Although red light camera supporters insist the programs enjoy broad support among the public, traffic camera companies are taking extraordinary measures to block ballot measures that would gauge public sentiment on the issue. Anti-photo enforcement initiatives are meeting corporate opposition in five cities in Washington state while American Traffic Solutions (ATS) is moving to reinstate red light camera use rejected by a majority of Houston, Texas residents. Albuquerque, New Mexico appears to be the only city with an unopposed referendum vote in play. (Read More…)
Louisiana lawmakers came close to enacting legislation that would have confiscated vehicles driven by people accused of littering. The bill failed in the House 49 to 46 on Monday after having cleared the state Senate last week by a 34 to 1 vote. Had two state representatives switched their votes, the measure would have been sent to the governor.
Not satisfied with impoverishing residents and unwary visitors with $500 automated tickets for being a tenth of a second late at a light, California’s legislators are moving a new bill allowing cities to reduce many posted speed limits by 5 mph. The lower limits will, in turn, allow them to shorten yellow lights, which will produce more red light camera tickets (four of the sponsoring cities have red light cameras). (Read More…)
The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled that evidence from an objectively unconstitutional automobile search can still be admissible in court as long as the search took place prior to court decisions that recognized stronger protections in the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, the April 2009 decision in the case Arizona v. Gant overturned prior precedent and required police to get a warrant to search a car when an arrested suspect posed no realistic threat to officer safety (view ruling). Willie Davis was arrested over two years earlier in Greenville, Alabama when that rule did not apply.
American Traffic Solutions (ATS) on Friday advanced toward its goal of reactivating the red light cameras to Houston, Texas. A majority of voters demanded in a November ballot vote that the cameras be taken down, but US District Court for the Southern District of Texas Judge Lynn N. Hughes believes the people had no right to vote.
The ruling was a major victory for the legal strategy of ATS General Counsel George Hittner, who worked with the Houston city attorney to create a lawsuit in which city officials, who want the cameras back, sued ATS, which also wants the cameras back. The case was not filed in state court, which would be the proper venue. Instead, Hittner had the case filed in the federal courthouse where his father happens to serve.
Cracks continued to in the ethanol industry’s once-impregnable political vanguard, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Senate has voted to roll back the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) as well as import tariffs on foreign-produced ethanol. This rollback of multi-billion-dollar ethanol credits failed earlier in the week, when the Detroit News reports automakers came out in opposition of a bill that would have required that 95% of all cars built in the US be capable of running 85% ethanol by 2017. The Senate did fail to pass a repeal of a government ethanol blending mandate that underpins the VEETC, however, and funding is moving forward for ethanol blending pumps. Still, the Senate’s repeal of VEETC alone means taxpayers could save over $5b per year on subsidies, and as one expert puts it
“Looks like we’re going to be relying on the biofuels mandates to make sure blenders use biofuels, rather than bribing them to use it with $6 billion,” [Bruce Babcock, professor of economics and the director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University] said.
In fact, Babcock thinks killing the subsidy could help ethanol because it would come out from the stigma of being a subsidized industry. And removing the subsidy may strengthen support for the mandate, and the tariff on imports.
Some Florida are beginning to regret jumping on the red light camera bandwagon without bothering to wait for state legislative approval. On Wednesday, the Pembroke Pines city commission voted to approve a settlement with attorney Jason D. Weisser who filed a lawsuit against a number of towns that began automated ticketing before state law was changed last July to allow automated ticketing.
Residents of Monroe, Washington are one step closer to having the opportunity to vote in November on whether or not they wish to continue using red light cameras and speed cameras. Monroe city officials this week handed over stacks of petitions to the Snohomish County auditor who will determine whether 999 valid signatures have been gathered out of the 2120 names turned in by Seeds of Liberty‘s Ty Balascio.
As the industry (or at least parts of it) and the federal government face off over forthcoming 2017-2025 CAFE/emissions standards, a Center for Automotive Research study is getting more play than ever from an industry that seeks to portray the high cost of fuel economy improvements as being not worth the additional costs to consumers. CAR has yet to publish its full study, but it’s clearly intended to counter an offensive from groups like the Consumer Federation of America, which uses its own study to show that CAFE regulation will actually save consumers money. This battle, over the cost to industry and consumers of passing a 62 MPG standard for 2025, has been playing out for months now, and will continue to go back and forth over the rest of this summer. And sure enough, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the National Resources Defense Council have both hit back against the CAR study, calling it “industry-advocate propaganda” in the Detroit News and arguing that it underestimates future reductions in technology costs.
Blowing into a breathalyzer weakly is grounds to convict someone of the crime of refusal, according to a May 26 decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Refusal carries penalties nearly as severe as a conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). On November 29, 2007 at 2:36am, Sergeant Joe Morgan of the Woolwich Township police department pulled over Aaron P. Schmidt after noticing that he was driving 10 MPH under the speed limit. Morgan administered the usual field sobriety tests and decided to bring Schmidt to headquarters for a breath test.
A campaign to reform or eliminate the use of red light cameras and speed cameras is heading up in Winnipeg, Canada. Earlier this month the group WiseUpWinnipeg kicked off the effort with a two-page, full-color advertisement in the Winnipeg Sun newspaper.
“Attention Winnipeg drivers, you are being deliberately deceived,” the ad warned. “The city of Winnipeg is engaged in a deliberate and dangerous campaign to induce photo enforcement violations and siphon your hard earned (cash).”
More people feel that the task of driving belongs to the driver, and do you really want to sort of hand over your safety to a machine? It’s possible the technology might one day be widely deployed. I just don’t think we’re anywhere close to that right now
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland came away from his first run-in with Google’s autonomous cars in a less-than-entirely optimistic mood [via the DetN]. You might think that Strickland, who is a central figure in Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s “War on Distraction,” would appreciate a driver that has no need for Twitter, Facebook or the other increasingly-common in-car distractions. Instead, he took his position to its remarkably solid core: that individuals need to think more, not less, about their responsibilities as drivers. It’s actually a fantastic message, especially given that he wasn’t kidding about the “technology isn’t ready” part, telling the DetN
There’s near misses. It’s not fool-proof. There’s a lot of work to go, [but] it’s a great piece of technology.”
The amount of yellow warning time at California intersections would drop along with speed limits under a bill being considered by the state legislature. The Senate Transportation Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on Assembly Bill 529, a proposal that re-writes the state’s speed trap law so that cities would be able to round down all speed limits after conducting a traffic study. The measure passed the full Assembly by a 77 to 0 vote on May 19. (Read More…)
NHTSA Administrator David Strickland warned automakers last week that he had no interest in making it easier to use systems like Twitter and Facebook, indicating that integration of these systems could face future regulation. But while Strickland was playing Bad Cop, his boss (and the traditional bad cop in these routines) Ray LaHood was busy playing Good Cop, telling the AP [via The WaPo] that
We are data-based. Our credibility comes from having good data. If we have good data, then we can make a case. Is messing with your GPS a cognitive distraction? Is changing the channel on the radio a cognitive distraction? We’re looking at that now.
You can see the entire war plan for the DOT’s assault on distraction in PDF here, but don’t rush. You have plenty of time. Voluntary guidelines (yes, voluntary) for visual-manual interfaces won’t come out until Q3 of this year, portable devices in Q3 2013 and voice-activated systems in Q1 2014. Meanwhile, the government won’t even have the data on which to regulate hands-free systems until Q1 2012. So, even though most research shows little change in distraction between a hands-free and handheld device, the industry should be able to sell a grip of hands-free and voice-activated systems before the government is even sure of how distracting they are.
California regulators want zero-emission vehicles—those that don’t run on petroleum—to comprise up to 5.5% of new-car sales in the state, or roughly 81,300, in 2018. The target would rise annually to 14%, or more than 227,600, by 2025…
Tom Cackette, chief deputy executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, says his agency’s goal is to test whether electric cars can become mainstream vehicles, or wind up serving a “niche” market. Mr. Cackette said the state is investing in charging stations and other infrastructure, and he pointed to the sales of new plug-ins on the market to show that there’s a demand for the vehicles. He said he believes the California targets are feasible.
“That is a question we’ll only find out by trying,” he said. “I think [car companies] are making a pretty big investment in these vehicles, and they wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t think there was a market there.”
Industry lobby groups are pushing California to roll the ZEV mandate into the forthcoming national CAFE standard. Small automakers like Mazda complain that placing a California ZEV mandate on top of national emissions standards would create a “costly burden…in light of the uncertain marketplace and infrastructure for electric vehicles.” And since CARB is leading the federal government by the ear towards a national standard anyway, it could simply push for a higher CAFE rate, which would at least allow firms the flexibility to comply on their own terms. Adding a major ZEV mandate won’t fundamentally change the national standard, but it absolutely will force automakers to spend huge amounts of money to develop a kind of vehicle that has major shortcomings, is only as green as local electricity generation, and has yet to prove itself with consumers. Whatever you think of emissions standards increases, it should be clear that consumers should determine what mix of technologies can best serve their needs while lowering fuel consumption and pollution.
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