Another top elected official in Arizona has spoken out against photo radar in response to increasingly vocal resistance from the driving public. State Treasurer Dean Martin (R) on Monday wrote to the state’s solicitor general instructing her to side with the League of Cities and Towns — and against himself — in a lawsuit brought against the state budget. As custodian of the state’s monies, Martin is a defendant in the suit which argues that several of the revenue-raising provisions in the $9.9 billion budget adopted in June were unconstitutional. “The governor and legislature cannot raise taxes or ‘log-roll’ provisions into the budget that violate the constitution,” Martin explained in a statement. “These laws are unconstitutional since they did not receive the 2/3 majority vote of the legislature which is required to raise taxes.”
Category: Crime & Punishment
Fire and pickaxes were used to damage speed cameras in Italy and the Czech Republic this week. On Tuesday, a speed camera was set on fire on the Boulevard D’Annunzio near the Tuscan seaside resort town of Marina di Pisa. The profitable device has been issuing at least one hundred tickets per month over the last year and a half. Firefighters arrived on the scene quickly enough to extinguish the blaze before the camera was destroyed, according to a report in La Nazione. Vigilantes in Czech town of Moravske Budejovice attacked a Traffipax speed camera with a pickaxe. A video of the incident shows the device receiving five hits on the side, although photographs of the aftermath on autoforum.cz show additional hits to the front of the housing, including one to the camera lens. A group calling itself the “Crum Patch Team” took responsibility for the attack. Describing themselves as “polite and honest” people, the members issued a statement explaining how local politicians use photo enforcement for revenue, not safety, purposes. The group added that attempts to resolve the situation through the normal political process have failed.
Arizona’s ambitious statewide speed camera program faces increasing resistance both from the public and from state and local officials. At least half a dozen speed cameras have been temporarily taken out of service by ordinary citizens using nothing more Post-It Notes and silly string. A video released yesterday documented a speed camera having its lens covered with silly string. Vigilantes then labeled with signs variously reading, “scamera,” “scamera: ka-ching!” and scamera: smile.” Over the past month other cameras have had their lenses covered with multiple yellow notes with the phrase “honest mistake” written on them. This is a subtle dig at camera operator Redflex which had argued that the importation, marketing and use of certain radar equipment in violation of federal law was an honest oversight. The Post-It Notes refer to a July incident where Redflex angered the office of Secretary of State Jan Brewer (R) which had been investigating a citizen’s complaint against the company. According to Brewer’s office, a Redflex employee “wrote a short response to the complaint on a post it note,” making light of an official inquiry into the company’s falsification of legal documents.
The West Virginia Legislative Auditor announced yesterday that a performance review of the West Virginia State Police found significant evidence that the agency imposes traffic ticket quotas to boost the number of citations issued. Nearly a third of all troopers involved in patrol duties statewide told the auditors that troopers are punished if they failed to generate a specified number of citations each month. In Troop 4, one of the six surveyed, 55 percent of the law enforcement officers admitted that they were under a ticket quota. The auditor confirmed this admission with documents, including a September 12, 2005 memo from Troop 4 commanders that ordered supervisors to impose a quota.
You know how it is with press releases. You read through the hyperbole (“the first 750i of 1987 famously offering more computing power than NASA utilised to put man on the moon”) thinking of snarky things to say (as does my microwave oven). And then it hits you: there’s something not right here. Hang on; is that the speed limit I spy with my little eye? Sho’ nuff: the new BMW 7-Series marries the optional Lane Departure Warning system (achtung baby!) with the innocuously named “Speed Limit Display.” From the press release: “Using a camera mounted behind the rear view mirror, the system cross-references the GPS navigation system information and the real-world information to constantly monitor the legal speed limit, and relays this information to the driver in the dashboard or, if specified, into the Head-up Display. The car’s hard drive is pre-programmed with all of Europe’s speed limits but, in the case of road works or incidents, limits can vary. The camera reads the numbers on temporary road signs and over-rides the known speed limit, bringing this information constantly into the driver’s line of sight.” Dummkopf! Limits can vary! Link the GPS speed limits with the cruise control and Big Brother’s your spymaster! Coming to an island nation near you soon!
Dwindling property tax revenue has forced local governments in Michigan to look to motorists to refill their municipal budgets, according to a Detroit News analysis. In 2002, the city of Detroit issued a total of 126,007 traffic tickets. Last year, that figure grew to 245,249– a 94 percent jump. The percentage increase was even greater in small towns like Plymouth, which saw the number of tickets skyrocket from 440 to 2,584 — up 487 percent — over the same period. “When I first started in this job thirty years ago, police work was never about revenue enhancement,” Utica Police Chief Michael Reaves told the DetN. “But if you’re a chief now, you have to look at whether your department produces revenues. That’s just the reality nowadays.” Utica issued 3540 tickets in 2003 and 5518 in 2007 — a 56 percent increase. A few communities like Pontiac saw ticket revenue decrease in proportion to the number of police laid off, but eighteen jurisdictions overall reported a ticketing increase of more than fifty percent. The National Motorists Association cited Detroit suburbs as home to the worst speed traps in the country.
Executives at photo enforcement firms American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex have been caught ignoring their own speed camera tickets. Arizona motorists may safely throw away citations sent in the mail as state law requires that they be personally served with a violation notice within ninety days of the alleged offense. Tickets that are not properly served must be dismissed within 120 days. That worked out well for Shoba Vaitheeswaran, 33, the spokesman for the Arizona office of Redflex Traffic Systems. A ticket filed against her in September 2005 was dismissed after she ignored it. Vaitheeswaran was not an employee at the time, as she has only recently taken over the media relations role from Michael Ferraresi, 28. Ferraresi, himself a frequent ticket recipient, has been through a revolving door with the Australian camera vendor and the Arizona Republic newspaper. After writing stories about the company for the Republic, Redflex hired Ferraresi to be spokesman– often speaking to his former colleagues at the paper about the company. Ferraresi is once again reporting for the Republic, a paper that offers enthusiastic editorial support for the use of speed cameras and red light cameras.
Quick, what do egregious bailouts have in common with the invasion of Iraq? Sticklers for a little-known concept called “international law” aren’t fans of either. And this time they could actually sue. “We will look very carefully at the details of the proposed aid package to the U.S. auto industry, in order to ensure compliance with international trade rules and assess the potential impact which it may have on trading partners,” Peter Power, trade spokesman for the European Commission told CNN yesterday. The World Trade Organization prohibits a range of subsidies that unfairly hurt competitors, and with pro-bailout rhetoric hitting new heights in “whatever it takes” shrillness, there’s a chance that good intentions will translate into a WTO lawsuit. After all, Europe and the US are already beefing over a number of trade issues, from aerospace subsidies to agriculture. In fact, it’s possible that Bush’s resistance to bailout plans is a result of his humiliating retreat from steel-industry protectionism some five years ago. Then, as now, a struggling industry needed his help, and help he did. Until the EU threatened $2.2b in retaliatory economic sanctions. Sue me once, shame on you…
“Westchester County lawmakers last night made it illegal for drivers to keep their vehicles running for three minutes or more while parked.” Now I’m sure TTAC’s Best and Brightest will be all abuzz with lots of reasons why this idea makes no sense at all (kids roasting/freezing to death), defines “unenforceable,” doesn’t make any sense and violates Americans’ constitutional right to not be hassled by the government for stupid ass shit. But all that counts for naught compared to our collective responsibility to “reduce dangerous emissions like carbon dioxide that contribute to Westchester’s poor air quality and to global warming.” This according to Thomas Abinanti, D-Greenburgh, the bill’s sponsor. “Climate change is the defining issue of the 21st century,” Abinanti told LoHud.com. “We can do our part by not adding to the problem. Idling uses more gas and is worse for vehicles than turning your car off. Most idling is not only wasteful, but unnecessary.” Most? Not all? Westchester motorists who find themselves on the wrong end of a cop’s stop watch could be fined up to $250. [Miss you Glenn]
University of South Florida researchers have uncovered fundamental flaws in the first U.S. study that claimed red light cameras decrease accidents. Since 2001, the insurance industry’s report on the benefits of red light camera use in Oxnard, California has been cited by hundreds of cities as the basis for the adoption of photo enforcement. Researchers Barbara Orban, Etienne Pracht and John T. Large attempted to replicate these findings and discovered that the Oxnard numbers, intended to serve as the model of peer-reviewed scholarship, simply don’t add up. “The regression analysis of [Oxnard study authors Richard] Retting and [Sergey] Kyrychenko does not support their conclusion that red light cameras reduced total or injury crashes,” the University of South Florida team wrote in the American Journal of Public Health last month. This sounds familiar…
The graduate of an insurance industry “boot camp” is behind efforts to legalize the use of red light cameras in Florida. State Representative Ron Reagan (R-Bradenton) twice attended the Insurance Campaign Institute, a special program designed to place insurance agents in positions of political power bankrolled by twenty insurance companies. “Essentially a political boot camp, the comprehensive political training program covers all facets of the campaign trail, from organization to grassroots strategies, fundraising, direct mail, advertising, media relations, public speaking, debate preparation, campaign research, and use of insurance community strength,” the Independent Insurance Agents of America explained in a 2001 press release. Reagan credits his 2002 Florida House victory to the Insurance Campaign Institute. To repay his industry backers, Reagan introduced the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act, a measure giving cities the green light to install red light cameras. Although the bill is portrayed as a response to the tragic death of a constituent in 2003, Reagan’s legislation is designed to create millions in new revenue for the insurance industry. And here’s how…
Following this week’s successful voter referendum banning photo enforcement in Cincinnati, residents in two more Ohio cities are looking to oust red light cameras and speed cameras. The sponsors of the Cincinnati initiative are now exploring the possibility of putting ticket cameras on the ballot in Toledo. In Chillicothe, more than 17 percent of the city’s 13,000 registered voters has already signed a growing online petition demanding camera removal. “The undersigned will take action to elect new city council members therefore removing all those responsible for this unconstitutional act unless the said members make motion to remove and terminate this contract the city signed with Redflex Traffic Systems immediately,” the petition states. The possible consequences of the revolt were not lost on city leaders who are expected to discuss the issue at an upcoming city council meeting. One of the camera system’s main supporters, however, blamed residents for the program.
Soon after Inauguration Day, President-elect Barack Obama is expected to reverse about 200 Bush administration executive orders. One ot watch: a reversal of the December 2007 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA ) ruling prohibiting the enactment of California Assembly Bill 1493 (pdf). Passed back in 2002, AB1493 mandates a 30 percent reduction in car and truck carbon dioxide emissions starting in model year 2009. Depending on who’s doing the math, calculations suggest that California’s law would mandate a fleet average of about 40mpg. That’s about five mpg higher than the EPA’s latest Corporate Avererage Fleet Economy (CAFE) target. There is a loophole for small-volume manufacturers, but volume carmakers are going to be pissed as as hell (they lobbied heavily for the primacy of the EPA ruling). As expected, Obama has come out in favor of aiding the US automakers ASAP. Will the automakers plead poverty and ask for a delay in reversing the AB1493 ruling? Of course.
On Tuesday, voters in Cincinnati, Ohio made it clear that photo enforcement is not welcome in the city. A majority of voters approved an amendment to the city charter prohibiting local officials from ever installing either red light cameras or speed cameras. Referendum co-sponsor Josh Weitzman hopes his coalition’s victory inspires other cities “This election is further proof that people do not want to have traffic cameras,” Weitzman told TheNewspaper. “Politicians in cities across the country need to take note of this if they plan on getting re-elected.” Cincinnati city council members had been trying for the past four years to install the devices that promised to generate between $2m and $12m in annual revenue. Advocates were stopped in 2005 when former Mayor Charlie Luken vetoed a camera ordinance saying, “Let’s be honest with the public– we didn’t think about this until we came up with a budget problem.”
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Friday announced the creation of a new office whose primary goal will be to lobby state governments to convert their freeways into toll roads. While some congressional leaders expressed hope that the change represented by FHWA’s new Office of Innovative Program Delivery would be reversed by the next administration, there is reason to believe that the incoming administration will continue supporting public private partnership (PPP) initiatives. For now, the toll road promotion office sits at the top of FHWA’s organizational chart to emphasize its primary place within the federal transportation department.
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