With GM’s announcement of a new SYNC-competitor system, the issue of whether or not in-car connectivity systems are compatible with the government’s desire to reduce distracted driving has raised its head once again. So we put the question to you, our Best and Brightest: will the government ever step in to regulate in-car electronics? Should it? After all, distraction comes in all shapes and sizes… from fast food to in-car Facebook updates. Can the government draw a line between acceptable distractions and unacceptable ones? Will any government action actually make a difference in the statistics?

Arizona is home to the oldest continuously operating speed camera programs and the US headquarters for the two largest private companies that operate the equipment. It could also be the latest state to join the fifteen jurisdictions that ban automated ticketing machines. The Arizona Senate Government Reform Committee voted 5 to 1 on Wednesday to approve legislation repealing the statutes that have allowed the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the state. The move represents a significant reversal for a legislature that in the previous session introduced no significant legislation to curtail photo enforcement thanks to a leadership that fully backed the program.

Read More >

Automotive News [sub] reports:

Sixty-four dealerships that were terminated during Chrysler’s 2009 bankruptcy reorganization sued the U.S. Treasury Department today, seeking at least $130 million.

The suit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims here, alleges the government violated the Constitution by taking the stores’ franchises and their state legal rights without adequate compensation.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that more dealers could come on board, as the 64 suing dealers represent only eight percent of Chrysler’s cull. Neither Treasury nor Chrysler (which is not named in the suit) have commented. The suit, which can be read in its entirety in PDF format here, claims violation of Fifth Amendment rights, arguing that:

[the dealer cull] served the public purpose of promoting stability to the financial system of the United States… This is a loss that should not, however, be borne by a few individual dealers but, by reason of its broad and salutary public purpose, must in fairness and justice be borne by the public as a whole.

Activists in Winnipeg, Canada yesterday charged city leaders with using photo radar to exploit a hard-to-see sign used to provide notice of a change in the speed limit. To make its case, WiseUpWinnipeg broke out a copy of the official regulations governing signs, the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Device (MUTCD) for Canada, to determine whether the speed limit signs were placed in accordance with national standards. The group concluded that several of the signs are substantially out of compliance.
Read More >

Traffic camera vendor American Traffic Solutions showed no municipal love as it filed a breach of contract suit against Baytown, Texas on Monday. The St. Valentine’s Day complaint accused the city of failing to approve the mailing of an expected number of red light camera citations generated by the company.

Read More >

The Department of Transportation’s budget has been released [PDF here], and it includes (among other things):

a six-year, $556 billion surface reauthorization plan to modernize the country’s surface transportation infrastructure, create jobs, and pave the way for long-term economic growth. The President will work with the Congress to ensure that the plan will not increase the deficit.

But, the WaPo’s Ezra Klein points out

Traditionally, the underlying law — the Surface Transportation Assistance Act — was funded by increasing the gas tax. And when I say “traditionally,” I mean beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1982… if the administration is going to duck the fight on reconnecting the Surface Transportation Act and the gas tax, it’s hard to see this proposal getting funded and passed. The House GOP isn’t lockstep against infrastructure investment, but they do seem to be lockstep against new revenues. Plus: The gas tax was a sensible and smart way to fund improvements in transportation infrastructure. That’s why even Reagan signed onto it. It’s disappointing to see Bush’s irresponsible and ideological rejection of it become bipartisan policy.

Hear, hear. One of the reasons raising the gas tax is “sensible”: it makes the market more likely to play ball with President Obama’s goal to get a million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015. Another: it makes CAFE wrangling far less fraught with drama. In fact, the only downside to raising the gas tax is that it’s unpopular. Oh well…

The Daily Beast reports:

As General Motors Co. gets closer to emerging from government oversight, the automaker is trying to hire Bob Lutz, its former chief of vehicle development, as a consultant…
The U.S. Treasury has opposed Lutz’s appointment on the grounds that, since he left the company last May, paying him so close to his retirement could look like a sweetheart payout. The government could soften its opposition in three months, once a year has passed since Lutz’s retirement.

Could it be true? Could the man credited with all of GM’s success and none of its failures really be coming back for more? More to the point, as a consultant? Bob’s current gigs are advising an electric scooter company and the Lotus “revival”… does GM really want to put itself in that company? Oh, who are we kidding? We want Lutz back. The industry just seems so damn boring without him…

Baltimore’s WBAL TV reports that some 2,000 red light camera citations were “verified” by a police officer who died months ago. Baltimore police say only external copies of citations bear the signature of the deceased officer, and that internal versions of the citations bear the signature of officers who were alive when they signed them. Still, it’s not clear how the deceased officer’s signature appeared on the copies of the citations that were sent out… and given some of the shenanigans that have surrounded the red light camera industry, I’m sure some will speculate that a conspiracy is afoot. Especially with camera proliferation on the march in Baltimore County. [WBAL won’t allow embedding of its videos, but you can find the report on Youtube]

The Center for Automotive Research claims that its latest study [full document in PDF here] is not a forecast of EV sales, but rather “focuses on the expected deployment by states.” Still, by using hybrid vehicle sales to determine deployment patterns, and using a national estimate of electric vehicle market share annually (note: “the national estimates used in this paper do not constitute a CAR forecast and only reflect projections that were available at the time of this study”), the study finds that only 496,000 plug-in vehicles will be on the road by 2015, by which time the Obama Administration hopes to have a million EVs on the road. Still, the report envisions annual sales of plug-in vehicles as growing rapidly, from 77k units in 2012 to 140k annual units by 2015… a number that casts some serious doubt on the Administration’s recent (dubious) estimate that 1.2m vehicles will have been produced for the US market by 2015 (and not for the first time).

Read More >

The EPA’s National Clean Diesel Campaign and the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Energy Program have both been defunded in President Obama’s proposed 2012 budget, as the White House focuses on the much–debated goal of putting one million electric cars on the road by 2015. Bloomberg reports The NCDC budget was cut from $80m in 2010 to zero, even though Obama only just reauthorized $100m per year of grants through the program ten days ago. According to Senator Tom Carper, one of the  sponsors of that re-authorization, the program

leverages federal dollars so efficiently that for every $1 invested, we get over $13 in health and economic benefits in return

Oh well. Meanwhile, fans of the oil-burners imported by the German brands can relax: the NCDC focused on improving diesel emissions from freight, ports and fleets rather than subsidizing Euro-phile sports sedans. Besides, diesel isn’t the only loser in the rush to push plug-in cars to market: hydrogen is also losing out.

Read More >

The South Dakota House of Representatives voted 43 to 24 on Tuesday to prohibit the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the state. A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by state Representative Peggy Gibson (D-Huron) took aim at the controversial automated ticketing machine set up in Sioux Falls, describing the due process denied innocent motorists ticketed by the system.

“My constituent not only did not own the car that was photographed, but she was not even in Sioux Falls at the time,” Gibson said Tuesday. “In other words, she was presumed guilty of a traffic violation she did not commit in a car she did not own, but she had to go to great lengths to prove her innocence.”

Read More >

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano today took the unusual step of publicly voicing the Japanese government’s satisfaction with the U.S. government’s findings that Toyota’s electronic throttle control system is free of glitches, ghosts and malfunctions. It was a not so subtle reminder that politics weighed heavily in Toyota’s SUA scandal. Read More >

In an apparent response to a report detailing the challenges facing President Obama’s goal of getting a million plug-in vehicles on the road, the DOE has released its own report [in PDF here] arguing that the goal is, in fact, achievable. The main thrust of the argument is encapsulated in the table above,

Reaching the goal is not likely to be constrained by production capacity.  Major vehicle manufacturers have announced (or been the subject of media reports) that indicate a cumulative electric drive vehicle manufacturing capacity of over 1.2 million vehicles through 2015.

Ipso-freaking-facto. Done deal, right? Er, no. After all, GM has not confirmed that it will try to build 120k Volts starting next year. In fact, the Bloomberg story cited by the DOE actually says

GM now is working with suppliers to raise 2012 capacity from an earlier target of 60,000. It may not build that many if parts aren’t available or demand isn’t strong enough… Randy Fox, a GM spokesman, declined to comment on production plans. He said he didn’t know how many people have ordered a Volt or how long they will have to wait.

But hey, that sounds good enough for, well, government work. What with Obama’s policy apparently relying on the Volt to make up about half of the volume of plug-ins needed to meet his million-by-2015 goal and all. Meanwhile, Fisker has delayed production of its first car already, and has no in-house manufacturing experience, making its leap from 0-50k units over the next two years more than a little improbable. As for the prospect of Think’s City EV (proud recipient of NHTSA’s first EV recall) selling 20k units considering it’s starting pricing at $34k-$40k (for a tiny, 100-mile-range BEV), well, we wouldn’t bank on it. EV production numbers have consistently been optimistic, and are continually being revised (typically downward). Using them as evidence of the attainability of a political goal seems like a recipe for a one-way trip to “the trough of disappointment.“

A recent report from High Road Auto Research [full report in PDF here] finds that

It has been consistently found that the higher a vehicleʼs travel speed (even when driving at or under the legal limit), the greater the focus of the driver on their surroundings. The increased perception of danger triggers an increased endocrine reaction within the brain. This, in turn, forces the individual to play closer attention to objects in motion around the vehicle. Even relatively small changes in vehicle speed can result in substantial increases in spatial acuity and response time.

On the surface the report seems to be trading in truisms: after all, who would argue that higher speeds don’t trigger faster stimulus responses in drivers? But how does that apply to the real world of highway safety legislation and speed limits?

Read More >

After tarring and feathering Toyota for alleged sudden unintended acceleration, after inventing a mass murder of 89 that creates a massive 261,000 hits on Google, after dragging executives in front of tribunals of the Washington Inquisition, after shaking down Toyota for unprecedented $48.8 million in fines, after NASA engineers subjected Toyota cars to torture worse than waterboarding, the NHTSA today announced that they found … Read More >