The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday ruled that a driver cannot be pulled over for failure to signal when that conduct did not affect any other driver. The decision came down in the case of Antoinette Feaster, 37, who was stopped and arrested on August 15, 2007 around 11am. Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department Officer Travis Robinson had set up a speed trap on the median of Interstate 24 when he saw Feaster’s Chevrolet Tahoe traveling about 8 MPH below the speed limit and making a lane change without signaling. Feaster’s attorney quizzed Robinson on the stand at trial about his recollection of the incident.
American Traffic Solutions (ATS) is following the playbook from its failed attempt to defeat an anti-red light camera referendum in College Station, Texas. The company on Monday used its law firm, Stoel Rives LLC, to file a lawsuit under the name of Christine Preston, a local resident seeking to prevent Mukilteo residents from having any say in whether automated ticketing machines are deployed on their streets.
“A controversy exists between plaintiff and defendants regarding whether the subject matter of proposed Mukilteo Initiative No. 2 is within the scope of the initiative power,” the ATS law firm’s complaint stated. “Proposed Mukilteo Initiative No. 2 would improperly interfere with the exercise of a power delegated by state law to a local legislative authority.”
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is struggling in his latest budget with the desire to spend more money while lacking tax revenue due to the economic recession. Nonetheless, the $28 billion budget for 2011 expends $200 million more than the previous year. Rendell yesterday testified before the state Senate Transportation Committee about how he intended to hit up motorists to make up much of that amount.
“If you did the increase in fees for inflation and the four cents at the pump — again, I think my idea is the best idea — but if you did that, you’ve got almost $100 million more,” Rendell testified. “If you did the InsureNet — that’s the plan with the cameras — the state would generate $75 million more.”
Wisconsin’s highest court yesterday approved police use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to track motorists, as long as a valid search warrant is obtained. In 2003, Madison Police Detective Mary Ricksecker attached a tracking device to the 1980 Chevy Beretta as it sat on the private driveway belonging to Michael A. Sveum, then age 35. Sveum was suspected of stalking his ex-girlfriend, Jamie Johnson based on nine hang-up calls that were placed at payphones around the city. The tracking device was eventually used to connect Sveum to the time and place of other calls.
A pair of Cuyahoga County, Ohio cities are likely to have a public vote on banning red light cameras and speed cameras in November. A sufficient number of residents in Garfield Heights and South Euclid signed a referendum petition that organizers expect to turn in this week, as early as today. Once approved, these municipalities will join Anaheim, California; Baytown and Houston, Texas; and Mukilteo, Washington in voting on the future of cameras on November 2.
President Obama got a chance to check out the Chevy Volt yesterday, as part of his trip to the Michigan battery belt. Unfortunately, he did not confirm or deny whether the Volt will actually get 230 MPG, because the EPA and GM are still “negotiating” a mileage sticker for the Volt. Luckily, GM has provided an important look at how the Volt’s battery system stacks up against key competitors… Read More >
Just when we thought that EVs and hybrids might begin to make our city streets quieter, Congress proposes legislation—so unlikely not to be passed—that would require electrics to announce their presence with an external noise source. Section 109 of this year’s Motor Vehicle Safety Act [PDF here], reported out of the House Energy and Commerce committee in early July, requires new hybrids and EVs “to provide an alert sound” so that pedestrians, notably the blind, can hear them. Fortunately, it could take six years before we’re subjected to this, due to the creaky slowness of the bureaucracy. The secretary will have three years after the enactment of the transportation bill to issue the final rule, and “full compliance” won’t be required until September 1 or later of the calendar year that begins three years after the final rule is issued. Read More >
We didn’t make it down to the first meeting of the NHTSA-National Research Council panel tasked with studying unintended acceleration, but apparently we weren’t the only ones. A scan of the MSM confirms that a number of “more study is needed” stories were filed for the occasion, a good two weeks ago now, but we’ve been pointed towards the presentations for that meeting [available for download here, all 128 slides in PDF format here], and we feel comfortable drawing a few conclusions from them. In fact, we’d even argue that this data puts a lot of the controversy over unintended acceleration in Toyotas to rest.
Tickets are no longer being mailed based on evidence created by freeway speed cameras in the state of Arizona. After a year-long campaign against the devices, activists from the group CameraFraud.com succeeded in convincing Governor Jan Brewer (R) to end the photo enforcement contract that her predecessor, Janet Napolitano (D) signed. As a result, the cameras were remotely shut down at 12:00am today.
Remember GM’s Heated Windshield Washer Fire Fiasco? The one where the “Hotshot” unit got so hot that cars went up in flames? GM recalled them. Our friend Carquestions reveals that this doesn’t keep you from buying one. Why is it still for sale, ask you? Carquestions has the answer: NHTSA was asleep at the wheel again. Says Carquestions: “NHTSA failed to list it. NHTSA is supposed to issue an equipment recall.” Instead, they just called GM. The part is widely available at a parts counter near you. Nobody is saying this has anything to do with the fact that it is a GM part. That would simply be irresponsible conspiracy-mongering.
Welcome to amateur hour. As reported yesterday, The Wall Street Journal claimed in a story that Toyota’s “data recorders can lose their information if disconnected from the car’s battery or if the battery dies—as could happen after a crash.” Their source was “a person familiar with the situation.” Commentator Carquestions concluded that the source doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. After we wrote about it, Carquestions fingered the not so knowledgeable source as “a secretary within Media Relations at the DOT.”
Instead of talking to a secretary, the WSJ could have done what we did: Call Toyota headquarters in Tokyo. Read More >
Carquestions noticed a troubling issue with the latest Wall Street Journal report on the investigation of Toyota’s black-box data: the report cites its anonymous source as saying that “black box” event data recorders (EDRs) can lose their data if disconnected from the battery. Carquestions points out that this is not the case, cites the appropriate regulations and concludes that it sounds like this source doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. Meanwhile, Jalopnik is running with the story that Toyota planted the story… but then, why would Toyota imply that its own black boxes don’t meet regulatory standards? Especially when Toyota’s official comment is that it has yet to draw any conclusions from the investigation. For a story with such a logical conclusion (yes, most people are bad drivers) this is all getting a bit complicated.
Now,the Financial Times writes for the first time that “US government officials have acknowledged that they have so far found no fault with the carmaker’s electronic throttle controls. They have suggested that many complaints of unintended acceleration that have dogged Toyota stem from driver error rather than defective equipment.” Read More >
The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously decided yesterday to clarify the circumstances under which a judge can suspend a driver’s license over a traffic violation. The high court previously had offered no guidance on the subject, leaving lower courts with the discretion to take away the right to drive from motorists for any reason. This happened to Laura Moran who received a 45-day suspension for a reckless driving incident that took place August 3, 2007 at 3am in Aberdeen Township.
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