Either way, we can’t expect people to respect the police, if the police don’t respect people and their property. Understandably, a person may be accused of a violation, but this is subject to judicial interpretation. Until convicted, and there is no reason to do anything but secure the vehicle, UNLESS it is inhibiting traffic. In such a case, the government should take the responsible action to ensure that an individual’s property (whether owned by the individual or a leasing company/bank) is respected not just to the letter of the law, but to the spirit as well.

Well, it seemed only a matter of time. Web sites, protests, and even a murder later, Arizona has finally cancelled the speed camera contract with Redflex out of Australia. The murder was a tragedy, to be sure, but the cause wasn’t entirely routed in the brain of a psychotic (though perhaps that could have been the cause). In fact, the man accused of the murder was a 68-year-old Phoenix resident.

The speed camera contract was a pet project of former Governor Janet Napolitano (now tasked with running the nation’s security), which undoubtedly hoped to both increase public safety and raise funds for the state. On both accounts, it failed. At best, the program did little to educate the drivers of the state, and at worse, it stole funds directly from their pockets.

Legislators should heed the result as a warning that implementation of automated traffic enforcement systems ought come with a direct vote of the people, just as the people might vote to raise taxes (which the program arguably was doing) or legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.

What’s that line, a government by the people…

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Mercedes E-class BlueTec Hybrid

Without a doubt, the EU has become the leader in improving the pollution problem for the automotive sector. Recently the U.S. put in a 27.3 mpg average fleet requirement for 2011. Please see: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov for the latest information and the impact analysis. But is the change enough to get us on the right track? How exactly do carmakers implement changes in their fleet to address the higher requirements?

The European Union defines specific emissions targets for the following 5 years as the following:

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Are cameras proper enforcement?

Late last month, the BBC’s Rome correspondent Duncan Kennedy wrote an article outlining what is the most egregious violation of traffic enforcement civil liberties to date. 

The BBC reports that over 100 police and law enforcement officers are being investigated in response to a senior officer’s discovered that traffic ticket issuances were suddenly increased from an average of 15 fines per day to over 1000. 

BBC reports that some US$170,000,000 may have been gained by those involved, include the enforcement company, T-Redspeed, which gained the contracts because it employs a technology that allows 3-dimensional photography of potential traffic violators. At least one person has been arrested in connection with the fraud.

That so many benefited from this fraud should make all of the driving public, law enforcement, and public officials seriously call into question the integrity of the photo traffic enforcement process. If the public in a small country as Italy can be defrauded to the tune of US$170million, imagine the amount German, or Britons, or even Americans could be defrauded.

The first step to gaining public confidence is to provide absolute transparency in the enforcement of traffic cameras. Public scrutiny must be upheld.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7862893.stm

If you have been caught in a speed trap, one of the technology solutions might be to use Trapster. Trapster pegs themselves as the “Speed Trap Sharing System”.

The system works pretty well. Just sign up and download the application for your iPhone, BlackBerry, or other smartphone. You can then track the speed traps using the GPS on the phone.

Good luck and beat those tickets!

For more information, go to http://trapster.com.

Of all of the people you might expect to ignore environmental concerns, a Humvee-driving Republican governor must rank fairly high on the list.

Without a doubt, he is the governor who best knows that environmental concerns rank near the top of priorities for his constituency.

This article comes on the heals of the Obama administration’s move to allow the states more leeway in how they pass and apply laws as they pertain to automakers’ emissions. This could pave way for more fuel efficient vehicles, including some that run on renewable fuels, such as hydrogen.

For more information on hydrogen cars, check out these links:
http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2008/05/hydrogen

http://hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/

For more on the Honda Clarity, the only known hydrogen vehicle actively being sold by a major automaker, click here.