A small request, xrunner2, if you please. May I suggest not using terms like "whiners" etc. as they create unnecessary illwill, and degenerates the whole debate, especially if others start to reciprocate. Many thanks!
Posted by SHG at 2/26/2008 7:24 AM and is filed under uncategorized
The Supreme Court has granted cert in Arizona v. Gant, per ScotusBlog and How Appealing. This should prove to be an interesting case, where the issue is whether the police can search a defendant's car after the defendant has been handcuffed, taken into custody and the scene is secured.
In this case, the defendant, sought by police, drove up to the scene, got out of his car and walked over to a police officer, who promptly arrested him. He was placed inside the police car. But there was still the matter of what, if anything, might be inside his car, which was lawfully parked and otherwise wholly unrelated to the cause for arrest. The police then searched the car, and found a gun and cocaine.
This case will test whether the old fallback, that the car may contain something of "imminent danger" to the cops, giving them a right to search for weapons. Of course, it poses the question under circumstances where the potential for harm was non-existent, since the defendant was already cuffed and in the police cruiser.
According to Reuters, The Arizona case will require the Supreme Court to reexamine its 1981 ruling that risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence justify a warrantless car search as part of the arrest. Arizona officials said the state Supreme Court effectively overruled the 1981 ruling in requiring that the police show that inherent dangers actually existed at the time of the search.
This is yet another example of remembering the rubric and forgetting the rationale. The rationale for creating this exception to the warrant requirement was to protect the safety of police officers from imminent harm. Fair enough, but once the defendant is away from the car, the contents of the car no longer present any threat. End of story? Not even close.
Automobile stop jurisprudence is a wreck. More often than not, judges just throw up their hands whenever a car is involved, say that magic words, "automobile exception," and let cops search at will. Basically, they figure that the cops are going to end up searching one way or another, given that there are more exceptions than rule. But the Arizona Supreme Court held this search unconstitutional.
So what will SCOTUS do? Will Scalia, in a fit of reason, demand that the rationale for ignoring the 4th Amendment be honored and affirm the Arizona decision, or will the Court reverse and proclaim that when it comes to cars, there's no 4th Amendment anymore?
Arizona v. Gant is a great case to test the integrity of the Supreme Court. There is no rational justification for permitting this search under any existing exception. No threat. No search incident to arrest. No inventory search. No risk to preservation of evidence. Nothing. If they uphold the search, then they will prove that they have abandoned the 4th Amendment as to cars entirely, removing all reason from the equation. It will take some mighty efforts to explain away that one, but they are smart cookies.
If ever there was a case that screamed "search warrant," this is it. We shall see whether there's any vitality left in the 4th Amendment when it comes to searching automobiles.
Very interesting info. Wonder if there would be interest in an Edmunds board re driver's license shortcomings in the US and what adjustments might be made by State DOTs.
You are allowed to choose from candidates allowed by special interest groups. No matter who you choose, in the end, nothing changes. You vote for who you are allowed, and you do as you are told.
If you vote or do not vote, the same cabals have absolute influence.
This story is interesting because it relates to equipment malfunctions and citations issued by automatic photo enforcement, and should provide food for thought for all points of view, both for and against photo radar for speed enforcement.
Court Slams Florida Toll Roads Over Bogus Ticketing
After innocent firefighter nearly loses job over bogus cheating accusation, Florida judge bans toll road photo tickets.
A Florida judge fed up with the treatment of an innocent driver accused of "toll cheating" yesterday ordered Florida toll roads to stop issuing tickets to anyone with valid E-PASS or SunPass accounts. Circuit Judge John Galluzzo also ordered lower court judges in Seminole and Brevard counties to tear up any toll violation ticket issued to motorists with a transponder.
"The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Turnpike Authority, and Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority are hereby enjoined from filing any toll violation action in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida... against any prepaid or guaranteed account holder," Galluzo's order stated.
The strong action came in response to a case of an honest driver who did not realize that his wife's toll transponder had malfunctioned until he attempted to renew their vehicle's registration. He was told it had been revoked for toll cheating.
"Christopher M. Baird, an Osceola County Firefighter-Paramedic ran into a firestorm of bureaucracy that even he was not trained nor equipped to handle," Galluzzo wrote in his decision. "This consolidated appeal arises from what can only be characterized from the record as a tragic series of injustices that require the court to not only expedite this appeal but to take immediate remedial action."
The problem started when the battery on an E-PASS transponder in his wife's SUV died in May 2007. An automated ticketing machine began to generate and mail citations to Christopher Baird, who was listed first on the registration. He never received any of them. The Department of Motor Vehicles admitted that it had failed to update its database with the Bairds' new address after they moved in 2004. So although he had no notice, the toll violation statute specifically outlawed the filing of any challenge 75 days after the issuance of a ticket, whether it was ever properly sent or not.
To save his job as a firefighter, which required a valid driver's license, Baird was forced to pay $1448 in fines, plus costs, for sixteen violations so that he could clear his record. After he did so, a further twist in the law imposed 48 points against his driving license -- resulting an immediate license suspension, even though he had not been behind the wheel of the SUV in question.
"To add insult to misery, the appellant, having lost all right to challenge the citations and being faced with the only choice available to have his license reinstated through payment of each citation, was unaware that paying each citation after the time for hearing had expired, constituted an admission of guilt of the commission of a non-criminal moving violation pursuant to chapter 318 of the Florida Statutes, which requires the imposition of 3 points on his driving record, per citation," Galluzzo explained.
Although the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to drop the charges and fines against Baird, Seminole County Judge Ralph Eriksson insisted Baird must pay. Galluzzo overturned Eriksson, ruling not only that Baird was denied due process but also that the concept of photo enforced toll citations violated due process.
"The prosecuting authority has the burden of proving the act occurred and that the appellant committed the act," Galluzzo wrote. "A photographic image of the rear of a vehicle attached to a citation, without proof as to who the driver was at the time of the violation, even in light of this statutes' rebuttable presumptions, is insufficient to enforce the citation issued to the registered owner of the vehicle as against that owner.... The statute attempts to impermissibly shift the burden to the owner of a vehicle to prove they were not the driver."
Galluzzo saw no reason for the court to be involved when a customer like Baird set up an account to pay tolls in advance. The court also refunded all fines, fees, penalties and surcharges assessed against Baird and cleared his license of all suspensions and points.
A full copy of the decision is available in a 40k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Baird v. Florida Department of Transportation (Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida, 4/22/2008)
Missouri: State Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones
The state of Missouri has begun a program to track individual movements on highways through cell phones.
The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones -- without their knowledge or consent.
Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of each driver by monitoring the signal sent from the cell phone as it is handed off from one cell tower to the next. Each phone is uniquely identified and the information is compared with a highway map to record on what road each motorist is traveling at any given time. The system also records the speed of each vehicle, opening up another potential ticketing technology.
Missouri rejected the simpler solution used by other states of embedding sensors in the pavement that record how many vehicles pass over a stretch of pavement without uniquely identifying them. Missouri wanted a program that required less equipment.
"The traffic community has been really excited for quite some time about the possibility of being able to use cell phones to track vehicles," Valerie Briggs, program manager for transportation operations at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials told the Associated Press. "Almost everyone has a cell phone, so you have a lot of potential data points, and you can track data almost anywhere on the whole (road) system."
A pilot program in Baltimore only tracks Cingular cell phones on 1,000 miles of road. AirSage Inc. has contracted with Sprint to spy on motorists in Norfolk, Virginia and Atlanta and Macon, Georgia.
Source: States seeking to track cell phones for traffic conditions (Associated Press, 10/8/2005)
So if the owner of the car has the opportunity to prove their innocence in violation of our Constitution, this story has a bit of dark comedy about it no doubt.
More to the point of this forum, there are issues with keeping a huge database of ownership current enough, not to mention all the other issues that exist for sure.
Staffordshire, UK police send a ticket to a woman who has been dead for 14 months.
Staffordshire police have issued a speeding ticket to Margaret Garbett from Wellington, UK accusing her of driving a Rover 214 sedan 40 MPH in a 30 zone on July 16. Mrs. Garbett died in May 2004.
Widower Michael Garbett was surprised to find the speed camera citation since his wife had sold the Rover two years ago. "The letter came as a bit of a shock," Garbett told the Shropshire Star. "I phoned the police to explain and said I would have loved for my wife to have been done for speeding, the woman at the end of the lined laughed and when I told her why she went quiet."
Source: Dead woman sent ticket for speeding (Shropshire Star (UK), 8/2/2005)
Here is another good story of how relying on a camera can have unintended consequences. How is this poor guy going to prove he is innocent, and why should the burden be on him to begin with? The stroy is from the UK, but it has lessons for all of us here too.
Yet more cautionary stories confirming that police work, including enforcement of speed limits, should be done by the police and not cameras run by private contractors, no matter what the country.
UK: Innocent Man Cannot Drive Because of Camera Tickets
Innocent man in London, UK cannot drive his car because officials will not cancel the camera tickets issued to a cloned car.
Saleem Sabbir, a 21-year-old London businessman, fears that if he drives his car, London meter maids will confiscate it -- even though he has committed no crime. Thieves have "cloned" Sabbir's Volkswagen, which means they have taken an identical silver car and attached his license plate number to it. So far, they've racked up £5,838 (US $10,500) in camera tickets for parking, driving in the bus lane and other offenses.
Transport for London has confirmed that Sabbir's car has been cloned and he is not responsible for certain violations, but 20 tickets issued by individual London boroughs remain outstanding. Officials refuse to issue Sabbir a new license plate until he personally sorts out each of these tickets. Collection agents harass Sabbir day and night.
Article Excerpt:
[Sabbir] added: "I can't even park my car outside my house and I have declared it off the road so the baliffs don't take it. I have to use public transport to get to work."
Source: Driver left with fines after car clones target him (Waltham Forest Guardian (UK), 6/13/2005)
Oh, that's just a fluke one might say. But here's another one:
Innocent motorists victimized by speed camera citations because of the use of fake license plates.
Stephen Marsden, a 32-year-old UK resident was accused by a camera of speeding and implicated in a hit and run accident within the space of a week. A speed camera photo showed the same model Opel Astra in the same color with the same license plate as his own doing 40 MPH in a 30 MPH zone -- except it wasn't Marsden's car.
The hit and run incident was easily cleared, as human witnesses from the crash testified that Marsden was not the driver. To fight the speed camera, however, he was forced to hire an attorney. Police refused to drop charges even after Marsden pointed out distinct differences between his car and the one in the speed camera photo.
The car in the photo was "cloned" -- a stolen vehicle with the license plate and all the necessary paperwork to make it appear legitimate. Marsden's attorney estimates that there are 10,000 such vehicles on UK roads, and local police have issued warnings to potential car buyers to steer clear of suspicious used vehicles.
The Manchester City Magistrates' Court finally cleared Marsden of the speeding charge.
Article Excerpt:
"But GMP just dragged their feet. I could have taken the three points on my licence and the fine but I knew I was right. It's embarrassing that it went to court, really." [Marsden said]
Source: Crooks cloned my car (St Helens Star (UK), 3/18/2005)
Not the UK, but right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave that I love! Just another example of why Innocent until proven Guilty is important, and that machines cannot replace the POLICE. The burden of proving innocence CANNOT be placed on the registered owner. The Law Enforcement Agency has the burden of proving GUILT.
Another Chicago Camera Goof Proves Impossible to Fight
Contesting a bogus red light camera ticket is an uphill battle in Chicago.
The city of Chicago's new red light camera program is embarrassed again by an another error. This time, the city issued a ticket to Sharon Sweeney, the driver of a silver Lexus.
She received a citation showing a Lexus photographed turning right on a red light apparently without stopping on October 31. It had a completely different license plate from her car. The plate was similar, but not identical, to the plate on her son's Toyota Camry.
Sweeney wrote the city pointing out the obvious error. Weeks later she received a notice that because the city has not heard from her she had to come in for a hearing in person at the city's Revenue Department or pay the $90 fine.
At the hearing, she pointed out the car in the photograph did not belong to her. The hearing officer said because she contested the ticket by mail, he could not give her a hearing and she would have to wait for the city to look at her case and inform her of their decision. Two months later, she heard nothing from them. She contacted Sun Times columnist Mark Brown who called the Chicago DOT whose spokesman was once again eager to email the violation video to the columnist just for asking. They eventually fixed the ticket.
Moral of the story: call a columnist the next time you get a bogus red light camera ticket in Chicago.
Article Excerpt:
[Revenue Department spokesman Efrat] Dallal said Sweeney was "probably confused" about the process and that it all would have worked out if she had just been patient and waited for the city to complete its review. For some reason, Sweeney's not so sure.
Source: Car owner seeing red over red light camera, red tape (Chicago Sun Times, 2/22/2005)
Should Police Officers be regarded as being secondary to a photo enforcement camera? The police officer here was absolutely correct. He had witnessed an infarction, thus he was duty-bound to give the woman the ticket. He could not have delegated his duty to the camera, or should he have?
Surely Police Officers should have something to say about this story:
California Woman Gets Red Light Camera Double-Jeopardy
A Hawthorne, California woman received a ticket from a real police officer and a red light camera at the same time.
The bill of rights protects individuals from facing more than one trial for the same crime, but California resident Lori Williams experienced just that.
She admits to turning left against a red arrow in Hawthorne, being pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer and being flashed by a red light camera. The officer insisted on giving the ticket even though he knew Williams might also get a ticket in the mail.
Not only did she face two fines totaling $702 and a double set of demerit points against her license, but she also was forced to visit two separate courthouses to resolve the matter. She found nothing but useless recorded messages when she tried to call either court.
"You go through, and you stand in the traffic line and you wait and wait and wait," Williams said. When she finally spoke to a judge, the ticket written by the human being was the one that was dismissed.
Article Excerpt:
He asked her if she saw the camera flash, then said: "Well, I'm gonna go ahead and write you a ticket. You may get one in the mail, too," [Lori Williams] said. "I didn't understand what he meant," Williams said.
Source: A trip to traffic double-jeopardy (Daily Breeze (Hawthorne, CA), 2/14/2005)
The Maricopa County Attorney has announced he will dismiss all criminal cases for speeding and reckless driving based solely on photographic evidence with no human eyewitness. link
Maricopa is by far the largest and most populous county in Arizona. Attorney Thomas' dismissals do not include those fined for less than 20 mph based on photo radar. A Maricopa County Judge has declared those invalid.
If that were true, then we could all take a 24-month government-sanctioned driver school and eliminate ALL WRECKS from our roads !!!
If that was required in the US to get a driver's license, then accidents probably would be NEARLY eliminated, although you can never get rid of 100% of accidents. However, I think a vast majority of the accidents that happen today would no longer happen because it is a fact that the worst drivers on the road cause the most accidents, and of course, a majority of all accidents.
I think that woudl be a good thing to potentially reduce accidents by 99% with a 24 month course where you either pass some strict criteria or you fail! Driving should not be a right, but a privilege you earn.
That being said, although a higher speed accident is potentially more severe, those same higher speeds which help to improve traffic flow and reduce the amount of accidents, lowers my chances of ever having one in the first place. I'd rather have NO accident than one at 55 MPH.
Also, why don't we just design our airplanes and trains to move at 10 MPH so that when they crash it is less fatal? The slower speed limits for safety argument is bogus when compared to lossed productivity and potential for reducing accidents all together. The cost of my time is greater than the extra 1 MPG you get going slower than me.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
“If the driver is demanding something greater than the speed limit, that demand is ignored,” said Oliver Carsten, the research leader and professor of transport safety at Leeds University. “In a 30mph zone the car will basically not accelerate above 30mph.”
So what happens when these speed controlling devices that force my vehicle to not exceed the speed limit causes me to be murdered and die?
Example:
Osama Bin Laden is driving a BIG RIG truck at 100 MPH and is barreling down the road in my rearview mirror towards me. In a hurry he's getting ready to commit another terrorist act by running over a bunch of people in cars on the freeway. He's coming after me and I'm next on his list, he's gaining on me and I need to speed up to avoid this fate he's got planned for me since I"m in one of those speed limited device controlled vehicles.
I push on the gas to get away, but nothing happens. I get run over and suffer fatal trauma and injuries. This could have all been avoided in today's current vehicles which can easily out run a potential threat such as this.
I will instruct my surviving family to sue every politician who voted for such a ridiculously bad idea in the future for my life which was lost due to such negligent thinking.
There are a million scenarios where going over the speed limit is a SAFETY requirement! Sometimes, the right manuever to avoid a crash is to hit the gas, not the brakes!
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
1. A human officer stops you and hands you a ticket that is a court summons. 2. A mailman hands you a letter which contains a photo radar ticket that is a court summons.
It is not the same result and process and you contend. If my friend is driving my car, then the mailman is handing me a summons to court, whereas in option #1 my friend is getting the ticket and going to court.
It is not fair for me to be summoned to court for my friend's ticket which should have gone to him directly. It is NOT due process, and frankly, I should be able to sue the City for $1,000 for my wasted time.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Comparing slavery laws to speed limit laws put in place to keep you from dying?
Since safety and speed are not correlated in any reputable study, I for one, find that speed limit laws are put in place to justify Highway Patrol Officers' jobs and make money for corrupt governments and officials.
Most speed limits in CA fall under the basic speed law which is Prima Facie?
Therefore they are just guidelines, or recommendations and suggestions of speed for the road. Reasonable speeds always apply due to conditions.
The only absolute speed limit law is the Maximum speed limit law (separate Vehicle Code). So as far as I'm concerned, only maximum speed limit signs are anything more than 2 numbers on an aluminum sign, and even then, since they are usually set ridiculously low, I pay no attention to them.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
The "speed doesn't kill" card is played only by people who like to speed.
Speed doesn't kill and that is REALITY.
It is the REALITY based on PHYSICS and SCIENCE.
I can drive my car around 100 MPH all day and not be killed. You could drive around at 55 MPH and rearend a big rig and be killed.
It's the impact/collision (two objects occupying the same space at the same time impossibility) that kills. I have sped on numerous occasions, but I have not caused an accident, let alone killed myself....
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
You are indicating a complete lack of understanding if you think going faster when you have a wreck is safer than going slower when you have that same wreck.
This really is not a "Does Speed Kill or Doesn't It?" forum though.
andres2 says, "... but speed does not cause wrecks."
OH, yes it does my young amigo.............:)
Two local teenagers were killed in a single-vehicle accident on Meetze Road Wednesday night, according to state police.
Virginia State Police Sgt. Les Tyler said the wreck occurred just east of Turkey Run Road at approximately 9:40 p.m.
Brian Michael Jacobsen, 17, of Nokesville was driving a 2005 Ford Taurus eastbound on Meetze Road when he entered a sharp right hand curve. The vehicle went off the left side of the road and Jacobsen over-corrected, Tyler said. The Taurus then went off the road to the right where it struck an embankment, struck a tree and overturned, the sergeant added.
Jacobsen and a passenger, Eric Richard Unger, 18, of Warrenton, both died at the scene from injuries sustained in the wreck, Tyler said.
Both teens were reportedly wearing their seatbelts. However, Tyler said the speed limit in the area is 50 mph, and the “maximum safe speed” entering the curve is 45 mph.
“We feel excessive speed is the main causative factor [in the accident],” Tyler said.
The accident occurred in the middle of National Teen Driver Safety Week. State police reported that five Virginia teens were killed in motor vehicle crashes between Oct. 19-21. The fatalities occurred in Loudoun, Amherst, Augusta, Gloucester and Lee counties. Those killed included a 15-year-old passenger; a 16-year-old driver; two 17-year-old drivers; and an 18-year-old passenger.
Seatbelts were not used in three of the fatal crashes prior to the Meetze Road incident, and it is undetermined if they were used in the fourth, police said. Speed was a factor in two of the crashes and alcohol was a cause of one collision.
Has those boys not been speeding, they would not have had the fatal wreck.
The problem is most Police Sgt's are uneducated bafoons.
First, nowhere in that story does it state what speed they think the teenagers were going when the accident ocurred. I only see that 50 was the speed limit and the speed limit for the turn was 45.
Second, they were driving a domestic company vehicle called the Taurus. Educated drivers know that the BIG 3 are known for making cars that can't handle well, especially on curves.
Thrid, it's possible they were driving WAY OVER the speed limit and more importantly, an UNREASONABLE UNSAFE speed, which means the main causation factor of the accident is negligence and reckless driving, not speed.
Fourth, it states he over corrected on the turn, which is a driver error and appears to have worsened the accidents results. Had he not overcorrected and made a driving error, the possible excessive speed (caused by reckless negligence) might have been a minor accident with no injuries.
I'm not advocating people drive unsafe speeds. I'm advocating that everyone drive at safe speeds, but as fast as possible, while maintaining reasonability and maximum safety to AVOID accidents in the first place.
What are Montana's NO SPEED LIMITS STATE accident records?
In a really old Civic, my own personal speed limit (which is reasonable and safe) would be about 80 MPH, even in Montana. In a 911 Turbo, I'd probably set a higher reasonable and safe speed limit for straight-aways and low traffic areas.
Heck, the 911 can probably stop from 100 MPH in the same distance that old Civic could from 60!
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Indeed, random incidents where some kids were out joyriding probably at 90-100 mph on old tech roads not meant for anything near such speeds are a useless distraction and prove nothing.
Any member can create a new discussion on CarSpace and that's how most of them are created. We even have a FAQ on how to do it.
Or just go to the Automotive News & Views link and find the Add a Discussion link and follow the prompts.
Montana only had a "reasonable and prudent" speed limit for a few years in the late 90's. It's been 75 max on the interstates there for years, just like most Western states. Montana Speed
Thrill-seeking kids are not born with the desire. Could the driver in the incident cited had been a child pasenger riding along with his speeding father hundreds of times? Or, more likely, the driver was watching stupid low-class Hollywood chase and crash movies or maybe playing chase and crash video games. Wonder if Hollywood ever used photo radar in a scene or a sub-plot.
Thank you Steve. I think, given the importance (in my mind) of several related issues, I will create a new discussion titled Improving our Drivers, Roads, Speed Limits and Enforcement and take my chances with a spirited discussion. I can predict difficulty in moderating the discussion, but luckily that will not be up to me.
California Courts Split on Red Light Camera Contracts
Appellate court in Los Angeles, California rules that red light cameras tickets can be issued by companies with illegal contract arrangements.
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court in Los Angeles County, California on Monday disagreed with its appellate colleagues to the south over the legality of red light camera tickets issued by companies under a financial incentive to produce more tickets. The court upheld a citation generated by a machine on July 8, 2007 at the intersection of Avenue L and 20th Street in Lancaster. The automated camera snapped a photo of a 2004 Honda making a left-hand turn just 0.18 seconds after the light had turned red.
The defendant in the case argued that this ticket was invalid because it had been issued by a private company and the city of Lancaster who were operating together under an arrangement specifically forbidden by the state's red light camera statute. The law requires that camera contractors be compensated on a flat-rate basis to remove the financial incentive for the company to issue more tickets. Lancaster is one of dozens of California cities ignoring this mandate by using a "cost neutral" formula that adjusts the rate paid based on whether the number of tickets issued falls within a certain range.
The Orange County appellate court in December struck down photo tickets issued in the city of Fullerton because it used a similar payment scheme (view decision). The Los Angeles appellate court, however, refused to consider whether or not the Lancaster arrangement violated the law. It insisted that this question was irrelevant.
"Had the legislature intended for such compliance or contract language to be conditions precedent to the issuance of citations, part of the prosecution's prima facie case, or a basis for the exclusion of evidence, it would have simply included the appropriate language reflecting its intent in the statute," Judge Patti Jo McKay wrote for the three-judge panel.
In effect, McKay ruled that if a municipality refuses to follow the law by using a contract based upon bounty payments, nothing can be done about it. McKay also refused to overturn the ticket on the grounds that the city had refused to provide to the defendant inspection, calibration and maintenance records for both the traffic light and the red light camera. The appellate court ruled that it was appropriate to conceal this information because the defendant failed to prove that the unseen documents contained exculpatory evidence.
"Other than speculation, there is no basis to conclude that the calibration and maintenance report contained information favorable to the defendant," McKay wrote.
Both the Orange County and Los Angeles courts draw millions in revenue from "court costs" imposed on the $400 camera ticket. Despite this, the Orange County court has been consistently more skeptical of the procedures used in automated ticketing. The split between the courts can only be resolved by referring a case to the California Court of Appeal or Supreme Court. In 2005, the high court sided with the Orange County court's reasoning and declined to reopen a decision that tossed a photo ticket over a city's failure to follow warning requirements. The decision was left unpublished, denying it precedential value, until the same defendant filed an identical case that was ordered published earlier this month.
View the ruling in a 550k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: California v. McDonald (California Superior Court, Appellate Division, 2/23/2009)
The nature verses nurture argument doesn't work for many of us. nor does part of this post.
i>Thrill-seeking kids are not born with the desire.
Those of us that remember giving our kids a Big wheel can assure you thrill seeking is something kids seem to be born with. My son was just five or six when he would come flying down the sidewalk and toss the thing into a perfect slide and maybe take a small jump he made with a piece of wood and a brick he took from my garage. I don't even like to think what he did on a skate board and a BMX bike. Because he did 99 percent of his early car experience with his mother I can assure you speeding down the road was far from his normal driving experience.
Not that any of that has much to do with Photo Radar.
Well, speed limits in my opinion are a bad idea, but maybe not the WORST idea.
Studies show that as speed limits are increased or decreased, actual flow of traffic speed remains virtually unchanged.
So technically, since most people pay no attention to the posted speed limits, elminating them would probably save the tax payers of this country countless resources and money, and at the same time have little to no affect on anything negatively or positively.
Although I'd find it positive that I can finally drive along the freeway just like everyone else and not have to worry about being singled out as a "speeder" by some arrogant cocky egotistical Johhny Law CHP officer.
Heck, I could divert the attention I normally spend keeping an eye out for the CHP to keeping an eye out for drunk drivers or other looming unsafe manuevers by idiotic drivers.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
I very rarely worry about looking for photo radar or cops. And, I could probably beat most posters on these boards in lap time in an auto cross in my class/weight.
Ohio: Photo Tickets Issued to Leased Cars Ruled Invalid
Ohio Court of Appeals invalidates photo tickets issued to the drivers of leased vehicles in Cleveland.
The Eighth District Ohio Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision last week that red light camera and speed camera tickets could not be issued to the drivers of leased vehicles in the city of Cleveland. The dispute arose after a pair of speed camera tickets were mailed to the Dickson and Campbell law firm in January 2007. Attorney Blake A. Dickson noticed that under Cleveland's ticketing ordinance, only the registered owner of a vehicle could be held liable for an automated ticket. He then appealed the $100 fines before the Cleveland Parking Violations Bureau, arguing that his law firm leased the car from VW Credit Leasing, the registered owner.
"OK. Well, we are going to go after the [lessee] then, sir," the hearing officer said as he declared the firm guilty.
Dickson appealed the decision to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, which immediately rejected the argument as a clever trick designed to deprive Cleveland of millions in revenue.
"Appellant is attempting to avoid the inevitable with an argument based on semantics," the court ruled. "If this court were to follow appellant's reasoning, then every driver of a leased car would be free from liability of speed traffic offenses simply because they do not 'own' the vehicle. Therefore the court finds the [Parking] Violations Bureau's decision to be supported by reliable, probative, and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law as appellant had the care, custody, and control of the vehicle in question at the time of each violation."
The court of appeals noted that both the hearing officer and lower court judge accepted that Dickson and Campbell was the lessee and not the registered owner of the vehicle. State vehicle title records listed VW Credit Leasing as the sole owner. The appeals court put the blame on Cleveland for failing to write its ordinance properly.
"It is not difficult to decipher the difference between 'owner' of a vehicle and 'lessee' of a vehicle," Judge Melody J. Stewart wrote for the majority. "If the City of Cleveland had intended to hold lessees liable under CCO 413.031, it would have included them in the ordinance as other municipalities have."
An older Cleveland ordinance specifically holds those leasing vehicles responsible for parking tickets. The appeals court concluded that the city would have to abide by the rules it wrote and cancel the automated ticket issued to the law firm.
"The common pleas court's reasoning that drivers can escape liability by leasing vehicles is inaccurate," Judge Stewart wrote."Every driver of a leased vehicle can still be liable for speeding and running a red light through traditional means, namely, being cited by a police officer for doing so... Dickson and Campbell cannot be liable for the speeding infractions since they were the lessee of the vehicle and not the owner."
A copy of the decision is available in a PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Dickson and Campbell v. Cleveland (Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth Appellate District, 2/19/2009)
On how long you can avoid putting your new plates on a brand new car. I'm sure the Photo radars and photo red light cameras have decent resolution, but I don't think any camera could pick up my license number or VIN number written on the paper slip taped to my windshield.
I really have no incentive to ever install my new jail-made license plates. I'd prefer the paper on the windshield which makes me immune to all camera/photo tickets!
Gotta love it!
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
I tried that once and .... I got a speeding ticket because an officer believe a very errant radar reading (obviously in error). So if you can get speeding tickets from a human that is supposed to be trained even though you are not speeding, what about with Photo Radar?
Well:
1) Radar is an ancient technology, full of defects, errors, and inaccuracies. 2) It is an old technology akin to someone play 8-track tapes on a home stereo. 3) Without an operator verifying compliance, you have calibration and maintenance issues. 4) Any machine can fail and go haywire, especially electronics. 5) I get falsely accused by traffic officers more than enough, I don't need false accusations from photo radar to add to my wasted time in court (and wasted tax payer money as I usually win 50% of the time).
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
You are right as always, larsb that photo radar does not steal anybody's rights. However, the private contractors in cahoots with bought off politicians do steal everything if you let them, including due process rights. They will get what they deserve in due course, of that I am equally sure.
Comments
Remember the adage " Do unto others as ........"
from: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2008/02/26/car-searches-supremes-take-on-arizona-v-- - - grant.aspx
Car Searches: Supremes Take On Arizona v. Gant
Posted by SHG at 2/26/2008 7:24 AM and is filed under uncategorized
The Supreme Court has granted cert in Arizona v. Gant, per ScotusBlog and How Appealing. This should prove to be an interesting case, where the issue is whether the police can search a defendant's car after the defendant has been handcuffed, taken into custody and the scene is secured.
In this case, the defendant, sought by police, drove up to the scene, got out of his car and walked over to a police officer, who promptly arrested him. He was placed inside the police car. But there was still the matter of what, if anything, might be inside his car, which was lawfully parked and otherwise wholly unrelated to the cause for arrest. The police then searched the car, and found a gun and cocaine.
This case will test whether the old fallback, that the car may contain something of "imminent danger" to the cops, giving them a right to search for weapons. Of course, it poses the question under circumstances where the potential for harm was non-existent, since the defendant was already cuffed and in the police cruiser.
According to Reuters, The Arizona case will require the Supreme Court to reexamine its 1981 ruling that risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence justify a warrantless car search as part of the arrest.
Arizona officials said the state Supreme Court effectively overruled the 1981 ruling in requiring that the police show that inherent dangers actually existed at the time of the search.
This is yet another example of remembering the rubric and forgetting the rationale. The rationale for creating this exception to the warrant requirement was to protect the safety of police officers from imminent harm. Fair enough, but once the defendant is away from the car, the contents of the car no longer present any threat. End of story? Not even close.
Automobile stop jurisprudence is a wreck. More often than not, judges just throw up their hands whenever a car is involved, say that magic words, "automobile exception," and let cops search at will. Basically, they figure that the cops are going to end up searching one way or another, given that there are more exceptions than rule. But the Arizona Supreme Court held this search unconstitutional.
So what will SCOTUS do? Will Scalia, in a fit of reason, demand that the rationale for ignoring the 4th Amendment be honored and affirm the Arizona decision, or will the Court reverse and proclaim that when it comes to cars, there's no 4th Amendment anymore?
Arizona v. Gant is a great case to test the integrity of the Supreme Court. There is no rational justification for permitting this search under any existing exception. No threat. No search incident to arrest. No inventory search. No risk to preservation of evidence. Nothing. If they uphold the search, then they will prove that they have abandoned the 4th Amendment as to cars entirely, removing all reason from the equation. It will take some mighty efforts to explain away that one, but they are smart cookies.
If ever there was a case that screamed "search warrant," this is it. We shall see whether there's any vitality left in the 4th Amendment when it comes to searching automobiles.
If you vote or do not vote, the same cabals have absolute influence.
A Driver Training Standards forum would be interesting, but again, that would be the Moderator's call.
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/23/2337.asp
Court Slams Florida Toll Roads Over Bogus Ticketing
After innocent firefighter nearly loses job over bogus cheating accusation, Florida judge bans toll road photo tickets.
A Florida judge fed up with the treatment of an innocent driver accused of "toll cheating" yesterday ordered Florida toll roads to stop issuing tickets to anyone with valid E-PASS or SunPass accounts. Circuit Judge John Galluzzo also ordered lower court judges in Seminole and Brevard counties to tear up any toll violation ticket issued to motorists with a transponder.
"The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Turnpike Authority, and Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority are hereby enjoined from filing any toll violation action in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida... against any prepaid or guaranteed account holder," Galluzo's order stated.
The strong action came in response to a case of an honest driver who did not realize that his wife's toll transponder had malfunctioned until he attempted to renew their vehicle's registration. He was told it had been revoked for toll cheating.
"Christopher M. Baird, an Osceola County Firefighter-Paramedic ran into a firestorm of bureaucracy that even he was not trained nor equipped to handle," Galluzzo wrote in his decision. "This consolidated appeal arises from what can only be characterized from the record as a tragic series of injustices that require the court to not only expedite this appeal but to take immediate remedial action."
The problem started when the battery on an E-PASS transponder in his wife's SUV died in May 2007. An automated ticketing machine began to generate and mail citations to Christopher Baird, who was listed first on the registration. He never received any of them. The Department of Motor Vehicles admitted that it had failed to update its database with the Bairds' new address after they moved in 2004. So although he had no notice, the toll violation statute specifically outlawed the filing of any challenge 75 days after the issuance of a ticket, whether it was ever properly sent or not.
To save his job as a firefighter, which required a valid driver's license, Baird was forced to pay $1448 in fines, plus costs, for sixteen violations so that he could clear his record. After he did so, a further twist in the law imposed 48 points against his driving license -- resulting an immediate license suspension, even though he had not been behind the wheel of the SUV in question.
"To add insult to misery, the appellant, having lost all right to challenge the citations and being faced with the only choice available to have his license reinstated through payment of each citation, was unaware that paying each citation after the time for hearing had expired, constituted an admission of guilt of the commission of a non-criminal moving violation pursuant to chapter 318 of the Florida Statutes, which requires the imposition of 3 points on his driving record, per citation," Galluzzo explained.
Although the Florida Department of Transportation agreed to drop the charges and fines against Baird, Seminole County Judge Ralph Eriksson insisted Baird must pay. Galluzzo overturned Eriksson, ruling not only that Baird was denied due process but also that the concept of photo enforced toll citations violated due process.
"The prosecuting authority has the burden of proving the act occurred and that the appellant committed the act," Galluzzo wrote. "A photographic image of the rear of a vehicle attached to a citation, without proof as to who the driver was at the time of the violation, even in light of this statutes' rebuttable presumptions, is insufficient to enforce the citation issued to the registered owner of the vehicle as against that owner.... The statute attempts to impermissibly shift the burden to the owner of a vehicle to prove they were not the driver."
Galluzzo saw no reason for the court to be involved when a customer like Baird set up an account to pay tolls in advance. The court also refunded all fines, fees, penalties and surcharges assessed against Baird and cleared his license of all suspensions and points.
A full copy of the decision is available in a 40k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Baird v. Florida Department of Transportation (Eighteenth Judicial Circuit of Florida, 4/22/2008)
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/06/696.asp
Missouri: State Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones
The state of Missouri has begun a program to track individual movements on highways through cell phones.
The Missouri Department of Transportation will spend $3 million annually on a program to monitor the movements of individuals on highways via their cell phones -- without their knowledge or consent.
Delcan NET, a Canadian company, developed the system which triangulates the location of each driver by monitoring the signal sent from the cell phone as it is handed off from one cell tower to the next. Each phone is uniquely identified and the information is compared with a highway map to record on what road each motorist is traveling at any given time. The system also records the speed of each vehicle, opening up another potential ticketing technology.
Missouri rejected the simpler solution used by other states of embedding sensors in the pavement that record how many vehicles pass over a stretch of pavement without uniquely identifying them. Missouri wanted a program that required less equipment.
"The traffic community has been really excited for quite some time about the possibility of being able to use cell phones to track vehicles," Valerie Briggs, program manager for transportation operations at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials told the Associated Press. "Almost everyone has a cell phone, so you have a lot of potential data points, and you can track data almost anywhere on the whole (road) system."
A pilot program in Baltimore only tracks Cingular cell phones on 1,000 miles of road. AirSage Inc. has contracted with Sprint to spy on motorists in Norfolk, Virginia and Atlanta and Macon, Georgia.
Source: States seeking to track cell phones for traffic conditions (Associated Press, 10/8/2005)
More to the point of this forum, there are issues with keeping a huge database of ownership current enough, not to mention all the other issues that exist for sure.
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/05/569.asp
UK: Dead Woman Receives Speed Camera Ticket
Staffordshire, UK police send a ticket to a woman who has been dead for 14 months.
Staffordshire police have issued a speeding ticket to Margaret Garbett from Wellington, UK accusing her of driving a Rover 214 sedan 40 MPH in a 30 zone on July 16. Mrs. Garbett died in May 2004.
Widower Michael Garbett was surprised to find the speed camera citation since his wife had sold the Rover two years ago. "The letter came as a bit of a shock," Garbett told the Shropshire Star. "I phoned the police to explain and said I would have loved for my wife to have been done for speeding, the woman at the end of the lined laughed and when I told her why she went quiet."
Source: Dead woman sent ticket for speeding (Shropshire Star (UK), 8/2/2005)
Yet more cautionary stories confirming that police work, including enforcement of speed limits, should be done by the police and not cameras run by private contractors, no matter what the country.
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/04/458.asp
UK: Innocent Man Cannot Drive Because of Camera Tickets
Innocent man in London, UK cannot drive his car because officials will not cancel the camera tickets issued to a cloned car.
Saleem Sabbir, a 21-year-old London businessman, fears that if he drives his car, London meter maids will confiscate it -- even though he has committed no crime. Thieves have "cloned" Sabbir's Volkswagen, which means they have taken an identical silver car and attached his license plate number to it. So far, they've racked up £5,838 (US $10,500) in camera tickets for parking, driving in the bus lane and other offenses.
Transport for London has confirmed that Sabbir's car has been cloned and he is not responsible for certain violations, but 20 tickets issued by individual London boroughs remain outstanding. Officials refuse to issue Sabbir a new license plate until he personally sorts out each of these tickets. Collection agents harass Sabbir day and night.
Article Excerpt:
[Sabbir] added: "I can't even park my car outside my house and I have declared it off the road so the baliffs don't take it. I have to use public transport to get to work."
Source: Driver left with fines after car clones target him (Waltham Forest Guardian (UK), 6/13/2005)
Oh, that's just a fluke one might say.
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/02/269.asp
UK: Cloned Cars Create Camera Victims
Innocent motorists victimized by speed camera citations because of the use of fake license plates.
Stephen Marsden, a 32-year-old UK resident was accused by a camera of speeding and implicated in a hit and run accident within the space of a week. A speed camera photo showed the same model Opel Astra in the same color with the same license plate as his own doing 40 MPH in a 30 MPH zone -- except it wasn't Marsden's car.
The hit and run incident was easily cleared, as human witnesses from the crash testified that Marsden was not the driver. To fight the speed camera, however, he was forced to hire an attorney. Police refused to drop charges even after Marsden pointed out distinct differences between his car and the one in the speed camera photo.
The car in the photo was "cloned" -- a stolen vehicle with the license plate and all the necessary paperwork to make it appear legitimate. Marsden's attorney estimates that there are 10,000 such vehicles on UK roads, and local police have issued warnings to potential car buyers to steer clear of suspicious used vehicles.
The Manchester City Magistrates' Court finally cleared Marsden of the speeding charge.
Article Excerpt:
"But GMP just dragged their feet. I could have taken the three points on my licence and the fine but I knew I was right. It's embarrassing that it went to court, really." [Marsden said]
Source: Crooks cloned my car (St Helens Star (UK), 3/18/2005)
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/01/192.asp
Another Chicago Camera Goof Proves Impossible to Fight
Contesting a bogus red light camera ticket is an uphill battle in Chicago.
The city of Chicago's new red light camera program is embarrassed again by an another error. This time, the city issued a ticket to Sharon Sweeney, the driver of a silver Lexus.
She received a citation showing a Lexus photographed turning right on a red light apparently without stopping on October 31. It had a completely different license plate from her car. The plate was similar, but not identical, to the plate on her son's Toyota Camry.
Sweeney wrote the city pointing out the obvious error. Weeks later she received a notice that because the city has not heard from her she had to come in for a hearing in person at the city's Revenue Department or pay the $90 fine.
At the hearing, she pointed out the car in the photograph did not belong to her. The hearing officer said because she contested the ticket by mail, he could not give her a hearing and she would have to wait for the city to look at her case and inform her of their decision. Two months later, she heard nothing from them. She contacted Sun Times columnist Mark Brown who called the Chicago DOT whose spokesman was once again eager to email the violation video to the columnist just for asking. They eventually fixed the ticket.
Moral of the story: call a columnist the next time you get a bogus red light camera ticket in Chicago.
Article Excerpt:
[Revenue Department spokesman Efrat] Dallal said Sweeney was "probably confused" about the process and that it all would have worked out if she had just been patient and waited for the city to complete its review. For some reason, Sweeney's not so sure.
Source: Car owner seeing red over red light camera, red tape (Chicago Sun Times, 2/22/2005)
Surely Police Officers should have something to say about this story:
from: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/01/163.asp
California Woman Gets Red Light Camera Double-Jeopardy
A Hawthorne, California woman received a ticket from a real police officer and a red light camera at the same time.
The bill of rights protects individuals from facing more than one trial for the same crime, but California resident Lori Williams experienced just that.
She admits to turning left against a red arrow in Hawthorne, being pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer and being flashed by a red light camera. The officer insisted on giving the ticket even though he knew Williams might also get a ticket in the mail.
Not only did she face two fines totaling $702 and a double set of demerit points against her license, but she also was forced to visit two separate courthouses to resolve the matter. She found nothing but useless recorded messages when she tried to call either court.
"You go through, and you stand in the traffic line and you wait and wait and wait," Williams said. When she finally spoke to a judge, the ticket written by the human being was the one that was dismissed.
Article Excerpt:
He asked her if she saw the camera flash, then said: "Well, I'm gonna go ahead and write you a ticket. You may get one in the mail, too," [Lori Williams] said. "I didn't understand what he meant," Williams said.
Source: A trip to traffic double-jeopardy (Daily Breeze (Hawthorne, CA), 2/14/2005)
link
Maricopa is by far the largest and most populous county in Arizona. Attorney Thomas' dismissals do not include those fined for less than 20 mph based on photo radar. A Maricopa County Judge has declared those invalid.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
If that was required in the US to get a driver's license, then accidents probably would be NEARLY eliminated, although you can never get rid of 100% of accidents. However, I think a vast majority of the accidents that happen today would no longer happen because it is a fact that the worst drivers on the road cause the most accidents, and of course, a majority of all accidents.
I think that woudl be a good thing to potentially reduce accidents by 99% with a 24 month course where you either pass some strict criteria or you fail! Driving should not be a right, but a privilege you earn.
That being said, although a higher speed accident is potentially more severe, those same higher speeds which help to improve traffic flow and reduce the amount of accidents, lowers my chances of ever having one in the first place. I'd rather have NO accident than one at 55 MPH.
Also, why don't we just design our airplanes and trains to move at 10 MPH so that when they crash it is less fatal? The slower speed limits for safety argument is bogus when compared to lossed productivity and potential for reducing accidents all together. The cost of my time is greater than the extra 1 MPG you get going slower than me.
Speed laws must be compromised with the successful and completed movement of goods, services, and people.
No one in their right mind should want 10 mph speed limits or 100 mph speed limits.
Happy Medium....
So what happens when these speed controlling devices that force my vehicle to not exceed the speed limit causes me to be murdered and die?
Example:
Osama Bin Laden is driving a BIG RIG truck at 100 MPH and is barreling down the road in my rearview mirror towards me. In a hurry he's getting ready to commit another terrorist act by running over a bunch of people in cars on the freeway. He's coming after me and I'm next on his list, he's gaining on me and I need to speed up to avoid this fate he's got planned for me since I"m in one of those speed limited device controlled vehicles.
I push on the gas to get away, but nothing happens. I get run over and suffer fatal trauma and injuries. This could have all been avoided in today's current vehicles which can easily out run a potential threat such as this.
I will instruct my surviving family to sue every politician who voted for such a ridiculously bad idea in the future for my life which was lost due to such negligent thinking.
There are a million scenarios where going over the speed limit is a SAFETY requirement! Sometimes, the right manuever to avoid a crash is to hit the gas, not the brakes!
2. A mailman hands you a letter which contains a photo radar ticket that is a court summons.
It is not the same result and process and you contend.
If my friend is driving my car, then the mailman is handing me a summons to court, whereas in option #1 my friend is getting the ticket and going to court.
It is not fair for me to be summoned to court for my friend's ticket which should have gone to him directly. It is NOT due process, and frankly, I should be able to sue the City for $1,000 for my wasted time.
Since safety and speed are not correlated in any reputable study, I for one, find that speed limit laws are put in place to justify Highway Patrol Officers' jobs and make money for corrupt governments and officials.
Most speed limits in CA fall under the basic speed law which is Prima Facie?
Therefore they are just guidelines, or recommendations and suggestions of speed for the road. Reasonable speeds always apply due to conditions.
The only absolute speed limit law is the Maximum speed limit law (separate Vehicle Code). So as far as I'm concerned, only maximum speed limit signs are anything more than 2 numbers on an aluminum sign, and even then, since they are usually set ridiculously low, I pay no attention to them.
And darn the dead woman speeder. All her whining husband should have done was pay the ticket. why fight it the camera is never wrong.
Speed doesn't kill and that is REALITY.
It is the REALITY based on PHYSICS and SCIENCE.
I can drive my car around 100 MPH all day and not be killed. You could drive around at 55 MPH and rearend a big rig and be killed.
It's the impact/collision (two objects occupying the same space at the same time impossibility) that kills. I have sped on numerous occasions, but I have not caused an accident, let alone killed myself....
Run your car 25 mph into a pole, no seatbelt.
Run your car 75 mph into said pole, no seatbelt.
Which one would damage your body the most?
To refute that argument, try these tests:
Run your car 35 MPH into a lightpole with seat belt.
Run your car 120 MPH through the air and atmosphere, no seat belt.
Which one would damage your body the most?
Conclusion: Speed is irrelevant.
This really is not a "Does Speed Kill or Doesn't It?" forum though.
You are saying if A then B, follows C.
A = speed
B = wreck
C = death
However, studies show that as A increases B actually reduces, which of course reduces C. Therefore, I'm not following your logic of equating A with C.
I don't see the correlation between speed and wrecks.
I don't see the correlation between speed and deaths.
There is a correlation between wrecks and death though, but speed does not cause wrecks.
OH, yes it does my young amigo.............:)
Two local teenagers were killed in a single-vehicle accident on Meetze Road Wednesday night, according to state police.
Virginia State Police Sgt. Les Tyler said the wreck occurred just east of Turkey Run Road at approximately 9:40 p.m.
Brian Michael Jacobsen, 17, of Nokesville was driving a 2005 Ford Taurus eastbound on Meetze Road when he entered a sharp right hand curve. The vehicle went off the left side of the road and Jacobsen over-corrected, Tyler said. The Taurus then went off the road to the right where it struck an embankment, struck a tree and overturned, the sergeant added.
Jacobsen and a passenger, Eric Richard Unger, 18, of Warrenton, both died at the scene from injuries sustained in the wreck, Tyler said.
Both teens were reportedly wearing their seatbelts. However, Tyler said the speed limit in the area is 50 mph, and the “maximum safe speed” entering the curve is 45 mph.
“We feel excessive speed is the main causative factor [in the accident],” Tyler said.
The accident occurred in the middle of National Teen Driver Safety Week. State police reported that five Virginia teens were killed in motor vehicle crashes between Oct. 19-21. The fatalities occurred in Loudoun, Amherst, Augusta, Gloucester and Lee counties. Those killed included a 15-year-old passenger; a 16-year-old driver; two 17-year-old drivers; and an 18-year-old passenger.
Seatbelts were not used in three of the fatal crashes prior to the Meetze Road incident, and it is undetermined if they were used in the fourth, police said. Speed was a factor in two of the crashes and alcohol was a cause of one collision.
Has those boys not been speeding, they would not have had the fatal wreck.
But again, this is not a "speed kills" forum.
Any photo radar-related comments?
First, nowhere in that story does it state what speed they think the teenagers were going when the accident ocurred. I only see that 50 was the speed limit and the speed limit for the turn was 45.
Second, they were driving a domestic company vehicle called the Taurus. Educated drivers know that the BIG 3 are known for making cars that can't handle well, especially on curves.
Thrid, it's possible they were driving WAY OVER the speed limit and more importantly, an UNREASONABLE UNSAFE speed, which means the main causation factor of the accident is negligence and reckless driving, not speed.
Fourth, it states he over corrected on the turn, which is a driver error and appears to have worsened the accidents results. Had he not overcorrected and made a driving error, the possible excessive speed (caused by reckless negligence) might have been a minor accident with no injuries.
I'm not advocating people drive unsafe speeds. I'm advocating that everyone drive at safe speeds, but as fast as possible, while maintaining reasonability and maximum safety to AVOID accidents in the first place.
What are Montana's NO SPEED LIMITS STATE accident records?
In a really old Civic, my own personal speed limit (which is reasonable and safe) would be about 80 MPH, even in Montana. In a 911 Turbo, I'd probably set a higher reasonable and safe speed limit for straight-aways and low traffic areas.
Heck, the 911 can probably stop from 100 MPH in the same distance that old Civic could from 60!
Would those boys be alive if they had been driving 45 mph?
The answer will enlighten you on the death part of "speed kills."
Speed doesn't kill. Guns don't kill.
The driver hitting an embankment upside down kills, the person pulling the trigger kills.
Measuring success in the short term is a dangerous game.
Any member can create a new discussion on CarSpace and that's how most of them are created. We even have a FAQ on how to do it.
Or just go to the Automotive News & Views link and find the Add a Discussion link and follow the prompts.
Montana only had a "reasonable and prudent" speed limit for a few years in the late 90's. It's been 75 max on the interstates there for years, just like most Western states. Montana Speed
California Courts Split on Red Light Camera Contracts
Appellate court in Los Angeles, California rules that red light cameras tickets can be issued by companies with illegal contract arrangements.
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court in Los Angeles County, California on Monday disagreed with its appellate colleagues to the south over the legality of red light camera tickets issued by companies under a financial incentive to produce more tickets. The court upheld a citation generated by a machine on July 8, 2007 at the intersection of Avenue L and 20th Street in Lancaster. The automated camera snapped a photo of a 2004 Honda making a left-hand turn just 0.18 seconds after the light had turned red.
The defendant in the case argued that this ticket was invalid because it had been issued by a private company and the city of Lancaster who were operating together under an arrangement specifically forbidden by the state's red light camera statute. The law requires that camera contractors be compensated on a flat-rate basis to remove the financial incentive for the company to issue more tickets. Lancaster is one of dozens of California cities ignoring this mandate by using a "cost neutral" formula that adjusts the rate paid based on whether the number of tickets issued falls within a certain range.
The Orange County appellate court in December struck down photo tickets issued in the city of Fullerton because it used a similar payment scheme (view decision). The Los Angeles appellate court, however, refused to consider whether or not the Lancaster arrangement violated the law. It insisted that this question was irrelevant.
"Had the legislature intended for such compliance or contract language to be conditions precedent to the issuance of citations, part of the prosecution's prima facie case, or a basis for the exclusion of evidence, it would have simply included the appropriate language reflecting its intent in the statute," Judge Patti Jo McKay wrote for the three-judge panel.
In effect, McKay ruled that if a municipality refuses to follow the law by using a contract based upon bounty payments, nothing can be done about it. McKay also refused to overturn the ticket on the grounds that the city had refused to provide to the defendant inspection, calibration and maintenance records for both the traffic light and the red light camera. The appellate court ruled that it was appropriate to conceal this information because the defendant failed to prove that the unseen documents contained exculpatory evidence.
"Other than speculation, there is no basis to conclude that the calibration and maintenance report contained information favorable to the defendant," McKay wrote.
Both the Orange County and Los Angeles courts draw millions in revenue from "court costs" imposed on the $400 camera ticket. Despite this, the Orange County court has been consistently more skeptical of the procedures used in automated ticketing. The split between the courts can only be resolved by referring a case to the California Court of Appeal or Supreme Court. In 2005, the high court sided with the Orange County court's reasoning and declined to reopen a decision that tossed a photo ticket over a city's failure to follow warning requirements. The decision was left unpublished, denying it precedential value, until the same defendant filed an identical case that was ordered published earlier this month.
View the ruling in a 550k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: California v. McDonald (California Superior Court, Appellate Division, 2/23/2009)
i>Thrill-seeking kids are not born with the desire.
Those of us that remember giving our kids a Big wheel can assure you thrill seeking is something kids seem to be born with. My son was just five or six when he would come flying down the sidewalk and toss the thing into a perfect slide and maybe take a small jump he made with a piece of wood and a brick he took from my garage. I don't even like to think what he did on a skate board and a BMX bike. Because he did 99 percent of his early car experience with his mother I can assure you speeding down the road was far from his normal driving experience.
Not that any of that has much to do with Photo Radar.
Biting tongue......
Studies show that as speed limits are increased or decreased, actual flow of traffic speed remains virtually unchanged.
So technically, since most people pay no attention to the posted speed limits, elminating them would probably save the tax payers of this country countless resources and money, and at the same time have little to no affect on anything negatively or positively.
Although I'd find it positive that I can finally drive along the freeway just like everyone else and not have to worry about being singled out as a "speeder" by some arrogant cocky egotistical Johhny Law CHP officer.
Heck, I could divert the attention I normally spend keeping an eye out for the CHP to keeping an eye out for drunk drivers or other looming unsafe manuevers by idiotic drivers.
I doubt the TL has ever gone above 65
Ohio: Photo Tickets Issued to Leased Cars Ruled Invalid
Ohio Court of Appeals invalidates photo tickets issued to the drivers of leased vehicles in Cleveland.
The Eighth District Ohio Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision last week that red light camera and speed camera tickets could not be issued to the drivers of leased vehicles in the city of Cleveland. The dispute arose after a pair of speed camera tickets were mailed to the Dickson and Campbell law firm in January 2007. Attorney Blake A. Dickson noticed that under Cleveland's ticketing ordinance, only the registered owner of a vehicle could be held liable for an automated ticket. He then appealed the $100 fines before the Cleveland Parking Violations Bureau, arguing that his law firm leased the car from VW Credit Leasing, the registered owner.
"OK. Well, we are going to go after the [lessee] then, sir," the hearing officer said as he declared the firm guilty.
Dickson appealed the decision to the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, which immediately rejected the argument as a clever trick designed to deprive Cleveland of millions in revenue.
"Appellant is attempting to avoid the inevitable with an argument based on semantics," the court ruled. "If this court were to follow appellant's reasoning, then every driver of a leased car would be free from liability of speed traffic offenses simply because they do not 'own' the vehicle. Therefore the court finds the [Parking] Violations Bureau's decision to be supported by reliable, probative, and substantial evidence and is in accordance with law as appellant had the care, custody, and control of the vehicle in question at the time of each violation."
The court of appeals noted that both the hearing officer and lower court judge accepted that Dickson and Campbell was the lessee and not the registered owner of the vehicle. State vehicle title records listed VW Credit Leasing as the sole owner. The appeals court put the blame on Cleveland for failing to write its ordinance properly.
"It is not difficult to decipher the difference between 'owner' of a vehicle and 'lessee' of a vehicle," Judge Melody J. Stewart wrote for the majority. "If the City of Cleveland had intended to hold lessees liable under CCO 413.031, it would have included them in the ordinance as other municipalities have."
An older Cleveland ordinance specifically holds those leasing vehicles responsible for parking tickets. The appeals court concluded that the city would have to abide by the rules it wrote and cancel the automated ticket issued to the law firm.
"The common pleas court's reasoning that drivers can escape liability by leasing vehicles is inaccurate," Judge Stewart wrote. "Every driver of a leased vehicle can still be liable for speeding and running a red light through traditional means, namely, being cited by a police officer for doing so... Dickson and Campbell cannot be liable for the speeding infractions since they were the lessee of the vehicle and not the owner."
A copy of the decision is available in a PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Dickson and Campbell v. Cleveland (Court of Appeals of Ohio, Eighth Appellate District, 2/19/2009)
I really have no incentive to ever install my new jail-made license plates. I'd prefer the paper on the windshield which makes me immune to all camera/photo tickets!
Gotta love it!
Not
Speed?
and you can ignore the Photo Radar FOREVER.................:)
Well:
1) Radar is an ancient technology, full of defects, errors, and inaccuracies.
2) It is an old technology akin to someone play 8-track tapes on a home stereo.
3) Without an operator verifying compliance, you have calibration and maintenance issues.
4) Any machine can fail and go haywire, especially electronics.
5) I get falsely accused by traffic officers more than enough, I don't need false accusations from photo radar to add to my wasted time in court (and wasted tax payer money as I usually win 50% of the time).
Not true according to atty. friend. If unpaid, some localities will eventually issue a bench warrant.
Photo Radar Easy Payment Plan