The Georgia House of Representatives as early as tomorrow is expected to take up legislation that would ease the burden on motorists wrongly accused of running a red light. The House Committee on Judiciary Non-civil on Thursday endorsed House Bill 31, which proposes a series of fundamental changes designed to force the city or county government operating the camera system to prove its case. State Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-Cassville) introduced the legislation with five of his colleagues.
Talk about unfortunate timing of a product launch: Just as Google is getting ready to pack up and leave China, SAIC is making last preparations to launch their Google Android powered homegrown luxo-barge Roewe 350 at Beijing’s Auto Show (April 25 -May 2, 2010, I’ll be there.) The Rover Roewe will be added to the growing list of Google Android-based devices just as the spat between Google and China is turning into a full-fledged brawl. Read More >
The DOT policy is to incorporate safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities into transportation projects. Every transportation agency, including DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems. Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide — including health, safety, environmental, transportation, and quality of life — transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes.
Having spent most of his tenure chiding distracted drivers and hunting down demon-possessed Toyotas, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood appears to be over the whole car thing. The policy statement above was just one element of his push to put bicycling and other car alternatives on an equal footing to cars in transportation planning, which he recently announced at the National Bike Summit.
The cities of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe have sixty days to pull down the red light cameras and speed cameras currently operating on state and federal roads in New Mexico. The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) announced yesterday that transportation commission members unanimously decided to outlaw automated ticketing machines on thoroughfares within its jurisdiction.
Last November, Dutch lawmakers approved the first“pay-as-you-drive” tax system in Europe. A GPS gizmo, promptly dubbed “Spionagekastje” (“spy box,”) by the Dutch, was supposed to record where and when people would drive in the land of cheese, tulips, and koffie shops. With the information collected by the mandatory kastje, the Dutch government intended to fleece its motorized citizenry according to distance driven, along with size and engine of the car. That concept immediately launched a discussion in Europe whether other countries should be given the same Dutch treat. The Netherlands won’t be setting a trend in that matter. Dearly beloved, the Spionagekastje is dead. Read More >
Here’s (perhaps) the finale of David’s remarkable data diving: a full chart showing all makes and models sold from 1995 through 2008, with their rates of reported UA incidents to the NHTSA. To make the findings easier to interpret, David has adjusted all the results as a relationship to the same year average, rather than just the raw results. This really highlights those vehicles with higher than average rates of reported UA.
The table has been inserted full after the jump, as well as our commentary, but if you want to access the excel file in its entirety, it’s here.
Based on anonymous driving habit data from customers in 45 states, GPS navigation firm TomTom reckons that Americans tend to drive at about 70 MPH on the freeway, regardless of the posted speed limit. More specifically, most Americans tend to stay within a few miles per hour of the speed limit on interstate freeways. The WSJ [sub] reports that these findings are consistent with efforts to raise freeway speed limits around the country, as Virginia recently became the latest state to raise its freeway speed limit to 70 MPH or above. Naturally, there are still safety advocates still sticking to their “speed kills” talking points, but despite these state-by-state speed limit increases, America’s road fatalities per vehicle mile traveled has been dropping consistently. That Americans rarely drive over 70 MPH, even when limits are as high as 75 MPH, shows that motorists tend to find their natural comfort limit at that speed anyway. And the fact that states with higher freeway speeds tend to be large, sparsely-populated Western states indicates that motorists tend to vary their speed only slightly from the 70 MPH “state of nature” even when faced with longer distances and less traffic. [Hat Tip: ClutchCarGo]
The photo enforcement industry announced on Friday the creation of a new red light camera and speed camera advocacy group. The Partnership for Advancing Road Safety (PARS) describes itself as an organization that seeks to use best practices to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities on American highways. The group’s number one priority is countering the growing nationwide backlash against the use of automated ticketing machines that has resulted in multi-million dollar loses for camera vendors. Read More >
From the “how did we miss this?” file comes this story of Russian police pulling motorists over and using them to create a human roadblock. This incident built on anger in the wake of another recent incident [via the NY Times] in which the vice president of Lukoil apparently bribed police to cover up an accident in which his Mercedes crashed into a Citroen, killing two passengers. That incident inspired Russian rapper Noize MC to make this song, cleverly named “Mercedes S666.” As we noted the last time we covered the messy confrontations between Russia’s motorists and police, these incidents put the political problems of American motorists into much-needed context. We still have a lot to be grateful for.
Red light camera refunds will now reach $3.1 million in the city of South San Francisco, California. City officials decided this week that it had no choice but to refund tickets issued between January 28 and March 10 after being confronted by potential lawsuits over the city’s failure to abide by state law.
In January, the city admitted that every photo ticket that American Traffic Solutions (ATS) issued on its behalf between August 2009 and January 28, 2010 was invalid because the city council failed to ratify the contract. The council agreed to refund the tickets, nearly 3000 worth $446 each, and pay for the traffic schools motorists were forced to take. While generous, this move was not enough.
A few days ago, James Sikes and his runaway Prius was all over news. Until we mentioned that something is fishy. Sikes’ driving skills were put in question. Stories about a wife swapping website emerged. Stories about bankruptcy. Stories about an unpaid lease on the Prius. And sundry other stories. Quickly, Sikes turned into Balloon Boy 2.0
Michael Fumento, director of the Independent Journalism Project, went on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox Business and said: “It appears that everybody on planet earth suspected that there was something horribly wrong with this picture – except for the national media. The real hoax wasn’t James Sikes, it was in fact our press.” Read More >
Local governments that use red light cameras and speed cameras would be forced put the future of these efforts to a public vote under a proposal by a team of Louisiana state lawmakers. Led by Representative Jeff Arnold (D-Algiers), a bipartisan team of seven on Monday pre-filed legislation to rein in the use of automated enforcement systems.
Arnold’s preference is to ban them outright with House Bill 160, but he prepared an alternative measure designed to be more attractive to his colleagues with close ties to local government. House Bill 159 would require a referendum before any automated ticketing machine could issue fines in a local city or parish.
After three separate bailouts totaling over $17b, Congress is beginning to wonder if keeping auto-finance giant GMAC alive was worth it. Forbes reports that the Congressional Oversight Panel reckons at least $6.3b of that money could be gone forever, as GMAC flounders towards barely breaking even. And like the rest of the bailouts, the fundamental problem is that the influx of federal cash has allowed GMAC to pretend like it’s not struggling for survival. The panel report [full document in PDF format here] notes [via Automotive News [sub]]
Treasury’s previous and current support is not underpinned by a mature business plan. Although GMAC and Treasury are working to produce a business plan, Treasury has already been supporting GMAC for over a year despite the plan’s absence. Given industry skepticism about GMAC’s path to profitability and the newness of the non-captive financing company model, it is critical that Treasury be given an opportunity to review concrete plans from GMAC as soon as possible.
Ford’s new Taurus-based Interceptor will be available with the 3.5 liter Duratec, or the twin-turbo Ecoboost engine. Front wheel drive is standard, and AWD will be an option. But then, if you got to use other people’s tax money to buy your work ride, would you really save the few bucks by not buying the 365 hp, AWD version? Of course not. You are the law! Libraries can always have bake sales. [via Jalopnik]
When Ford announced that it would be building an “all-new” Police Interceptor model, speculation was rampant. At the time, we noted:
GM went to Australia for their police-duty RWD platform, might Ford do the same with a Falcon-based interceptor? Or is this the prelude to Panther 2.0? Or, as common sense seems to dictate, is the Interceptor “all new” simply because there’s just never been an Interceptor based on this Taurus before? If Ford is really engineering a dedicated fleet vehicle for US production with no civilian counterpart, they’re as crazy as GM is.
Against all odds, common sense won out (damn you Alan Mulally!). The Detroit News reports that the new Interceptor will debut tomorrow, and that it will be based on the Taurus’ D3 platform. Which gives us less than 24 hours to speculate about which engines will be turning which wheels, and whether Ford and Chevy’s FWD-RWD cop car flip-flop will favor one automaker or the other. Oh yes, and mourn the eventual passing of the Panther platform, now that there’s no hope of a police duty-inspired update. Actually, some of us might need to take our time with that last one…
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