Violations: Parking & Traffic - Not Poetry but Anarchy in Motion

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Minnesota: Police Chief Wants Speed Traps to Fund Overtime

The city of Goodview, Minnesota -- population 3,373 -- is strapped for cash.

The police chief suggests the easiest way to make quick cash is to set up a speed trap.

Police Chief LaVern Hauschildt offered this solution to Councilman Dennis Meyer at a city council meeting last week. Hauschildt had been seeking to add 666 extra sick and vacation hours to his police force.

The Winona Daily News

printed the following transcript of the conversation:

Meyer: Are there any other revenues you're looking at?

Hauschildt: Well, we could set up a speed trap.

Meyer: That's not what I was thinking about.

Hauschildt: It sounds like a good idea to me.

Meyer: That's not good PR, though.

Hauschildt: Well, we'd make money.

Meyer: Still.

The extra hours were approved, but the speed trap idea was shelved at the meeting.

Source: NOT QUITE READY FOR PAGE 1 (Winona Daily News (MN), 9/30/2006)



Texas: Public Protest Against State Trooper Ticket Quotas


Members of the public and local officials rallied Wednesday to support state police officers fired in Texarkana, Texas for failing to meet ticket quotas.

The Texarkana Gazette counted twenty-two protested in front of a state police office on Hampton Road with signs reading, "It's against the law, Stop DPS ticket quota system."

Earlier this month, nine of the thirteen state troopers stationed in Bowie County were suspended or fired for allegedly manipulating the dates on warning notices to meet the department's traffic quota.

"We don't have any quotas at DPS," the department's spokesman Tom Vinger told the Gazette.

"However, management expects troopers to show evidence they have engaged in traffic enforcement, which includes writing citations." Six Bowie County commissioners expressed support for the affected troopers as did the mayors of six cities in Bowie county.

"It is our firm opinion that these troopers were under undue stress to bring their number up," the mayors' letter stated.

"The word 'quotas' was never used but I think they understand what is expected."

A chili dinner and rally will be held this evening in Hooks, Texas to show more support for the troopers.


Source: Supporters rally for troopers (Texarkana Gazette (TX), 9/29/2006)

UK: A259 Speed Camera Goes Up in Flames
A burnt out shell is all that remains of a brand new speed camera located on the A259 eastbound Littlehampton Road at Ferring in West Sussex, England.

The camera housing was just installed on Monday and by 1am Wednesday it had been destroyed by a burning tire. Police suspect this is part of the "Summer of MADness" campaign announced by the vigilante group Motorists Against Detection (MAD).

MAD's leader, known as Captain Gatso, said that he was instituting a zero-tolerance policy against speed cameras.

"We are now planning to target any and all cameras until the Government sees sense and rethinks its road safety policy," Captain Gatso said in a statement earlier this year.

Source: Torched (Worthing Herald (UK), 9/29/2006)



Kentucky: Cops Stop Men for Driving with Cash

Davidson County, Kentucky sheriff's deputies found two men passing through Interstate 85 guilty of the crime of driving with cash.

Officers confiscated $88,000 from the motorists after pulling the car over for tailgating near Lexington.

The motorists said they were traveling from New Jersey to Atlanta to buy a house with the money they carried. After a trained police dog reacted to the car, the two were accused of being drug dealers.

There was no other evidence presented, nor were the pair charged with any crime.

The two will have to prove their innocence before a federal judge to have a chance at getting their money back.

The Davidson County Sheriff's Office stands to collect $66,000 from the seizure with the remainder going to federal coffers.

Over the past two years, the Davidson County Sheriff's Office has collected $3 million from under forfeiture laws.

Source: Deputies seize $88,000 in cash in traffic stop (Lexington Dispatch (KY), 9/28/2006)

UK: Exceeding Speed Limit Rarely Causes Accidents

For the past decade, UK road safety policy has focused on legal compliance with posted speed limits as the most effective means of reducing the number of automobile accidents.

Department for Transport statistics released today, however, show that fewer than five percent of accidents last year were caused by a motorist driving faster than the limit.

"Exceeding speed limit was attributed to 3 percent of cars involved in accidents, while going too fast for conditions was attributed to 7 per cent." (page 11) Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign, points out that this means "around 95 percent of road crashes have absolutely nothing to do with speeding."


Smith takes issue with the department's use of speed camera ticketing to achieve legal compliance, which last year resulted in two million citations worth £120 million (US $225 million) in revenue.

"Nationally we're giving (motorists) the wrong safety information and forcing them to concentrate on the wrong safety factors."

According to today's report, the most common factors contributing to road accidents, in order, are:

Failed to look properly

Failed to judge other persons path/speed

Careless, reckless or in a hurry

Poor turn/maneuver

Loss of control

Going too fast for conditions (but under the posted limit)

Pedestrian failed to look properly

Following too close

Sudden braking

The department began collecting contributory factor data on road accidents on January 1, 2005.

The new information covers 147,509 incidents from slight to severe to fatal.

This is the first time that complete contributory factor data on UK accidents has been made available to the public.



Source: Contributory factors to road accidents (Department for Transport, 9/28/2006)

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Canada: Meter Maids Target High-Profile Funeral
Meter maids in Montreal, Canada swooped down on a high-profile funeral attended by the city's mayor and other officials last week, distributing parking tickets to a number of mourners.

Around eight hundred had gathered at Our Lady of Czestochowa Church to pray for Anastasia De Sousa, 18, a student killed by a deranged gunman at Dawson College.

Police were on hand to block traffic and direct mourners where to park.

Several who followed these instructions found citations on their windshield for parking in a street sweeping zone, even though no sweeping took place until long after the funeral.

"It's unbelievable, what they did," Achille Polcaro told the Montreal Gazette.

"It's not like we'd gone shopping or something."

The city refuses to cancel the fines.

Source: Mourners ticketed (Montreal Gazette (Canada), 9/21/2006)

Washington: Towing Company Cashes in on Stolen Car
Monroe, Washington motorist Ansel Carroll had his 1988 Honda Civic stolen in August, but through no fault of his own he may end up losing both his car and more than $1000 to a towing company.

When Carroll had reported his car stolen, he left police numbers where he could be reached.

Police found the car within a week, but they never called. Monroe Police outsource stolen car notifications to a company called SnoPac, which only called an out-of-date number for Carroll, ignoring the valid numbers that had been provided.

Sky Valley Towing held the car for weeks before sending a notification letter, allowing the "storage fees" to mount.

They now have now run up to $1500, far exceeding the expected return when the car is auctioned on Saturday.

"What kind of system is this?" Carroll asked KOMO-TV News.

"I'm the one that got the car stolen, not the towing company, which is getting all the money."

Source: Car Theft Victim Stuck With $1,500 Bill (KOMO-TV (WA), 9/26/2006)



California: City Collects Double on Parking Tickets
Santa Monica, California illegally collected $950,000 in revenue by double-billing 18,000 motorists for parking tickets over three years.

Beginning October 1, the city will implement a new policy in accordance with state law and return some of the money to the motorists that it can find -- 80 percent of whom live outside Santa Monica.

Each year the city generates $12.6 million in revenue from $47 parking tickets issued to 320,000 motorists.

The city often sends overdue payment notices to individuals who have already settled their debt.

Instead of returning this payment, the city and its private contractor Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) have kept the money.

Source: Parking Scofflaws May Get Payday (Los Angeles Times, 9/23/2006)



California: Police Car Booting Extortion Scheme Foiled

Brian Hanhart

pleaded no contest on September 11 to forgery after being accused of running an extortion scheme while serving as a reserve sheriff's deputy in Marina del Rey, California.
Hanhart runs Municipal Parking Services, a company that placed boots on vehicles parked in private lots in Lawndale and El Camino Village in 2004.

Hanhart sought payment of $80-100 for the release of each car.

An August 2004 opinion by the state attorney general made it clear that police officers may only boot cars located on public streets.

Hanhart must now perform ninety days worth of community service and pay $18,000 to charity -- an amount designed to deprive him of the profits gained from his booting scheme.

Source: Car-booting case settled with a plea bargain, $18,000 fine (Los Angeles Daily Breeze (CA), 9/23/2006)

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The People of the State of New York, Plaintiff, v. George Morgenstern, Defendant
City Court of Rochester, New York

140 Misc. 2d 861; 531 N.Y.S.2d 751; 1988 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 496

August 4, 1988

HEADNOTES: Crimes -- Aggravated Harassment

An information charging defendant with aggravated harassment in the second degree (Penal Law @ 240.30 [1]) for writing

"There are no suck ****ing signs posted anywhere"
(in reverse order: gnikcuf)
on a parking ticket which he returned by mail to the Parking Violations Bureau along with his guilty plea and check for the amount of the fine is dismissed.

Such words of protest are constitutionally protected, and the mere fact that the receiver of this written communication found the words "annoying" is not enough to bring it within section 240.30.

The statute is unconstitutional as applied to defendant and the accusatory instrument is defective as a matter of law.

COUNSEL: Geiger & Rothenberg, for defendant.

Howard Relin, District Attorney, for plaintiff.

JUDGE: William H. Bristol, J.

OPINION OF THE COURT

"There are no suck ****ing signs posted anywhere". So wrote George Morgenstern on a parking ticket which he returned by mail to the Parking Violations Bureau along with his guilty plea and check for the amount of the fine. For this, he has been charged with aggravated harassment in the second degree, a misdemeanor, in violation of section 240.30 (1) of the Penal Law on an information signed by an employee of the Parking Violations Bureau who happened to receive this piece of mail.

The defendant has moved to dismiss this criminal information. He claims that it is unconstitutional as it is applied to him and that it lacks sufficient factual allegations to support the charge. The People oppose the motion.

Citizen protest of governmental policy and State action is an essential element of our democracy. We have grown strong as a free society because of words of protest -- the words of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, of Susan B. Anthony and Dr. Martin Luther King. Our Constitution has continually protected words of protest, even if they were imprudent, thoughtless, tasteless or just plain angry, so long as they were not legally obscene, or "fighting words" and did not intrude into the privacy of one's home. (Cohen v California, 403 U.S. 15, 20-21 [1971] [Harlan, J.].)

Mr. Morgenstern's words, as set out in the criminal information, were protesting ones. He was angry. So much so that he misspelled "such" apparently focusing angrily on the word that was to follow. But, his words were not legally obscene (see, Cohen v California, supra, at 20-21; see also, Roth v United States, 354 U.S. 476 [1957]; Papish v University of Mo. Curators, 410 U.S. 667 [1973]). His words were not "fighting words". (Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 [1942].) His words did not intrude into the privacy of the complainant's home -- rather they were received in a government office.

Thus, this court agrees that Mr. Morgenstern's protest was constitutionally protected. The mere fact that the receiver of this written communication found its words "annoying" is not enough to bring it within Penal Law @ 240.30. Indeed, [the] freedom of individuals verbally to * * * challenge [official] action [even to the point of being annoying] * * * is one of the principal

characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state." (City of Houston v Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 107 S Ct 2502, 2510 [1987].) As this court has written in People v Malausky (127 Misc 2d 84, 86): "In a free society, such as ours, citizens are subjected to a degree of annoying behavior which, most likely, in a police State would not be tolerated. But merely because a person behaves in an immature, immoderate, rude or patronizing manner which annoys another is not enough to cause the actor to suffer criminal sanctions." We who work in government, be we duly elected public officials or duly appointed public servants, must expect that a certain degree of disdain for government will be expressed to us by citizens. After all, we are employed by these citizens. They are our sovereigns. That our employers may express themselves either verbally or in writing in an immoderate way is protected behavior under our Federal and State Constitutions. It must remain such if we are to continue to be a free and strong democracy.

For the foregoing reasons, the court concludes that the written communication of Mr. Morgenstern was constitutionally protected in general, and, in specific, that the facts alleged fail to support or tend to support the charge. Therefore, the charge must be and hereby is dismissed because the statute is unconstitutional as applied to this defendant and, in any event, the accusatory instrument is defective as a matter of law.

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UK: Watchdog Slams Dishonest Government Traffic Stats


An independent UK government agency designed to enforce honesty in statistical discussions has called into question road fatality numbers used by the Department for Transport to show speed cameras have provided a safety benefit.

According to the Statistics Commission, "There is known undercounting of road accidents in police statistics which are used to... inform policies on traffic safety."

The recently released report, dated July 2006, follows research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published in June that shows hospital records do not match the injury statistics provided by police agencies.
Road safety experts including Paul Smith of Safe Speed argue that the undercounting is intentional.

By creating a false appearance of fewer fatal and serious injury accidents, government officials can then claim that photo enforcement has been successful in achieving this result.

"What may be of particular public concern is that these statistics are used to monitor progress and success against the ambitious PSA targets on road accidents (to reduce numbers killed and seriously injured in road accidents by 40% by 2010)," the Statistics Commission Briefing Note stated.

Source: Briefing note on road accident statistics (UK Statistics Commission, 7/29/2006)



UK: Bedfordshire Speed Camera Flattened

A controversial speed camera on Flitwick Road in the town of Ampthill in Bedfordshire, England had its ten-foot solar power pole knocked deep into the ground over this weekend.

"The speed camera has had this coming and many people will believe that whoever did the dastardly deed deserves a medal," resident Charlie Garth told the Bedfordshire on Sunday newspaper.

"Drive at 35 MPH at 2:30 in the morning when nobody else is around and you still get a £60 (US $114) fine and penalty points on your license.
The deterrent effect is minimal anyway."

"The only people who get caught are those from out of town," Garth added.
"So it is like a tax on strangers, which is perhaps no bad thing if it keeps the riff-raff out of Ampthill."

Source: Speeding driver snaps at camera (Bedfordshire on Sunday (UK), 9/24/2006)



UK: Parking Tickets are Bad for Tourism
The chief executive for tourism in Cumbria, UK issued a warning that the reliance on parking tickets for revenue is driving away tourists and the millions in revenue they bring to the county.

"There is evidence of overzealous car parking attendants," Cumbria Tourism's head, Ian Stephens, told The Cumberland News.

"They fine people for being a few minutes late or parked slightly outside the bay.
Some would say they are being ripped off... people are not getting out of their cars and spending. Cumbria's losing millions of pounds."
Stephens has asked municipal authorities to back off and adopt friendlier policies.

He suggests standardizing parking systems and creating transferable parking passes that can be purchased and used anywhere in Cumbria.

He also suggests spaces near popular spots should be cheaper. Keswick, for example, issued 7000 parking tickets and generated £186,055 (US $353,421) in profit in 2004.

Source: Parking problems costing us millions warns tourism chief (Cumberland News (UK), 9/22/2006)



Canada: Cop Runs Ticket Fighting Business

In Montreal, Canada, the same guy who gave you a ticket was the one to call to get you out of one.

Until this week, Alfredo Munoz, 40, had been both a police sergeant and the owner of SOS Ticket, a firm that defends against traffic tickets for a fee.

An internal police inquiry determined that this represented a conflict of interest and the department suspended him without pay.

Munoz's side business employed two lawyers to offer advice on beating tickets.

He charges, for example, CAD $190 for help on a citation that threatens to put two points on his client's driving license.

The Montreal police investigation found that much of this advice was based on what Munoz knew as an active duty police officer.

"How can you be a police officer who supervises other police officers, who may at times give out tickets, and at the same time have a company where you give advice to people about contesting these tickets?"

Montreal Police Inspector Paul Chablo told the Montreal Gazette newspaper.
Source: Ticket-fighting cop suspended (Montreal Gazette (Canada), 9/21/2006)



Houston to Revise Red Light Camera Ordinance
After just two weeks of red light camera operation in Houston, Texas, city officials are concerned about the ordinance under which the program issues $75 tickets.

A two-word phrase is preventing the city from collecting on a third of its potential revenue -- $22,500 -- from motorists turning right on red.

That amounts to more than half a million a year from the city's first ten cameras. Fifty are planned.

The ordinance states: "The owner of a motor vehicle is liable for a civil penalty of $75 if the motor vehicle proceeds into a system location without turning when the traffic control signal for that motor vehicle's direction of travel is emitting a steady red signal."

Already Mayor Bill White has agreed with Councilman Pam Holm to amend the ordinance so that the city can issue more tickets.

For many cities, "rolling stops" are a significant source of red light camera revenue.

These occur when a motorist slows down without coming to an absolute halt or comes to a halt but beyond the white painted stop bar on the pavement.

While Houston asserts the sole purpose of its photo enforcement program is saving lives, the practice of rolling stops is not a significant cause of fatal intersection accidents according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Source: Houston red-light photo loophole excludes turns (Houston Chronicle, 9/21/2006)

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Georgia: Red Light Cameras Expose Personal Information

Identity thieves may have captured sensitive personal information on up to 8800 motorists who traveled through Savannah, Georgia and happened to trip the city's red light camera.

For seven months, the photos, name, date of birth, address and sometimes Social Security Number of recipients were being archived by Internet search engines because the city web server failed to implement the most basic security measures.

A citizen noticed the problem when he searched for a name on Google and found the personal information in the results.

He notified the city of the problem on September 5, and the city began sending notifications to affected motorists on Tuesday.

Despite the massive error, the city maintains that its computer systems, "currently have up-to-date security measures, devices, and software to protect confidential information."

Photo enforcement vendor ACS similarly exposed personal information in Edmonton, Canada by leaving 320 tickets on a park bench.

Only a third of the tickets, about 3000, went to Savannah residents.

Non-residents targeted by the cameras paid the majority of the $660,000 in revenue during the time the personal information was exposed.

Source: Drivers' Vehicle Registration Information Possibly Exposed Online (WTOC-TV (GA), 9/20/2006)



Sweden Rejects Congestion Charge Politicians
Voters in Sweden tossed out the Social Democrat party Sunday in elections where the issue of imposing of the congestion tax imposed on motorists in the capital of Stockholm played a central role.

Voters in all fourteen municipalities surrounding the city voting on the issue rejected the charge while a narrow 51.7 percent inside Stockholm -- those who would not ordinarily pay the tax -- supported it.

The winning four-party center-right Alliance ran on a platform opposed to the congestion tax.

Stockholm's Social Democrat Mayor Annika Billstrom who introduced the charge earlier this year also lost her election.

The Social Democrats had designed the referendum so that only those who do not pay the tax would have a say, ignoring suburban voters.

Alliance officials pledge to consider all the results, placing the future of the 3 billion kronor (US $410 million) electronic tolling infrastructure in doubt.

In the only other referendum on the issue, seventy-four percent of voters in Edinburgh, Scotland rejected a congestion tax proposal in February 2005.

Source: Uncertain Road Toll Referendum (Sveriges Radio International (Sweden), 9/20/2006)