A judge with a history of overturning the will of Washington voters decided Friday to block the public from a say in the use of red light cameras. Chelan County Superior Court Judge John E. Bridges sided with traffic camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) which filed the suit to prevent a repeat of what happened in Mukilteo. In November, residents were allowed to vote on an anti-camera initiative, and 71 percent voted to ban the devices.
Cincinnati motorist Thomas H. Starks spent nearly a year fighting a $150 speeding ticket he received from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. On Monday the arguments he made on his own behalf were vindicated by the state’s second-highest court. A three-judge panel threw out evidence provided by a Laser Technology Inc (LTI) UltraLyte laser speed gun on the grounds that state officials never bothered to certify its accuracy. Instead, they just assumed the certification of an older model, the LTI 20-20, would suffice.
Starks would not let that difference slide past the judge. On June 24, 2010, Trooper Eric Witmeyer had accused Starks of speeding on Interstate 75 in Franklin Township where the speed limit had been reduced to 55 MPH. Starks was put on trial on July 23, 2010. Starks insisted that the state had to prove the device was properly certified.
Another Massachusetts jurisdiction that uses the broadly representative “town meeting” form of government has said “no” to the use of red light cameras. Residents gathered at the annual meeting in Raynham on Monday voted 104 to 95 against the idea of petitioning the legislature for permission to install automated ticketing machines. The town has a population of about 11,000, and all qualified inhabitants are allowed to vote.
Most Americans depend heavily on their license to drive – for their jobs, their family obligations and their recreational travel.
Naturally, some of our driving needs take us out of state. And as is well-known, traffic enforcement tends to focus on out-of-state drivers – maybe because it is that much harder for drivers to successfully contest out-of-state tickets…?
Compounding this problem is the fact that out-of-state violations almost inevitably impact the home-state driver’s license, sometimes even resulting in suspensions. And if out-of-state tickets are hard to contest, then clearing up interstate licensing actions can be nearly impossible.
In the nanny state’s never-ending battle to completely eliminate all driving risk, and its corresponding effort to make sure that every bit of your traffic record is available to every enforcement agency in the land, several compacts have been set up between the states for the sharing of motorists’ driving offense information.
This might be a good thing, if all transportation departments had fair, clear, and consistent rules and procedures for how out-of-state violations should impact home-state license privileges – and those agencies took responsibility for treating motorists fairly when problems arise.
The reality, though, is that such situations lead to vicious circles where neither the bureaucracy of the ticketing state nor the home state is willing to step up and unilaterally correct problems. Read More >
Today’s sign of the times comes courtesy of the world of social media, and calls into question some of our most basic assumptions about the world of cars. France, it seems, experienced a 12.8% increase in on-road fatalities in the first quarter of this year, and the New York Times reports that the French government is responding by banning devices that scan the road ahead for speed camera radar waves.
A decade ago, the death rate on French roads was among the worst in Europe, and the government reacted in 2002 with what some drivers called repressive tactics. Radar cameras were erected at intersections throughout the country, which captured a motorist’s license plate if the car surpassed the speed limit by more than 5 kilometers an hour (3 m.p.h.), deducted points off a motorist’s license and sent a fine through the mail.
The measures were deemed successful. The International Transport Forum said France achieved a reduction of 47 percent in its road-death toll in the first decade of the century, relative to the 1990s. The ministerial report said the average speed in France also dropped 10 kilometers an hour since 2002, or 11.7 percent.
The radar cameras, however, spawned a thriving market in radar-warning devices. According to AFFTAC, 5.1 million drivers in France use them. Under the new law, users would face fines of up to 1,500 euros, or about $2,100.
The French government’s decision to not only ban radar detectors, but also to remove signs warning motorists of fixed radar cameras has generated some serious backlash. Apparently over 80,000 people “liked” the Facebook page of AFFTAC, a group opposing the measures and calling for nationwide protests, over the course of two days. By comparison, the most optimistic count of hand-raisers for a possible future Chevy El Camino is “possibly as high as 18,000 people.” Call us crazy, but we thought America’s oft-cited “love affair with the automobile” would have created some slightly different results.
The Wisconsin Court of Appeals on Wednesday gave its first ruling on how dashcam evidence would be treated at the appellate level. A three-judge panel decided that the proper legal standard when evaluating a video is to overturn a trial judge’s decision only it is “clearly erroneous.”
The context was provided by the November 4, 2009 arrest of Jeffrey D. Walli in Sheboygan. The court was asked to determine whether Sheboygan Police Officer Brandon Munnik had a valid reason for pulling Walli over in the first place. Munnik claimed that around 11:22pm Walli’s car nearly sideswiped him, so he flipped on his emergency lights, which triggered his dashboard-mounted video camera, and gave chase. Munnik testified that the resulting video showed Walli’s car over the center line and was a legitimate traffic violation. Walli’s attorney disagreed with that take.
Members of the public are not allowed to attend red light camera trials and other proceedings at the Superior Court of California courthouse in the city of Corona. For the past several weeks a policy has been place denying entry to anyone who does not have a direct involvement in a specific case scheduled that day. Court security checks anyone attempting to enter the building.
“Please be advised that this court facility is closed to the general public,” a sign posted at the door states. “The facility conducts criminal trials Monday through Friday and only jurors, witnesses and associated trial personnel are permitted to enter. On Fridays, the facility is also open for litigants reporting for court trial on traffic or minor offense matters.”
The Missouri state Senate yesterday voted to require local jurisdictions to adhere to minimum standards for yellow warning time at intersections. State Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis), an opponent of the use of red light cameras, introduced amendments to an omnibus transportation bill designed to limit the desirability of photo enforcement. His colleagues went along with language mandating that signals on all roads adhere to the bare minimum “nationally recognized engineering standards.”
Speaking your mind to a police officer during a traffic stop is not free speech, according to the Tenth Circuit US Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel ruled Thursday that Colorado Springs, Colorado Police Officer Duaine Peters did nothing wrong in having Miriam Leverington fired from her job as a nurse at Memorial Health System for talking back after he wrote her a speeding citation.
Ohio’s supreme court has a long history of defending traffic tickets, whether they happen to be issued by police or a machine. The court on Wednesday maintained this tradition in tossing out a constitutional challenge to the photo enforcement hearing process, denying the challengers the chance to present their case in full.
We have documented extensively how Beijing’s license plate lottery mucked-up the car market of China’s capital. Now, Beijingers found a creative way to get their sought-after license play without bothering Lady Luck: They go to court. Read More >
There is a Police Equipment Show in Beijing, and it’s a meeting of the minds: Chinese cops want to get out of their Santana wagons (read gen 2 Passat Variant), and Chinese carmakers want a slice of the lucrative government pie. Our friend Tycho of ChinaCarNews (formerly known as TheTycho.com) went to the show and took his camera along. Above a uniformed Shanghai-Volkswagen Passat Lingyu, the logical successor of the ubiquitous Shanghai-Volkswagen Santana. More Chinese police after the jump … Read More >
Less than a year after the Florida legislature enacted legislation authorizing the use of photo enforcement, the state House of Representatives wants to reverse course. By a 59 to 57 vote yesterday lawmakers approved a bill repealing the provisions of the Mark Wandall Act.
“The unequivocal data that I’ve seen is that these intersections have become more dangerous not less dangerous with the advent of red light cameras,” bill sponsor Representative Richard Corcoran (R-New Port Richey) said. “All the data I’ve looked at has shown overwhelmingly that these intersections become less safe.”
Volkswagen was all grins when litigating hedgies lost the first round in court in the U.S. (it’s on appeal) and when the public prosecutor in Stuttgart dropped some of the investigation into former Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and former CFO Holger Härter (only to add new angles.) Until the matters are cleared, Volkswagen and Porsche officially are not married, unofficially, they share all available beds.
Now, a new lawsuit causes frozen faces and acid reflux at the very top of Volkswagen: German investment funds intend to involve prominent supervisory board members of Volkswagen AG in a billion dollar court case. Read More >
The Brazilian autoblogosphere is up in arms because of an alleged censoring attempt by Toyota do Brasil. A month after the Brazilian blog Notícias Automotivas had run a piece on the upcoming Toyota Corolla S, they received a letter from Toyota do Brasil’s Legal Department. The Corolla S looks like not much more than a customized Corolla with red stitching on faux racing seats. The letter, dated April 29, 2011, looks scary.
We have received what we believe is a faithful translation of the letter from Brazilian Portuguese Legalese to English. The letter demands, within 24 hours of receipt, the takedown of the whole story, plus something unheard of: Read More >
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