Motorist Paul Miller filed a federal lawsuit against Sanilac County, Michigan sheriff’s department after he was accused of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) despite being completely sober. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit earlier this month ruled that his case should be tried by a jury.
The Detroit News reports that GM will file paperwork to register its initial public offering as soon as next week, citing anonymous sources. This registration will be our first look at exactly what GM and its masters at the Treasury Department are trying to achieve with the offering. Analysts are predicting that the government will sell only one-third of its 61 percent stake in GM, which would rid it of an absolute majority stake but would preserve its status as the largest GM stakeholder. The Canadian and Ontario governments, the UAW’s VEBA fund and bondholders in Motors Liquidation may sell parts of their stakes as well, but there are still no estimates as to just how much of GM’s equity will be up for grabs in this offering. Or what the market response will be. And with the car market still shaky, Opel demanding more of GM’s cash, IPOs being canceled right and left, and only one profitable quarter under GM’s belt, voices are already starting to wonder if GM isn’t rushing this offering for political reasons.
Unsure of what to do about its nearly $20b budget deficit, California is entertaining some pretty wild ideas. And no, not legalizing and taxing marijuana. According to Yahoo News, State Sen. Curren Price is introducing legislation that would replace license plates with digital versions which
would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen.
Yes, advertising on license plates. Ray LaHood’s distracted driving crusade be damned, California is on a mission to prove that the movie Idiocracy was right. Luckily there’s a slight hitch…
Possibly not, says the National Federation For the Blind. According to the NYT the group is
disappointed that the [Nissan Leaf’s] driver is permitted to turn off the sound because it in effect, allows drivers to deactivate this important safety feature and thereby endanger pedestrians, especially those who are blind.
Interestingly, Tesla’s IPO presentation opens with a customer describing the contrast between Corvettes “making all that noise” and Teslas which allow the driver to “hear the birds and the ocean.” With the Motor Vehicle Safety Act likely to mandate NHTSA rules on EV safety noises, expect that marketing angle to go the way of the PeaPod…
If there’s one reason we dedicate as many pixels as we do to the rise of speed cameras in the US, it’s the UK. We’ve seen how speed cameras have taken over Old Blighty, jamming the newswires with reports of mis-ticketing, unwarranted surveillance and popular backlashes against the dread cameras. But apparently the UK has decided that, with more speed cameras than any other nation on earth, it’s time to stop building more. Totallymotor reports that road safety minister Mike Penning has announced that his new conservative government will stop financing the construction of speed cameras by local authorities, bringing an end to a decade’s worth of camera build-up. Penning tells local authorities that they are free to purchase cameras with their own money, but that the government will encourage the use of alternative safety measures.
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South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (R) last week signed a law banning the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the state. The measure swept unanimously through the House, 106 to 0, on June 3 and in the Senate 38 to 0 on June 2. So far, fifteen states have taken legislative or judicial action to prohibit the use of automated ticketing machines. In addition, the voters in ten cities have thrown out photo enforcement by referendum (view complete list). South Carolina’s law takes effect immediately.
Baytown, Texas is easing up on issuing red light camera tickets in the hopes of diverting momentum away from a planned effort to place a photo enforcement ban on the ballot. Resident Byron Schirmbeck and a team of volunteers expect soon to turn in a second petition forcing a referendum. Statistics show that, in response, city officials and American Traffic Solutions have deliberately issued fewer citations. The program rejected 29 percent of violations in July 2008, but documents show the rate of rejections climbed to 54 percent in December.
America’s ethanol producers were some of the few Americans optimistic or cynical enough to find a bright side to the BP Gulf spill. Ethanol’s lobbyists-in-chief, GrowthEnergy, decided it would be real cute to run ads highlighting all the bad things ethanol hadn’t done. One of which is not “Ethanol has never harmed the Gulf of Mexico,” by the way. As the ad parody above points out though, even if the ethanol was creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico for years before the BP spill, there are quite a few other things ethanol hasn’t done. Like this, just in from the AP [via Google]: convince the EPA to buy into its shameful, manipulative PR line and rush a decision on increasing blending limits.
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It’s classic tale from the convoluted and mysterious world of the global supply chain. Crain’s Business [via Automotive News [sub]] explains how GM was forced to recall heated windshield washers not once, but twice. And we take a look at why GM took the extraordinary measure of blaming customers and GM technicians for “misdiagnosing” the problem, a strategy that makes for an interesting counterpoint to the recent Toyota recall hoopla. After all, like Toyota’s pedal problems, GM’s heated windshield washer woes are rooted in a complicated relationship with one of its suppliers… and one of its regulators.
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The CBC reports that:
Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday his government will wait to see how General Motors prices its public share offering before deciding whether to sell its stake in the company.
McGuinty said the government needs to be “patient” and sell at the most profitable time.
The Canadian and Ontario governments own about 12 percent of GM. The US Treasury, which owns about 60 percent of GM has said that it expects to sell “some” of its GM stake during the IPO, which is expected to occur by the end of this year. In short, as Ken Elias predicts, GM won’t stop being “Government Motors” after it goes public. No matter how emphatically Ed Whitacre declares victory.
Slate‘s Robert Bryce reckons so. With ethanol producers and blenders bouncing off the ethanol “blend wall” and into bankruptcy court, Bryce figures
Now the industry is counting on a president beleaguered by the made-for-TV crisis in the Gulf of Mexico to help it out. And he appears ready to do just that. On April 28, six days after the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, President Obama visited an ethanol plant in Missouri and declared that “there shouldn’t be any doubt that renewable, homegrown fuels are a key part of our strategy for a clean-energy future.” Obama also said, “I didn’t just discover the merits of biofuels like ethanol when I first hopped on the campaign bus.”
The strongest indication that an ethanol bailout is imminent came last Friday when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (former governor of Iowa, the nation’s biggest ethanol-producing state) said, “I’m very confident that we’re going to see an increase in the blend rate.”
Suburban municipalities are infuriated by the Cook County, Illinois Board of Commissioners’ plan to install unwanted red light cameras in their towns. On June 2, the board voted 10 to 3 to approve contracts with two vendors to begin installing cameras at thirty intersections on county roads throughout suburban Cook County. More and more municipalities are now pushing back. The Schaumburg Village Board voted unanimously Tuesday to pass an ordinance prohibiting the county from erecting red light cameras within their city limits without the town’s consent.
Residents of Mukilteo, Washington and Anaheim, California will vote this November on whether to ban red light cameras and speed cameras. Washington initiative guru Tim Eyman joined representatives from BanCams.com and the Campaign for Liberty yesterday in announcing that the required number of signatures had been collected to force an anti-camera initiative onto the next ballot. A total of 1909 signed in a matter of just two weeks.
Two Republican congressmen have written to GM CEO Ed Whitacre, asking him to halt the destruction of electronic documents as long as the automaker is owned by the government, reports the Detroit News [Full letter in PDF here]. Reps Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) allege that documents destroyed by GM could have helped their House Oversight Committee investigation of GM’s decision to run its infamous “payback” ad, and shed light on government interference in day-to-day operations including influence over plant locations and a “secret agreement” on revised EPA standards. The congressmen write:
In light of these ongoing investigations, we are deeply disturbed to learn that GM is engaging in a continuous process of destroying documents relevant to the Committee’s oversight efforts
Red light cameras in San Mateo County, California received a one-two punch as an appellate court and a grand jury called into question the way red light cameras operate in the county. On Monday, the San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury released a report suggesting that the eight cities within the county that use photo enforcement are preoccupied with revenue. The report found that although cities claimed their sole interest was safety, officials failed to furnish reliable evidence to back up the assertion.
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