Hawaii may be paradise on Earth for tourists, but it’s a game of musical parking spots for University of Hawaii students. KHNL TV reports that 20k University of Hawaii students must compete for 5K parking spots. "It's competitive, yah, early bird gets the worm, kind of a thing," admits U of H student Justin Lozano. Once the official parking spaces are taken, creative parking takes over. Despite the idyllic island life, local residents aren't happy with the result. J.R. DeGroote spoke for many when he decried “people blocking our parking, parking on the grass, taking our parking spots.” While students are gagging for more parking spaces, school officials say enough ain't never gonna be enough. They suggest that Aloha State academics take advantage of a $100 per semester bus pass.  

Ontario authorities are pulling out all the stops to put the brakes on speeding. The National Post reports that the province will begin citing drivers who exceed speed limits by 50 km/h (31 mph) with “street racing” tickets– even if they aren’t racing. Offenders will also be fined a whopping C$2k to $10k, face an on-the-spot license suspension, and risk having their vehicles impounded for one week. The Globe and Mail also announced Ontario’s reintroducing aircraft patrols after a 26-year absence. Earlier this summer, the Toronto Star revealed new requirements for commercial vehicles: 105 km/h (65 mph) speed governors. While many U.S. states have been raising speed limits, Canadian legislators have remained firmly in the slow lane. Ontario limits speeds to 100 km/h (62 mph); no province has a limit that exceeds 110 km/h (68 mph). Whether these anti-speed policies save lives remains, at best, unclear. Since 2000, the U.S. fatality rate per vehicle mile has fallen roughly 2.5 times faster than Canada’s, with American roads now enjoying a slightly lower overall death rate than their neighbors to the north. 

I swear I'm living in an episode of The Twilight Zone written by Kurt Vonnegut. Submitted for your consideration: a wealthy family in Stoke-on-Trent England possess the country's largest carbon footprint. "Their annual energy bill of £3,000 was five times the national average," The Daily Telegraph notes. "The central heating was left on for 24 hours a day. Nothing in their home was recycled, and their carbon-unfriendly inventory included 15 televisions, 30 game consoles, six computers, three DVD players, three fridges, a laptop, 16 spotlight bulbs in the kitchen alone, and two cars (a gas-guzzling 4×4 and a Mini)." The Fowlers are whisked off to a "House of Correction" in Wales where they live for four days without running water or electricity. They fish garbage out of a lake, walk across a pile of burning coals (symbolizing their fossil fuel consumption), watch a pig being killed (and eat it) and fertilize their vegetables with their own urine. Upon their return, they discover an "eco-mower" sheep, an electric car and a pedal-powered washing machine that only works with cold water. Did I mention that this was all done for a reality show called "Outrageous Wasters?" That's it, I'm off to the hot tub…

In an uncharacteristic gesture of solidarity with beleaguered UK motorists, the British government is drawing up rules that would stop city councils using parking tickets to raise revenue and ease off their clamping campaigns, mate. Christian Today reports that the UK Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly wants city councils abandon revenue targets for meter maids. What's more, these oft-reviled civil servants should only summon the dreaded clamper (how Dickensian is that?) as a last resort for motorists who "persistently break the rules" or fail to pay parking fines. Unfortunately, the proscriptions would only apply to council employees, not the legions of "cowboy clampers" roaming urban areas in the name of the rule-of-law CO2 reduction congestion prevention profit. Edmund King of the RAC motorists' group will be glad to see the back of aggressive city clampers, comparing the practice to a legendary English highwayman. "Clamping is a crude activity which should have been outlawed at the time of Dick Turpin."

The Chicago Sun Times reports that *gasp* drivers still talk on their cell phone whilst 're driving– even after laws were enacted making the practice a ticket-able offence. No surprise there. A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that a 2001 cell phone ban in New York State led to a dramatic decline in in-car cellular communications. Three years later and the percentage of drivers using cell phones from behind the wheel went right back up to pre-ban levels. Why? Lax law enforcement; in Chicago cops wrote 13,400 cell phone related tickets as compared to 2.8 million traffic tickets. The study also cites an "above the law" attitude amongst offenders. In other words, there's a large number of cell phone-wielding drivers who believe they're perfectly safe drivers, much like chronic speeders. In this, they are sadly mistaken, as anyone who talks on a cell phone while driving may be as dangerous as a drunk driver.

USA Today is running a story headlined "Cities get at illegal immigrants through cars." The article begins with a bold proclamation: "Local officials getting tough on illegal immigrants have a new target: their cars." Only "getting tough" has nothing to do with immigration or deportation. "Communities in Alabama, California, Illinois and elsewhere are using laws that punish drivers without licenses. Cities often tow cars immediately." So drivers without a license get big fines, a tow job and that's it. But wait! Even this approach is under attack. "'There's been a long history of ordinances that don't say anything about immigrants and nothing about national origin, but clearly are aimed at particular groups,' says John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. 'They have uniformly been struck down.'" For example, they're challenging a law in Waukegan, Illinois that fines a driver without a license or insurance $500 and impounds their car (more fees). "Ramon Becerra, regional head of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, says it [the city ordinance] promotes racial profiling. Most drivers whose cars are towed are Hispanic, he says." Am I the only one that wonders why this article never questions the fact that police don't/can't check these dangerous drivers' citizenship and pass their cases to immigration authorities where appropriate? 

Just in time for football season, Chicago’s municipal Revenue Department gives “ticket scalping” a whole new meaning. The Tribune reports that during 2006, the city generated over $210m in fines from traffic and parking citations. That’s almost four years’ worth of Bears ticket sales, and, serendipitously, about equal to the city’s anticipated 2008 budget deficit. In a “sales” performance that would impress even the NFL, parking ticket revenues have soared 60 percent. Since 2000, the number of vehicles getting the (Denver) boot has increased 20 percent. The City also recently invested $1.5m to outfit a brigade of 26 vans with plate-recognition technology to track down additional clamping candidates, while new stop light cameras promise to fatten city coffers by another $17.5m next year. With this blatant money grab intense interest in public safety affixing such a prominent bull’s eye on the wallets of American motorists, one has to wonder what other not-so-hidden driving taxes could possibly be next. Speed cameras? Congestion charges? CO2 taxes? The mind boggles.

Translation: they will be crushed with a steam-roller. Derivation: Philippine Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde. Origination: Phillipine Inquirer. Explanation: The Philippine government has a problem with high end automotive smuggling. Previously, the police would auction off confiscated vehicles. At which point the smugglers would repurchase them and sell the newly cooled loot to their customers. After consulting with her new Presidential Anti-Smuggling Task Force, President Arroyo has ordered that five such cars be crushed, on TV, in front of her very eyes. We're talking about a Bimmer, Ferrari (another cursed Enzo?), Lamborghini, Porsche Carrera and Cayenne. The head of the Force, Antonio “Bebot” Villar, said his team might flatten 15 more cars at the same time. No date has been set, but here's hoping YouTube's servers can cope. 

Auto Express reports that our doubts about the integrity of two-way electronic automotive communications are fully justified. The mag has uncovered a £700 device that emits a radio wave that blocks the signal emanating from global positioning satellites. As a result, the car's on-board "black box" can’t record movement data. The jammer also blocks mobile phone signals to stop the black box from sending information back to its base. Bottom line: a  jammer-equipped car would be invisible to a GPS-based road charging system. (Not to mention the possibility of jamming someone else's car.) And that means that the UK's movement towards Big Brother policing "pay as you go" road pricing could be stymied by industrious hackers. Of course, Europe has already outlawed passive radar detectors and (I swear) deploys radar detector detectors. The cat-and-mouse e-games could just be beginning.  

The Age is reporting two more hoon-related incidents, less than a day after a street race gone bad killed an elderly couple in Sydney, Australia. The first arrest involved two Pulsar hatchbacks racing side-by-side. Police allege that the vehicle on the wrong side of the road in Guildford struck a car making a right hand turn, sending both drivers to hospital. That accident comes hot on the heels of another arrest in St. Marys, where police nabbed two more alleged street racers: a 17-year-old Toyota Camry driver (with two 16-year-old passengers) and a 21-year-old disqualified driver helming a Daihatsu Charade. Police have responded to the hoonage with plenty of tough talk, promising increased retribution. "You have to question whether, as in the case of the United States, the solution to this problem is, in part, the compacting of vehicles into a cube dropped on the front lawn of their homes," Mr Moroney told reporters. "Maybe that's the message that they've got to understand."

IBNLive.com is reporting a plot to topple Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit, financed by "millionaire contractor" Ashok Malhotra. Malhotra, who runs a canteen in the Delhi Assembly, stands accused of bribing Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) to oust Dikshit. The Central Bureau of Investigation raided Malhotra's house last week and discovered a fleet of 52 luxury cars with VIP number plates, 15 of which were allegedly slated for MLAs opposing Dikshit. According MLA Brahm Pal, ‘gifting’ luxury cars for political favors from MLAs is no biggie. “Everyone knows about these kind of things. Luxury cars are offered to MLAs, ministers to gain support in order to evict a politician from his post."

Physorg.com reports that mischief-makers (or worse) can hack Europe's Radio Data System with relative impunity, sending in-car sat nav systems spurious information. Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco from consultants Inverse Path demonstrated their hack to security professionals meeting in Las Vegas for the annual Black Hat digital self-defense conference. "We can create bad weather, fresh snow, full car parks, accidents… close bridges, roads or tunnels, and the SatNav will pop-up a detour." The Italian hackers also claimed they could trigger pre-programmed alerts: "air raid," "bomb," "bull fight," and "boxing match." While Barisani called his handiwork the "keep your parents from getting home attack," the breach highlights the dangers of the growing field of automotive telemetrics. 

Australia is in the middle of an anti-hooning jihad, confiscating the cars of street racers, donut makers and anyone else who dares hoon on the country's highways and byways. Last night, Perth police confiscated three cars in an hour, in the aptly named (at least for the coppers) Success. 720 ABC Perth reports that a 17-year-old girl and two men were booked for "creating undue and excessive noise. Although the vehicles were only impounded for 48 hours (plus steep fines), the country's law enforcement officials are happy to crush tasty tunermobiles owned by more accelerative hoonatics. The crackdown stems from the lethal consequence of illegal street racing, yet there isn't any scientific data on the overall perils of hooning. According to ABC Queensland, a researcher from Queensland University of Technology aims to redress that deficiency with a study for the school's Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety. Nerida Leal wants to keep it real: "Ill ask whether they think it's been effective, [and] whether they've come into contact with a police officer as part of an anti-hooning operation." 

As we've pointed out previously, the UK is now the most heavily surveiled country on planet Earth– thanks in part to their huge network of speeding cameras and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems. The Guardian reports that the police are now asking for powers to add to their national DNA database by taking on-the-spot DNA samples from suspects accused of minor offenses, such as littering, speeding or not wearing a seat belt. The UK DNA database is already the world's largest, with 3.4m profiles (roughly 5% of the population). So far, official objections to the scheme are centering on racial profiling. A spokeswoman for the Commission for Racial Equality said: "Statistics paint a frightening picture. Black men are four times more likely than white men to have their DNA profiles stored in the police national DNA database. In the interests of fairness we would like to call for DNA profiles to be limited to those that are convicted only."  

By a 3-2 vote, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that Fourth Amendment rights prevent police from searching cars without a warrant– even after the driver has been arrested. The Tuscon Citizen quotes Vice Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch's majority opinion: "In this technological age, when warrants can be obtained within minutes, it is not unreasonable to require that police officers obtain search warrants when they have probable cause to do so to protect a citizen's right to be free from unreasonable governmental searches." Prior to the search in question, defendant Rodney Gant had been arrested for driving with a suspended license. Police found cocaine and drug paraphernalia in Gant's car. The Arizona Attorney General's Office's chief criminal appeals lawyer was not a happy camper: "If you arrest the driver, it's not clear when police can search the car and when they can't. Now there is no bright line." It seems this issue is headed back to the Supreme Court.