The following is an article I came across on an Associated Press feed:

The mayor of Warren, Michigan says a warning wasn’t enough after he was stopped for speeding. So he asked for a ticket instead — and got it. Warren Mayor Jim Fouts was pulled over Monday on the way to City Hall for going 45 mph in a 40 mph zone. The officer told him to watch it next time.

Fouts says he was uncomfortable the entire day with just a warning, thinking it might be construed as favoritism. So he called the deputy police commissioner and demanded the ticket.

Police delivered it to Fouts’ office and Fouts paid the $100 fine.

Fouts told The Detroit News that he “had to set an example.”

He had to “set an example”?! An example of what? How to be a numb nut? He was doing 5 mph over the limit. A warning is what was appropriate; and, he demanded a ticket. The cop probably didn’t even know he was the mayor.

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS – When a suburban man with 60 traffic tickets smashed his Ferrari into another car, killing the driver, her 4-year-old son and himself in 2005, state and local officials responded by tightening loopholes in state traffic laws to make sure police and prosecutors have up-to-date information and can get problem drivers off the streets.

But now, some local lawmakers and prosecutors fear those efforts could be undermined by the growing interest in letting cameras enforce speed limits.

The problem, some say, is those speed-camera tickets wouldn’t get reported to the state as long as the driver pays the $100 fine. As a result, drivers who normally would risk losing their licenses would keep driving.

“You can’t have a system where you have ticket after ticket and just pay a fine. There has to be some kind of reporting to the secretary of state,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett.

A plan pending in the state Senate would allow cities and villages to contract with camera companies to remotely issue speeding tickets.

DuPage County created a computer program designed to correlate driving records from Illinois’ 102 counties to prevent repeatedly ticketed drivers from qualifying for court supervision. The program was developed after the tragic 2005 crash in West Chicago that prompted outrage from the victim’s family and the public at how the speeding driver was able to keep his license so long.

Because speed-camera violators would not be reported to the secretary of state unless the driver failed to pay five speed-camera tickets, DuPage’s database would become far less useful, Birkett said.

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This is just too funny — or creepy, depending on what you think about these things.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Pretty soon, these cameras will be turning and twisting around, tracking our movements. These traffic cameras, and security cameras and the like, are everywhere! Seems that there’s no place where you aren’t visible by one somewhere.

Ticket quota drives Colorado Springs, Colorado officers to falsify their daily activity reports.

News organizations in Colorado Springs, Colorado this week uncovered a ticket quota that drove a pair of cops to falsify speeding ticket records. Officers Dan Myers and Elvin Hill were not accused of ticketing innocent motorists. Instead, they issued 197 citations but claimed credit for 407 in their official Daily Activity Report database entries between January 2 and February 12 this year.

Their actions suggested a ticket quota to the Colorado Springs Gazette and KRDO television, who put in requests for departmental records. They discovered a number of documents outlining “Performance Objectives” that said “Officers will average a minimum of 2.2 violations” per hour. That means officers on ten-hour shifts had to write 22 tickets per day. Departmental supervisors said this was an easy burden for officers.

“I’ve had several guys that write more than several times that,” Sergeant Steve Weber told the Gazette. “The majority of these guys don’t even have to worry about these numbers. These are really for our low performers.”

Still, officials denied that this requirement amounted to a ticket quota designed solely to raise revenue. In 2005, the number of citations jumped twelve percent, generating $8.6 million in revenue as the number of accidents also rose fifteen percent.

Myers and Hill retired on July 2, avoiding any sanction for their actions.

source: www.thenewspaper.com

Montana state lawmaker seeks to outlaw red light cameras.

The Montana state House Transportation Committee yesterday held a hearing on legislation designed to thwart municipal attempts to install red light cameras. The city of Bozeman had hoped to have its automated ticketing machines operational by May, but state Representative Bill Nooney (R-Missoula) wants to cut the program off before it can begin.

“An automated enforcement system designed to detect traffic violations that is attached to a traffic control device may not be used to enforce traffic laws,” House Bill 531 states.

The Bozeman City Commission voted 4-1 last October to enter into a multimillion dollar agreement with an Australian firm, Redflex Traffic Systems, to set up cameras at six intersections. Under the deal, Redflex would pay for the right to issue the $135 citations in the city’s name. These tickets would go to drivers who make right-hand turns on red, slide through an icy intersection during the winter and who enter an intersection a fraction of a second after the light turns red.

After a number of independent studies began to show that the devices fail to deliver the promised safety benefit, some states moved to ban their use (view studies). Mississippi’s state House voted nearly unanimously last week to ban photo ticketing. Alaska, Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin banned automated citations either through judicial or legislative action. In other cases, the public has taken matters into its own hands. Cincinnati and Steubenville, Ohio recently voted to ban speed and red light cameras. Between 1991 and 1997, voters also turned out in Batavia, Illinois; Peoria, Arizona and Anchorage, Alaska to reject photo radar.

Source: www.thenewspaper.com