I know the readers of Autoblog understand the dangers of distracted driving because you’ve been sounding the alarm on this deadly epidemic for years, long before I became Secretary of Transportation. Most Autoblog readers know by now that real drivers just drive.

And, because I appreciate the heavy lifting Autoblog and its readers has been doing on this issue, I’m making my appeal to America’s automotive fans right here…

…Like you, I love driving. I have a 1998 Buick Regal in Washington, D.C., as well as a Ford Escape back home in Peoria. And, also like you, when I drive, I want to do so on roads that are not full of people who simply don’t pay attention to their driving.

But, the sad reality is that people who drive distracted are causing harm to the rest of us.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood takes to Autoblog to recruit support for his forthcoming National Summit on Distracted Driving (Tuesday, September 21 in Washington DC. BYOB), the second such event of his tenure. And what better way to catch the attention of automotive enthusiasts than by professing your passion for the dynamic delights of a ’98 Regal? Meanwhile, enthusiasts who are taken in by LaHood’s crusade should take note: the last Distracted Driving Summit ended with a ban on in-car texting by federal employees, a measure TTAC described as

a bit like fighting an epidemic (to continue Secretary LaHood’s metaphor) by telling federal employees to take an aspirin.

The Michigan state House of Representatives yesterday voted unanimously to repeal its so-called driver responsibility fee program, an unpopular tax on traffic citations. State Representative Bettie C. Scott (D-Detroit) was the primary sponsor of legislation that will end most of the fees by January 1, 2012 and, before then, cut the amount motorists owe by half.

“Obviously we must do what it takes to keep our roads safe for all travelers, but driver responsibility fees place an onerous and unnecessary financial burden on too many Michigan drivers,” Scott said in a statement. “The Driver Responsibility Act is flawed legislation that has failed the test of time. It has unfairly penalized our hard-working residents during one of the worst financial crises we’ve ever seen.”

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The Minnesota Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the conviction of a motorist whose pants fell down after he was ordered to put his hands up. Judge Kevin Ross noted on behalf of the three-judge panel considering the case that previous courts had never considered a search quite like the one conducted on Frank Irving Wiggins as he was ordered out of his car in the parking lot of a St. Paul White Castle in November 2008.

Officer Kara Breci had seen Wiggins in his idling vehicle and assumed he was involved in a drug deal since he was not eating. Breci investigated. After she saw a rear-seat passenger with a bag that looked like it contained marijuana, she ordered Wiggins and two passengers out of the car with hands on their head. The loose-fitting jeans Wiggins had been wearing immediately fell to the ground. As Breci pulled up Wiggins’s pants, she felt an object that turned out to be a .380 pistol in his pocket. Because of his prior convictions, Wiggins was arrested and convicted by a district court for unlawful possession of a firearm.

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Confused by the EPA’s proposed letter-grade system for fuel economy labels [proposed rule in PDF format here]? Check out the letter grades given to the top-selling cars in America [via Automotive News [sub]].

The Washington state Supreme Court on Friday rejected the motion filed on behalf of a traffic camera company to block a public vote on the use of automated ticketing machines. In a two-sentence order, the court refused to intervene in the scheduled November 2 election in the city of Mukilteo where residents had signed a petition forcing a red light camera and speed camera ban onto the ballot. The denial of a motion for an emergency injunction came a month after the Snohomish County Superior Court also declined to stand between the voters and the ballot box (view decision).

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Yes, despite the ever-present dangers of distracted driving and demonically-possessed Toyotas, US highways are safer than ever [full PDF report here]. Overall deaths in 2009 were at their lowest levels since 1950, even as vehicle miles traveled increased. Highway fatalities have been falling for the past four years, and in 2009 even motorcycle fatalities decreased for the first time in 11 years. At 1.13 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2009, fatalities per VMT fell to another all-time low. Why? It could be the market-fueled arms race to stuff ever more standard safety equipment into cars, or incessant pressure on OEMs from the IIHS (and its ilk)… or, if you’re Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, you might think that

the weak economy was a contributing factor as many Americans chose not to go out to bars and restaurants after work or on the weekend.

Yes, the man tasked with keeping our highway safe believes that his ongoing success is the product of Americans moping around the house because of a down economy. Even though VMT actually increased by .2 percent over 2008. In other words, despite “talking about safety more than anyone in Washington,” Ray LaHood is both clueless about the data, and convinced that a weak economy helps his crusade. Which makes you wonder what the man means when he says

While we’ve come a long way, we have a long distance yet to travel.

Police officers in the commonwealth of Virginia can track the movements of motorists with secretly installed satellite tracking devices on their own authority, the state court of appeals ruled Tuesday. On February 1, 2008, Fairfax County police had attached a GPS tracking device to the work van of David L. Foltz, Jr based on a hunch that Foltz may have been involved in a series of crimes. The officers did not bother obtaining a warrant or asking the permission of the company that owned the van. The department used such devices on 159 such occasions between 2005 and 2007 but no policy guidelines were ever drafted to govern their use. Using a magnet and tape, an officer stuck the GPS unit under the van’s bumper while it was parked on a public street.

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More and more cities are thinking about installing light rail on city streets as the federal government holds out the prospect of greater subsidies diverted from gasoline tax funds. The California Court of Appeal on August 30 ruled that a lower court erred in throwing out a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for negligence in a fatal accident involving a metro Blue Line train. The incident reveals the significant threat high-speed rail can pose when run on streets designed for automobiles.

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In less than three years, officials in New South Wales, Australia have been forced to refund 18,944 faulty or illegally issued speed camera citations. Between July 2007 and May 2010, the state government has returned A$3,788,885 worth of citations issued by automated ticketing machines that were not operating properly, according to freedom of information documents obtained by the NSW Liberal Party, which used the figures to attack the party in power.

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The NY Times reports on a growing phenomenon: the crash tax. Though ambulance fees have long been born by those who use their services, Police, Fire Departments and other first responders in 26 states are reportedly charging users for their services, and they’re generating quite a bit of debate in the process. In one instance, Mr Cary Feldman of Chicago Heights was in an accident that he didn’t cause, did not use any emergency services, and was still billed $200 for the dispatch of a fire engine to the scene of his wreck. The AAA’s take on such fees

Generally, we see that public safety services are a core government function that should be properly budgeted for with general taxes and not addressed by fees after the fact

On the other hand, charging those who cause accidents for emergency response costs helps keep taxes lower for safe drivers and provides an incentive against reckless driving. So are fees worth the occasional misapplication, or are they an unfair tax on victims?

Fighting speed camera and red light camera tickets in federal court is becoming increasingly difficult as yet another US district court judge yesterday embraced the use of automated ticketing machines. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey dismissed the class action lawsuit that Gregory Mills had filed against the city of Springfield and Lasercraft, a private vendor that has since been bought out by American Traffic Solutions. Mills argued that because the Missouri Supreme Court in March struck down the city’s program as illegal (view decision), those who received tickets were entitled to a refund.

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The citizen-led groups that want the public to decide the future of red light cameras are racist, according to lawsuits filed by American Traffic Solutions (ATS) in a pair of Texas cities. The Arizona-based photo enforcement firm filed in a state court in Baytown on Thursday and then an ATS-funded front group filed an identical case in a federal court in Houston on Friday. Residents in both cities signed petitions placing a ban on automated ticketing machines onto the November 2 ballot, but ATS cites the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a reason to block these votes.

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If you think China’s auto growth is scary, then you find yourself in rare agreement with China’s central government. China’s 30 (!) major (!) auto makers had a production capacity of 13.59m vehicles by the end of 2009. Chinese bought 13.64m units. This year, it will be much more. By July, Chinese had already made and Chinese had already bought more than 10m units, according to data released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Chinese buy more than just cars. They have bought (well, leased) enough land, buildings and machinery in order to more than double car output by 2015. With the current expansion and investment plans exercised, China will have production capacity for a mind-blowing 31.24m units by the end of 2015. That according to Chen Bin, head of industrial coordination at the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s economic regulation agency.That’s more than six (!) times the U.S. production in 2009, and three times the U.S. auto production in the heydays of 2007. You are not the only one to get worried now. Even China’s NDRC thinks that might be a bit much. (Read More…)

We can’t pretend to be overly enamored with former “car czar” Steve Rattner, who oversaw the auto bailout before being disgraced for his role in a New York pension fund pay-for-play scandal. Still, the guy was in the thick of things during last year’s negotiations over Detroit’s rescue, so he knows where the bodies are buried. And in his new book, Overhaul, which has been released to select outlets ahead of its October 14 publication, he tells a whole lot of stories about the months of bailout proceedings that led to the rescue of GM and Chrysler. Of course, Rattner has an agenda in all this, namely proving that

so he’s not necessarily an unbiased source. But with grains of salt at the ready, let’s dive into his spilled guts and see if what secrets lie beneath.

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Another day, another story detailing the political nightmare that is the GM IPO. The WSJ [sub] reports that

The U.S. Treasury is concerned about how many overseas investors it should allow to buy big stakes in General Motors Co. through the car maker’s initial public offering this fall, according to people familiar with the matter.

The caution—aimed at minimizing any political fallout from the massive stock sale—could involve limiting or being selective about which non-U.S. investors such as sovereign-wealth funds would be invited to be “cornerstone” investors in the IPO

Expect Treasury to publicize any limitations on foreign investment in GM’s IPO sometime “within the next couple of weeks.” And no matter how the bureaucrats rule, it won’t be great for taxholders. After all, foreign investors (particularly in China) have the motivation and means to invest heavily in GM, which would help boost the IPO price. The downside, of course, is that the taxpayers’ $50b investment wouldn’t have kept the company American-owned. If keeping ownership in the US is the priority, it’s fair to expect a considerably lower IPO valuation. Heads they win, tails we lose. Ain’t the intersection of politics and business grand?