discourage anti-camera activism. “From criminal damage charges to charges related to interfering with judicial proceedings that can carry lengthy jail terms and hefty fines, the ramifications a person could face for tampering with a photo enforcement site are extremely serious,” DPS Director Roger Vanderpool said in a statement. “DPS Officers will continue to be vigilant at all hours of the day and night and stand ready to respond quickly to reports or first hand observances of persons tampering with or vandalizing photo enforcement sites in any manner.”
Protesters organized by camerafraud.com gathered outside the main Arizona office of photo enforcement vendor Redflex Traffic Systems yesterday to urge the company to pack its bags and “return to Australia.” About three dozen activists armed with signs stood out in front of the speed camera company’s posh new Phoenix suite at 23751 North 23rd Avenue to hold signs while passing motorists honked in approval. The group is preparing a statewide ballot initiative giving Arizona residents a chance to ban photo ticketing. Observers now wonder whether the legislature will act before the ticket ban initiative even qualifies for the ballot. The photo radar program’s staunchest defender, Governor Janet Napolitano (D), is leaving the state to head the US Department of Homeland Security. Her successor, Secretary of State Jan Brewer (R), has been snubbed in the past by Redflex.
Facing a budget deficit that could reach $800m, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen (D) is looking at all options to bring the books back into balance. Bredesen’s former legal counsel, Robert E. Cooper, Jr. was appointed state attorney general two years ago. Last week, Cooper did his part by issuing a ruling designed to promote the use of photo ticketing by taking on constitutional arguments commonly leveled against such programs. “It is an accepted principle that enactments of the General Assembly are presumed constitutional,” Cooper wrote. “Whenever the constitutionality of a statute is attacked, courts are required to indulge every presumption in favor of its validity and resolve any doubt in favor of, rather than against, the constitutionality of the act.”
And there we were saying Ford doesn’t have branding. Anyway, fun is a serious business, apparently. Bloomberg reports that Ford has been trying to trademark the word “FUN” (all caps?) in connection with “some” of its European automobiles since 2005. In 2007, the EU courts said, in effect, geddowdahere. And while we’re dealing with the surreal, how about this: the original case was brought in German. Spaß; Freude; Scherz; Lachen; Gelächter? Bloomberg seems to think that today’s ruling clears the way for Ford to resume its claim on FUN, but I think they got it exactly backwards. The adjudication itself is, remarkably, a hoot. Seriously, the jump is well worth your time, as it includes some language Bloomberg neglected to mention. Where’s their sense of fun?
On November 23, the U.S. Treasury announced it had “invested” $20b in Citigroup in addition to “protection against the possibility of unusually large losses” on $306b in bad debt. Just one week after receiving support from U.S. taxpayers, Citigroup announced it will spend $10b to acquire a debt-laden Spanish toll road group. Citi Infrastructure Partners will hand over $3.6b in cash and assume $6.3b in debt from Sacyr Vallehermoso, the parent company of the Intinere Infraestructuras toll road group. Itinere operates 32 toll roads in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Another twelve concessions are under construction. Sacyr today issued a statement to Spanish investors noting that the company succeeded in offloading 37 percent of its total debt to the U.S. firm. “With this transaction, the group reaps the value that Itinere accumulated for its mature concession assets and strengthens its financial situation by considerably reducing its indebtedness,” the statement explained.
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) spends more than $10m a year on public affairs. Using documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the San Antonio Express News found TxDOT assigned 63 employees to the Government and Public Affairs division, at an annual cost of $6.5m. Another 67 employees perform “media relations” duties, at a cost of $4m per year. The employee count does not include private contractors hired as lobbyists paid to wine and dine lawmakers in the hopes of landing earmarks, a controversial tactic that spawned at least one lawsuit. These efforts– indeed, the majority of TxDOT’s PR activities– have been primarily aimed at promoting toll roads. Last year, the agency delivered a report to the Texas legislature entitled “Forward Momentum,” designed to convince federal officials to give TxDOT the authority to toll existing freeways. Massive public protests, most prominently against the Trans-Texas Corridor, forced TxDOT to change tactics. Since May, they’ve backed off from promoting tolling as the solution to Texas’ transportation problems.
Last week, in south Essex, UK, speed camera protesters set a “scamera” alight with a gasoline-soaked tire. The fire destroyed the £40k ($60k) device on Long Road– despite the camera’s proximity to the Canvey Fire Station (whose inhabitants eventually managed to put out the blaze). According to the Echo newspaper, the incendiary incident follows a prior arson attack on a speed camera on the A127 in Southend. In the past year-and-a-half, eight south Essex speed cameras have been targeted by vandals. Meanwhile, in Queensland, Australia, on November 5, persons or persons unknown spray painted a new laser camera’s lense during testing on the Maroondah Highway in Croydon. Ten days later, three citizens tied a chain to the replacement camera and tore it from the ground.
In a report to appear Monday, the German magazine Der Spiegel will write that “several law firms are compiling material for lawsuits to hold Porsche liable. They are working for hedge funds which had lost billions of Euros.” That’s news to Porsche CFO Holger Härter. He says he hasn’t heard of anybody who wants revenge or restitution. “I don’t even know who might have been hurt.” On Sunday, FAZ will publish an interview with Härter. First question: “When will the hedge fund called Porsche close its sheet metal factory?” Härter’s answer: “Our core business is and remains the automobile.” Everybody knows: not true. Porsche made more profits than sales in the last fiscal year. Of €8.6b in profits, only €1b were generated in that sheet metal factory. €7.6b were generated with derivatives. That was in the last fiscal year, which ended July 31. God, Härter and Wiedeking only know how much the Porsche hedge fund generated in the months thereafter, when the VW stock went wilder than girls at Mardi Gras. Härter now says they didn’t really mean it. Here is Härter’s version:
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Like any good scandal, Jet-gate threatens to unfold like a wedding napkin. As TTAC pointed-out when Alan Mulally was hired, Ford’s $25m p.a. CEO’s perks include free, non-business-related jet travel for his wife and family. And now Bloomberg reports that GM has asked aviation regulators to block the public’s ability to track The General’s squadron of Gulfstream jets. “We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed” from a Federal Aviation Administration tracking service, Greg Martin, told Bloomberg. The spinmeister “declined to discuss why GM made the request.” Which raises one important question: what are they hiding? To be charitable, we could take GM’s previous statements about CEO Rick Wagoner’s personal security needs seriously. Other than that, we can invoke Bertel Schmitt’s (TTAC’s man in China) reports that The People’s Republic are ready to talk turkey with GM about a Chinese buyout/rescue plan. Perhaps Wagoner plans on hopping the Pacific to do the dirty on his detractors. One also wonders if this tracking thing works backwards; have GM execs been partying like it’s 1999? Has Rick been stashing wads of cash off-shore? Anyone know how UAW Gettelfinger got to Washington?
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