Taking on the Government

http://washingtonexaminer.com/d.c.-waging-war-against-drivers/article/2522783

D.C. waging war against drivers

Eric P. Newcomer

February 27, 2013 | 6:00 pm | Modified: February 28, 2013 at 12:00 pm

Driving in the District is a high-price hassle: burning gasoline while stuck in traffic, feeding hungry parking meters and now tracking the ever-watchful traffic cameras waiting to make you pay up if you slip up.
 
If it seems like city leaders want to get cars off the road in the nation's capital, that's because they do -- and it starts at the top. Mayor Vincent Gray's environmental initiative, Sustainable DC, has a stated goal of cutting in half by 2032 the number of D.C. commuters who drive.
 
The mayor's spokesman, Pedro Ribeiro, summed up the city's position in an email to The Washington Examiner.

"What we are doing is laying the groundwork for a city where residents and visitors won't need a car," Ribeiro wrote. "A city where walking, bike riding, and public transportation will meet the vast majority of transportation needs."
 
About half of the approximately 800,000 people who commute into the District drive a vehicle. The city's director of planning, Harriet Tregoning, said increasing costs can encourage drivers to reconsider their transportation choices.
 
"One of the ways to manage a scarce resource is to use price as a signal," she said.
 
And new expenses for drivers could be on the horizon.
 
» In the near term, the District wants neighboring governments to join it in examining the idea of a "congestion tax," a toll for commuters who opt to drive during peak hours.
 
» Facing scarce parking, commuters could pay even more for new "performance-based" parking spaces with prices that fluctuate with demand.
 
» "Zero tolerance" anti-idling zones could bring in new revenue to the city when drivers are caught with engines running at a standstill.
 
"Motorists are seen as the ATM machines of the District of Columbia, but they're the unwelcome ATM machines," said Lon Anderson, AAA Mid-Atlantic's managing director of public and government affairs.
 
Already, the city has found ways to make large sums of money off motorists, many of whom live in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.
 
» The District collects an estimated $40 million a year from parking meters.
 
» In fiscal 2011, the city collected $92.6 million in parking fines.
 
» Automated-enforcement fines brought the city $85 million in fiscal 2012.
 
» A report last year estimated that the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles was owed $380 million in unpaid tickets, fines and fees.
 
Those who are able to afford driving in the District might find it more difficult to find a place to park: The city is weighing making the creation of parking spaces optional for developers in some downtown areas.
 
Residents already are sensitive to parking shortages. Some Adams Morgan residents are upset over a new development because the city might let the builder get away with providing seven fewer parking spaces than typically required.
 
"Parking is incredibly difficult anywhere in Adams Morgan," said Mindy Moretti, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner.
 
Under the mayor's Sustainable DC plan, the city wants 50 percent of commutes by its residents to take place on public transportation and another 25 percent by bike or on foot.
 
The American Community Survey found that in 2011, just 3.15 percent of D.C. residents typically biked to work, up 58 percent from 2006. Bike lanes are popping up around the city -- D.C. has about 56 miles of them -- which often means less room on the road for cars.
 
"They're rearranging how streets are used," said Martha Roskowski, director of the Green Lane Project, a bike advocacy group. "It's all still for moving people."
 
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

http://www.dailyiowan.com/2013/02/28/Metro/32121.html

Iowa City group seeks signatures on red-light camera petition

BY JONATHAN SOLIS | FEBRUARY 28, 2013 5:00 AM

The University of Iowa Young Americans for Liberty student organization has teamed up with a community group called Stop Big Brother to petition against red-light cameras, drones, and other traffic-surveillance technology.

The petition began in response to an ordinance passed last year allowing traffic officials to install automated red-light cameras.

The groups petitioned at the IMU twice this week and will continue to reach out to students and the community until their April 1 deadline.

Joey Gallagher, the president of Young Americans for Liberty, said the combined effort was a natural step for the two organizations. So far, he believes students have generally been receptive.

“We’re getting pretty good reception from students in the IMU,” he said. “We’ve gotten over 100 signatures in just one afternoon.”

The groups need 2,500 signatures to submit the petition to the Iowa City City Council; they currently have almost 1,000, said Martha Hampel, who cowrote the petition.

Hampel said traffic surveillance technology is not for Iowa City.

“We feel Iowa City likes to follow national trends, considering Cedar Rapids uses license-plate-tracking technology now,” she said. “Cedar Rapids is a good example of what we don’t want.”

In a January 2012 Daily Iowan article, Police Chief Sam Hargadine explained why the cameras are beneficial. According to Hargadine, cameras prevent crashes and improve pedestrian safety. He noted that an Iowa City police survey found that some red lights were run up to 300 times a day.

“With the [University of Iowa], we’ve got about 30,000 pedestrians around,” he said. “When you have that dense number of pedestrians and with that number of people [running red lights], that’s an unsafe condition.”

The Iowa Department of Transportation has recently stepped into the issue as well. According to the Gazette, the Iowa DOT is requesting a greater amount of data concerning traffic and crash history at intersections involving highways.

The Iowa Legislature has also debated bans on red-light cameras in the past, but with no outcome.

Iowa has no state law pertaining to speed cameras or red light cameras, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. More than half of the states across the country do not have state laws permitting red-light camera use.

In a recent Des Moines Register poll, 50 percent of Iowa  respondents favor a ban on red-light cameras, and 43 percent oppose a ban.

Currently, Iowa City has no red-light cameras installed.

Stop Big Brother has reached out to the Johnson County Republican and Democratic central committees and received support from both, Hampel said.

“It’s basically a nonpartisan issue,” she said.

The group is working on holding a forum about the matter of surveillance technologies with members from both political parties and someone from the opposition. They currently have weekly meetings at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., to address these concerns.

In addition to red-light cameras, the group is worried about the use of drones.

Some law-enforcement agencies from around the country have started to use drones for traffic enforcement. One company that makes these drones has moved to Cedar Rapids, which prompted the addition of drones to Stop Big Brother’s agenda.

These drones can be used to collect traffic information and data about “suspicious vehicles.”

“Generally, the more data a government collects, the more effective it can be in stopping crimes,” said Aleksey Gurtovoy, who cowrote the petition. “The problem is it’s not balanced by privacy rights or due-process rights.”

Stop Big Brother fears the technology would lead to unintended consequences. Until regulations and laws catch up with the new devices, there say there is a possibility for misuse.

“They could implement this technology and say it’s for a particular purpose, and store that information, and then use it later for something else,” Hampel said.
 

REDFLEX TRADING HALTED TILL MARCH 4.

Thanks to Wrong on Red.com for sharing this!

1 March 2013

Redflex Holdings Limited.

SUSPENSION FROM OFFICIAL QUOTATION

The securities of Redflex Holdings Limited (the “Company”) will be suspended from quotation immediately, at the request of the Company, pending the release of an announcement and lodgement of its Appendix 4D Half Yar Report.

Security Code:  RDF

Dean Litis

Principal Adviser, Listings Compliance (Melbourne)

Attachments:

File	Description
AU STOCK EXCHANGE REDFLEX SUSPENDS TRADING 3.1.2013.pdf
REDFLEX SUSPENDS TRADING 3.1.2013.pdf

WA Initiative  helps FIGHT BACK AGAINST COURT THAT SAYS OPINION VOTES on TRAFFIC Camera Bans are ILLEGAL! 

http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2020438731_bruce27initiative517eymanbellinghamxml.html

Tim Eyman’s I-517 would help community activists take the initiative

Initiative 517, which says if an initiative has the signatures, it gets on the ballot and can be tested in court after the election, is music to the ears of local activists, writes Bruce Ramsey.

By Bruce Ramsey

Stonewall Jackson Bird had never supported a Tim Eyman initiative. But earlier this month the Bellingham progressive rode to Olympia to speak on behalf of Eyman’s newest effort, Initiative 517, the “initiative on initiatives.”
 
“Stoney” Bird had been a corporate attorney in London. He became disenchanted, moved to the Skagit Valley, and later to Bellingham. He says that for a long time he “wanted to find a way to use my corporate legal experience for something important.”

Last year he found his cause: stopping coal trains.
 
To put a measure on a city ballot requires signatures from 15 percent of active voters. That’s a threshold almost twice as high as the 8 percent threshold for a statewide initiative. The activists got the signatures. They called their ballot measure the Bellingham Community Bill of Rights.
 
It was based on an anti-fracking ordinance in Pittsburgh, Pa., that declared that people had a right to a sustainable energy future. The Bellingham measure said any corporation that proposed to ship coal through town would lose “the constitutional rights deriving from legal personhood as well as other constitutional rights.”
 
Much of this was legally dubious. If it passed, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe could have it knocked out in court. Still, Bird and his allies wanted to show what the people of Bellingham thought about coal trains and corporate rights.
 
The city government, joined by the railroad, went to court. The Washington Court of Appeals ruled that the measure was beyond the initiative power and struck it from the ballot.

Hence, Initiative 517. It says that if an initiative has the signatures, it gets on the ballot. It can be tested in court after the election.
 
Bird rode to the legislative hearing with another Bellingham man, Randy Elmore, 65. In 2010, Elmore had collected signatures for a Bellingham proposition opposing red-light cameras. That time, the camera company sued. The Court of Appeals ruled that removing the cameras was beyond the initiative power, but that the initiative could appear on the ballot as advisory only. It did, and it won 68 percent of the vote. The mayor, who had signed the contract with the camera company, lost his seat.
 
The new mayor removed the cameras.
 
Bird and Elmore are political opposites, but on this they are together: If you have the signatures, the measure goes on the ballot. That is the rule for statewide initiatives and everyone is used to it.
 
But at the local level, officials aren’t used to it. They don’t want their decisions put up to a public vote. They fight in court to keep measures off the ballot. In the past three years, officials have done this in Bellingham, Mukilteo, Monroe, Redmond, Longview and Wenatchee, all measures to restrict automated ticketing cameras.
 
In Renton, the city wanted to demolish the downtown library, a unique structure that spans the Cedar River, and build a new library elsewhere. Citizens got up an initiative to put it to a vote, and the City Council refused to accept it. The citizens threatened to sue and the council changed its mind. Last August, 76 percent of voters chose to rebuild the library in the same place.
 
Even an advisory vote is powerful, as the anti-camera vote showed in Bellingham. But under an unpublished opinion issued Monday by the Court of Appeals, City of Monroe v. Washington Campaign for Liberty, advisory questions can be stricken from the ballot just as easily as binding questions.

All the more reason for Initiative 517.

Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

http://warondriving.com/post/43733677698/karen-fann-american-traffic-solutions

Arizona Activists Fire Back at Rep Karen Fann, Connect to Camera Lobby

Things got ugly in an Arizona Transportation committee hearing yesterday, where a lobbyist openly mocked a citizens’ initiative.

Subsequent research has tied the lobbyist for American Traffic Solutions to the committee chair, Rep Karen Fann (R - 1).

Fann talked members of her committee into voting against sending a bill to ban Redflex and American Traffic Solutions cameras to the floor of the House for debate. The committee process is usually reserved for vetting bills for their worthiness for floor debate. But Fann, whose business is making highway barricades, “roadblocked” it.

The bill in question is less than one page and bans unmanned ticketing devices, in the same fashion that 15 other states have done to date. [text of HB 2579 http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/51leg/1r/bills/hb2579p.pdf]

Activists are accusing Fann of making a mockery of the committee process and allowing debate to drag on while flaunting  the Arizona constitution [read more http://camerafraud.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/karen-fann-and-stan-barnes-capitol-circus-act-insult-arizona-activists/]

UK:  Vigilantes fighting revenue-driven traffic enforcement

Thanks to Idris Francis with Fight Back with Facts http://www.fightbackwithfacts.com/ on sharing this!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9863442/Vigilantes-fighting-revenue-driven-traffic-enforcement.html

Vigilantes fighting revenue-driven traffic enforcement

Meet the motorcyclists dedicated to save you from traffic fines.

The Notomob is a group dedicated to fighting what they see as unfair parking tickets and charges

By Linda Harrison

11:57AM GMT 18 Feb 2013

Imagine the scene. Masked bikers riding through the streets of London in determined pursuit of their quarry. They have names such as Bald Eagle, Parking Warrior and Coco and cover their faces with V For Vigilante masks and communicate via on walkie-talkies. But don't be afraid, they're on your side – and if you drive a car, they may have already saved you a £130 fine.

Meet the NoTo Mob http://www.notomob.co.uk/, a group dedicated to fighting what they see as unfair parking tickets and charges. During the week they're normal blokes (and the odd woman). Steve Baker, aka Bald Eagle, is a legal adviser from north London. Graeme Jones, aka Parking Warrior, is an auditor from south London.

But on Saturdays they come together for a common cause. They follow council CCTV cars, or "spy cars", then stand nearby holding signs to warn drivers about the presence of a CCTV vehicle and potential fine if they break the rules.

Motorists pull over, wave or give the thumbs up in gratitude. Complete strangers have been known to hug them in support.

"There are 22 mobile enforcement vehicles within four miles of Charing Cross," says Graeme. "We know where they go, they're creatures of habit."

The NoTo Mob isn't opposed to parking enforcement. It's opposed to what it sees an unfair parking enforcement. The group targets "honey pots" – high-ticket areas with confusing road markings or unclear signs where the CCTV cars are most likely to operate.

Graeme explains: "These honey pots can result in the same driver caught five days on the trot. The first they know about it is when they get the fine through the post. We have to have parking enforcement. But it has to be fair and in proportion."

The NoTo Mob says CCTV cars should be a visible deterrent. So the group makes sure that their presence is highlighted.

Steve feels motorists are being used as cash cows. "I was near a bus lane and asked drivers who pulled over, 'Did you see that sign?' They replied, 'What sign?' They didn't realise. They'd have got a fine if they'd driven down it.

"It's exploiting the average motorist, it's disproportionate and it's plain wrong. It's highway robbery."

Steve Brown, aka Boyo, is a 46-year-old sound recordist from Hertfordshire. He adds: "When we turn up to warn motorists, the CCTV cars often run back to their base and won't come out to play.

"Everyone's tired of these services being contracted to private companies, local authorities don't seem accountable. We're just a group of like-minded individuals giving our time voluntarily. It's people power."

Most action is in traffic hotspots in and around central London but word is spreading. What started in July 2010 is capturing people's imaginations and steadily gaining support.

A hardcore group – mostly men over 50 – go out regularly to "escort" CCTV-equipped cars. But since featuring on the BBC1 documentary Parking Mad, membership on its forum has grown to 700. Members include a gas fitter and retired diplomat. Cyclists or pedestrians can also join in, while people have even arrived on mobility scooters wearing masks.

"Anybody can do it," says Steve Baker. "We have rules and guidelines for our safety and to ensure we don't get arrested. But we're not doing anything wrong. It's not rocket science, you just need to understand the dos and don'ts and off you go."

If you want the NoTo Mob's help, just go online and ask. Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent have seen recent activity, while concerned motorists want to set up sections in Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh and Birmingham.

The group also offers help to motorists who have received tickets. They cite one success in central London where signage changed from "no right turn" to "no left turn", resulting in about £54,000 of tickets in one month. They contacted the local authority saying the signage was unlawful, and the money was repaid. In total, they reckon they've got £2.8 million back into motorists' pockets.

Meanwhile, at the end of a long day on the road, you might spot Parking Warrior and Bald Eagle heading into the West End.

"People recognise our masks and cheer and hold up their mobiles to take pictures," says Graeme.

"Sometimes there can be thousands cheering us through Soho on a Saturday evening, it makes you feel good. People appreciate what we're trying to do."

* Join the parking debate at www.notomob.co.uk

Stop Big Brother MD is now Maryland Drivers Alliance!

http://www.mddriversalliance.org/2013/02/welcome-to-maryland-drivers-alliance.html

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Welcome to the Maryland Drivers Alliance

StopBigBrotherMD.org is now a part of the Maryland Drivers Alliance.

This site, our organization, and our mission are being remade to better defend your rights.  Please come back soon for more information.

http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2013/02/kubosh_council_red-light.php

Red-Light Foe Michael Kubosh Running for City Council

By Richard Connelly Fri., Feb. 15 2013 at 8:00 AM 23

Michael Kubosh, part of the fighting brothers who finally rid Houston of red-light cameras, is announcing today he's running for an at-large city council seat.

Kubosh will announce he's running for Melissa Noriega's at-large seat (she is term-limited out), and an eclectic cast of Houston politicos will be there, according to the campaign -- from hardcore rightwing councilmember Helen Brown to community activist Quanell X.

"Above the city council chambers reads the phrase 'The people are the city,'" Kubosh said in a release about the announcement. "It seems to me the current administration has ignored that statement. If elected, I promise I will never forget that quote. I will be the servant to all the people."

Kubosh and his brothers Paul and Randy waged a long, frustrating and sometimes farcical war to force Houston to get rid of red-light cameras.

The battle, which the Houston Press wrote about in a feature called "The Red-Light Circus," http://www.houstonpress.com/2011-09-15/news/the-red-light-camera-circus/ began in 1995, when the controversial machines were only a gleam in then-Mayor Bill White's eye.

Lots of lawyers spent lots of time in courtrooms and on briefs, and voters went to the polls, and councilmembers were pressured, and finally the cameras were shut off.

They essentially were in operation for four years after being installed in September 2006.

Kubosh is expected to make his formal announcement at 10:30 this morning outside City Hall.

http://camerafraud.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/redflex-american-traffic-solutions-arizona-clean-elections/

Redflex and American Traffic Solutions Dirty Scheme for “Clean” Elections

There has been a lot of whining down at the state capitol in the last two weeks as anti-photo radar/red light camera activists have applied serious pressure on legislators to cosponsor and support HB 2579 http://www.azleg.gov//FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/51leg/1r/bills/hb2579p.htm&Session_ID=110.

They’ve used every excuse in the book and here are some highlights:

“I don’t cosponsor any bills, that’s just my policy.”

“It doesn’t matter if a bill has cosponsors and you should leave it up to the bill sponsor to contact them.”

“If I cosponsor this bill, another legislator who doesn’t like me might kill the bill to even the score.”

“I really wanted to cosponsor, but I just couldn’t find the time to go over and sign my name on it before it was filed.”

“You’ve missed some (arbitrary or made up) deadline and I’m no longer allowed to sign on.”

“All the phone calls and emails are a turn off and you should really back off before you upset your reps and they vote against your bill.”

These are what we call excuses and poor ones at that.

The real deal is that your legislature is mostly bought and paid for by photo ticket money that funds their campaigns.

From WarOnDriving.com

The Redflex scandal in Chicago http://warondriving.com/post/42861937121/chicago-boots-redflex-shareholders-run-for-cover isn’t going away, any time soon. Politicians who may or may not be in bed with the camera vendor in other cities and states may claim that Chicago’s corruption doesn’t apply elsewhere.

Anyone using this excuse is either lying, ignorant or both.

Let’s take the entire state of Arizona as an example. More than 10 municipalities, such as Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tucson, Chandler, Prescott Valley, Surprise, etc still use a combination of speed or red light cameras. Despite the fact that photo tickets sent by mail are not legally binding in Arizona, millions of dollars in fines are still collected.

10% of that money goes into a fund ironically called “clean elections,” which provides public funding to political campaigns, like members of the Arizona Senate and House of Representatives. These folks, not coincidentally, are responsible for allowing photo radar and red light cameras to litter the roads and scam Arizona motorists.

What’s also NOT a coincidence is that 80% of candidates for Arizona Legislature use “clean” election money to fund their campaigns. If you connect the dots, that means that Redflex http://warondriving.com/redflex and American Traffic Solutions http://warondriving.com/american-traffic-solutions fund their operation and basically own them. If a bill (currently HB 2579 http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/agendas/02210105110%2Edoc%2Ehtm) to ban them passes, most of that clean election money will instantly vanish. The political gravy train would stop dead in its tracks and there would be quite a few state senators and reps scrambling to find a way to fund re-election in 2014.

Those are the hard facts and they’re undeniable. Chicago-style corruption with backdoor payola is still likely to be going on, but the scheme in Arizona is right there in plain sight.

[CONTINUE STORY] http://warondriving.com/post/43367074172/redflex-buys-politicians-in-arizona-too-heres-how

Thanks to Camerafraud for the link!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2013/02/14/jeffrey-thompson-traffic-cameras-and-you/

Jeffrey Thompson, traffic cameras and you
Posted by Mike DeBonis on February 14, 2013 at 11:35 am

Bet you didn’t know Jeffrey Thompson profited from speed cameras. (C-SPAN)

A D.C. government contracting dispute resolved itself Wednesday, one that revealed a campaign financier’s erstwhile role in the city’s lucrative traffic camera program.

That’s right: Jeffrey E. Thompson, a key figure in Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s 2010 shadow campaign and other alleged shenanigans, made money off of the city’s network of automated red-light and speeding cameras.

In 2007, American Traffic Solutions of Scottsdale, Ariz., won a $7.1 million-a-year contract to maintain the city’s camera network. To meet the city’s goal of subcontracting 35 percent of contracted dollars to local firms, ATS hired Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio and Associates — 79 percent of which was owned, at the time, by Thompson — to handle one-fifth of the work, according to government documents. Over the five-year life of the contract, the deal was worth more than $7 million to TCBA.

For the next five years, ATS and TCBA got along peachy-keen, according to recent statements from company officials — so well, in fact, that when it came time to ink a new contract with the city, ATS said it would give TCBA the full share of local subcontracting dollars.

A subcontracting plan dated Feb. 2, 2012, named TCBA as ATS’s sole qualifying subcontractor, to be paid 35 percent of the contract total — as much as $5.18 million over three years. The agreement was signed by ATS executive vice president Adam E. Tuton and notarized.

About a month later, the TCBA offices would be raided by federal agents investigating Thompson’s campaign activity. Within months, Thompson would step down from firm management and then sell his stake in the company — which is now called Bazilio Cobb Associates, or BCA.

So exit Thompson, and enter a contracting tussle between the two firms.

On Aug. 23, 2012, BCA executive Larry Wilson filed a complaint with the District’s Department of Small and Local Business Development, charging that ATS had failed to live up to its 35 percent commitment. After ATS had signed its contract with the city promising to hire his firm, Wilson said, ATS had failed to come back and sign a contract with BCA. He also alleged that ATS had petitioned to get out of its 35 percent subcontracting obligation with BCA. Wilson asked the city to step in and mediate the dispute.

Fast forward to last week. Over the intervening six months, the two firms continued to fail to ink a deal. So D.C. Council member Vincent Orange (D-At Large), a prime beneficiary of Thompson’s campaign cash over the years, scheduled a hearing for last Friday on the city’s “certified business enterprise” program — the process through which small and local businesses are added to larger city contracts. The lead witnesses were Wilson and three ATS executives, including Chris Merdon, a senior vice president.

However, by the time Wilson and Merdon testified Friday, the two parties had reached a deal — one that Wilson testified had been reached at 2:30 that morning. “We’re satisfied that we’ve put that issue behind us,” he said. “We’re moving forward.”

Burden, in his testimony, also made nice and acknowledged a “tremendous relationship” with BCA and its predecessor. But he also indicated that ATS had been unsatisfied with the rates BCA had offered and had sought a better deal from another certified small business. “We did give [Wilson] an opportunity to match,” he said. “He was unable to do so.”

But there was another twist: The deal inked in the wee hours Friday only guaranteed BCA 30 percent of the contract value, according to Wilson — not the 35 percent discussed in the notarized subcontracting plan. So Orange pressed Merdon, telling him, “I would just suggest that you guys execute a contract pursuant to what you told the government would take place so we can, you know, move forward.”

Orange, with colleagues Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and Anita Bonds (D-At Large), on Friday filed a disapproval resolution that halted the second-year option on ATS’s contract. But on Wednesday evening, at another council hearing, Orange announced that ATS and BCA had come to terms on a new subcontracting agreement — one guaranteeing BCA its full 35 percent.

So ends the dispute, and so ends this crash course in contracting with the District of Columbia government.

The Big Brother within:  Tattletale Tesla is the Big Brother future of motoring

http://www.slashgear.com/tattletale-tesla-is-the-big-brother-future-of-motoring-14269381/

Tattletale Tesla is the Big Brother future of motoring
Chris Davies, Feb 14th 2013

Tesla’s systematic take-down http://www.slashgear.com/tesla-tears-down-nyt-model-s-review-with-cars-own-logs-14269310/ of New York Times car writer John Broder’s Model S review proves one thing: tomorrow’s cars are going to be so smart, we’ll probably trust them more than we will the driver. Elon Musk, Tesla‘s http://www.slashgear.com/tags/tesla founder and CEO, relied on the Model S’ own performance logs in order to challenge Broder’s cynicism, raising questions as to why the NYT car journalist did battery-sapping donuts in a parking lot, took the EV off the Superchargers well before it was topped up, and fudged on his cruise control settings. That makes for an entertaining media spat, certainly, but it raises questions about how increasingly intelligent cars may one day soon undermine some of the “freedom” of the open road

Broder’s review of the Model S pulled up the car for its supposedly unreliable range, forcing drastic energy-saving driving styles and, eventually, a rescue on a low-loader when the Tesla couldn’t finish the journey. Unsurprisingly, Tesla wasn’t too impressed; however, unlike most cars, the Model S doesn’t just put its technology front-and-center, in the shape of the dash-dominating touchscreen, but in the on-board computer that keeps track of just about every element of the driving process.

So, Musk was able to point to battery charge statistics to show exactly what sort of range Broder experienced – and what the estimated remaining range displayed would be – as well as his average speed and driving style. The Model S even tattled on its cabin comfort settings, with the NYT writer supposedly turning up the heating even when he wrote that he reduced it to save power.

This isn’t the first time Tesla has pulled out hard data to demonstrate car reviewers haven’t been entirely upfront with the cars’ performance. UK show Top Gear incurred the wrath of Musk http://www.slashgear.com/british-court-rules-for-top-gear-in-tesla-legal-row-21189874/ back in 2011, after the irreverent hosts claimed the original Tesla Roadster left them stranded whereas, according to the car’s own logs, there was still around 50 miles worth of charge left in the “tank.”

In a vehicle that’s one part car, one part motorised computer, that sort of tracking isn’t perhaps unusual. For the moment, Musk says https://twitter.com/elonmusk/statuses/301053361157988352, “data logging is only turned on with explicit written permission” in customers cars, with the policy to activate it by default in media loaners stemming from the Top Gear debacle. Nonetheless, it’s not hard to see the climate around driver privacy evolving toward a world where the default is quite different.

Schemes that exchange driving anonymity for other benefits already exist, though they’re generally targeted at new, young, or at-risk motorists. Several insurance companies now offer discounted plans for drivers willing to install a “black box” to track their usage: that ensures no driving at night, for instance, outside of a specific area, or in unsafe ways. For the target audience, who could be facing typical insurance costs running to thousands of dollars, it’s a tempting proposition.

Regular drivers, however, have grown used to the idea of the car – bar being stopped by the police or snapped on a speed camera – being a silent accomplice for their road habits. That anonymity is likely to be short-lived, however, particularly as onboard systems become more complex, self-driving technology grows in popularity and mainstream penetration, and human error becomes the biggest flaw in the mobility story.

It’s a generally-accepted inevitability that, when self-driving cars such as those in the pipeline from Google finally hit the road in earnest, they’ll be an insurance nightmare. If they crash, or run someone over, or if the occupants are hurt in some way, who’s to blame: the driver, or the car manufacturer? When the sort of mesh networks Toyota http://www.slashgear.com/toyota-reveals-9-acres-of-talking-road-as-smarter-cars-get-safer-12256550/ and others are experimenting with – which will allow self-driving cars to communicate between themselves – appear, that will have a big impact (cutting the meat factor out often does that), but it’s not likely to happen for a good few years yet.

Still, the cars don’t need to be entirely autonomous in order to demand logging. Intelligent cruise-control and traffic following technology which can maintain dynamic distances from other cars; assisted accident avoidance which boosts braking effort; radar guided self-parking: they all take some of the responsibility of the person in the driver’s seat, and give it to the computer under the hood instead. And, where computers go, logging comes hand-in-hand, and it’s not hard to envisage a time when comprehensive, Tesla-style record keeping will be mandatory http://www.slashgear.com/nhtsa-expected-to-propose-mandatory-black-boxes-in-vehicles-07260070/ from insurers, not optional.

Read more: The Big Brother within: Tattletale Tesla is the Big Brother future of motoring

Ban the Cams note:  The idea kind of reminds us mobsters who at night would steal from you and during the day tell you to buy their "protection" or suffer more "losses".   Don't it??

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/40/4024.asp

Photo Ticket Company Sells Photo Ticket Payment Service To Corporations
American Traffic Solutions sets up program to collect revenue from every angle of the photo ticketing process.

American Traffic Solutions (ATS) will not only issue traffic tickets to trucking firms, it wants to be hired by those same firms to automate the process of paying photo tickets on the firms' behalf. ATS on Monday issued a twelve-page white paper explaining why large corporations should hire ATS to automate citation payments.

"What most fleet managers seem to agree on is that vehicle-issued violations present a costly, burdensome problem that could use better solutions," the ATS white paper explained.

ATS explained based on its own internal data that ticketing of commercial vehicle fleets is up 45 percent since 2005. ATS says it issued 3.9 million red light camera and speed camera citations between January and November 2012. In addition, toll road photo tickets account for about half of the burden faced by commercial vehicles, overshadowing parking tickets which only account for 22 percent of a fleet's total citation burden.

"Technological advancements in tolling, parking and photo enforcement are making it easier and less costly for ticket issuers to cite vehicles," ATS explained. "As these advances in technology are explored, the net result is a higher volume of tickets for everyone, including fleet owners."

Thanks to better imaging technology and the ability to track multiple vehicles simultaneously with laser speed detection systems, ticketing capacity has increased 30 percent. ATS insists the way to deal with this is VioLogics, a fine management service that transfers liability from a commercial vehicle owner to the employee driving the vehicle. ATS says this restores due process which would otherwise be denied.

"When a fleet or fleet management company pays fines automatically, drivers generally lose their right to due process, preventing them from contesting tickets they believe to be unjustified," the white paper explained. "Once paid, most ticket issuers view violations as closed with no further recourse available... By losing the ability to contest citations believed to be unjustified, drivers also lose the ability to protect their driving records, whether with their DMVs or the driver scoring systems used by their employers."

ATS also offers a program called PlatePass which will manage all toll road payments on behalf of various companies including trucking and automobile rental firms. A number of rental car customers were outraged when, under this program, ATS automatically charged their credit cards with administrative fees. In 2010, they filed a lawsuit http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/33/3337.asp in federal court where a judge found merit to the claim of fraud in the way PlatePass charges were not disclosed to consumers.

"The contract however, did not disclose the per diem administrative fee associated with PlatePass, nor did it identify the PlatePass system," Judge Noel L. Hillman ruled on March 28, 2011. "Defendants' representation that the contract disclosed all charges, when in fact it did not, may have constituted an affirmative act of misrepresentation"

The ongoing trial has a hearing on a motion for summary judgment scheduled for May 20. A copy of the ATS white paper is available in a 1.2mb PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Traffic Violations on the Rise: How Fleets Can Prepare (American Traffic Solutions, 2/11/2013)  http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2013/ats-whitepaper.pdf

HYPOCRITES:  ATS OWN EXECUTIVE IGNORED PHOTO TICKETS TOO!!!!

Ban the Cams note:  ATS has gotten decidedly to get dirty going after the spouse of a politicain sponsoring a RLC BAN BILL. 

WHAT ATS IS NOT BRIGING UP, IS WHAT IT'S OWN VP AND PRESIDENT DID!!!!!!!!!!

Witness the HYPOCRACY OF ATS OWN EXECUTVE back in 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quote:   In May 2006, Redflex mailed a citation to ATS Executive Vice President of Field Operations John Petrozza, 44. Petrozza ignored the ticket, forcing Scottsdale Municipal Court to dismiss the violation on September 27, 2006. ATS spokesman Josh Weiss told TheNewspaper that Petrozza says he never received the ticket and he would never have intentionally ignored a citation.

In July, however, ATS employees actually issued a photo ticket to their own company president, James D. Tuton, 46. According to court records, Tuton had failed to respond to the charge by August 29 and a process server was dispatched in September.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/25/2597.asp

Photo Enforcement Executives Ignore Own Tickets. (2008 ATS VP and ATS PRESIDENT)
Executives in the Arizona offices of two photo enforcement companies frequently ignore their own speed camera tickets.

Executives at photo enforcement firms American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex have been caught ignoring their own speed camera tickets. Arizona motorists may safely throw away citations sent in the mail as state law requires that they be personally served with a violation notice within ninety days of the alleged offense. Tickets that are not properly served must be dismissed within 120 days.

That worked out for Shoba Vaitheeswaran, 33, the spokesman for the Arizona office of Redflex Traffic Systems. A ticket filed against her in September 2005 was dismissed after she ignored it. Vaitheeswaran was not an employee at the time, as she has only recently taken over the media relations role from Michael Ferraresi, 28. Ferraresi, himself a frequent ticket recipient, has been through a revolving door with the Australian camera vendor and the Arizona Republic newspaper. After writing stories about the company for the Republic, Redflex hired Ferraresi to be spokesman -- often speaking to his former colleagues at the paper about the company. Ferraresi is once again reporting for the Republic, a paper that offers enthusiastic editorial support for the use of speed cameras and red light cameras.

Although Redflex and ATS have the technical ability to ensure none of their own executives receive tickets, each company is able to issue tickets to employees of the other company. In May 2006, Redflex mailed a citation to ATS Executive Vice President of Field Operations John Petrozza, 44. Petrozza ignored the ticket, forcing Scottsdale Municipal Court to dismiss the violation on September 27, 2006. ATS spokesman Josh Weiss told TheNewspaper that Petrozza says he never received the ticket and he would never have intentionally ignored a citation.

In July, however, ATS employees actually issued a photo ticket to their own company president, James D. Tuton, 46. According to court records, Tuton had failed to respond to the charge by August 29 and a process server was dispatched in September. According to Weiss, Tuton made arrangements to take a driver education course before mid-December to avoid having points added to his license.

The local activist group camerafraud.com discovered these records and found itself torn between the principle of supporting any individual who fights a photo citation and opposing the companies that issue them.

"Allow us to momentarily enter the Twilight Zone while we, uh, applaud -- ? -- these people for ignoring the fraudulent photo enforcement tickets," the group said on its website.

Story updated on 11/17/08 to reflect ATS response.

http://camerafraud.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/redflex-ousted-from-chicago-is-arizona-next/

Redflex Ousted From Chicago; Is Arizona Next?

In case you missed it:

Just in time for the Scamera Ban bill to be filed in Arizona Legislature, the ground is crumbling around Redflex Traffic Systems, who used to own the freeway photo radar system in this state.

Now Redflex is losing a huge chunk of business that was even bigger than Arizona /DPS. The corruption at Redflex is so bad that even Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, who brought Redflex in as a lobbyist, has now been forced to cancel their contract, effective July 2013.

HB 2579 http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/51leg/1r/bills/hb2579p.pdf would make photo radar and red light cameras illegal in Arizona. It should be heard in the AZ House Transportation Committee this week.
More from WarOnDriving.com -

13% of Redflex Traffic Systems’ http://warondriving.com/redflex yearly revenue will evaporate in the next 6 months.

You don’t have to take our word for it, just check their latest news release [here http://digitalrevaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013-02-11-Redflex-Chicago-Corruption-Probe.pdf].

This one is going to hurt and Redflex knows it. Last Wednesday, the foreign held camera vendor requested that the Australian Stock Exchange halt trading their stock ahead of the news that hit on Friday about the massive corruption in Chicago and the ongoing internal investigation.

The AUS gave them their wish, but it only temporarily staved off the investor bloodletting which came during Monday’s resumed trading of Redflex common shares.

At close of market, the stock had lost nearly 25% http://bit.ly/ScamStock of its value as news hit the wires in Australia about the coming demise of Redflex’s largest (by far) contract. By 2012 figures, this would mean the company will start losing money very quickly.

Redflex’s deal with Macquarie Bank in 2011 fell apart in late negotiations after a shareholder revolt, but don’t be surprised to see them seek a bidder or have a hostile takeover bid before the summer of 2013.

The news is especially problematic as legislatures in Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Ohio are considering bills to make photo ticketing illegal in their respective states… [Continue Reading http://warondriving.com/post/42861937121/chicago-boots-redflex-shareholders-run-for-cover]

Godfrey Bloom, new UK MEP, says speed scameras are SNAKE OIL,  Safer Police patrols removed for money scameras!

http://www.abd.org.uk/pr/805.htm

ABD Welcomes Godfrey Bloom MEP as a Patron
The Alliance of British Drivers is delighted to welcome Godfrey Bloom MEP as a patron.

Godfrey Bloom said: 

“For many years I have become uncomfortable with the lack of basic understanding of road safety concepts. Politicians generally understand very little about anything. They have no formal training, have to re-seek office regularly, they knee jerk reaction to problems originally often of their own making. Honesty is usually a bar to re-election. Masterly inactivity is alien to the politician`s creed. He must be seen to ‘do something’, however idiotic.

Road safety problems manifest this phenomenon particularly. Activity is always cost based. It is the nature of the beast. So government gets rid of the highly trained and motivated British traffic policeman, acknowledged to be the best in the world, because they were deemed too expensive. Not only are cameras on sticks cheaper they actually make money. This enormous scam, equalled only by wind turbines, is a political dynamic allowed to flourish by astonishingly lazy journalism. Well, this sort of thing is a reflection of modern society.

However, infinitely more alarming, is that the police have now bought into the scam. Local politicians and policeman of senior rank have no training in interpreting statistics. They are therefore prey to every camera (snake oil) salesman that comes up their drive. They will glaze over if you talk of regression to the mean, or the implications of a Simpson`s paradox. In short you can sell them anything. Resources therefore go to the wrong place. The speed awareness lecturers, read from flawed scripts to bewildered middle England drivers who were ‘nicked’ for doing 34mph in a 30mph district, and blackmailed into handing over cash to avoid a potentially damaging license endorsement.

These lectures should be given (with a better script) to lower sixth form children one year away from their first car. Young men still kill themselves in appalling numbers while their parents waste half the day listening to the drone of the classroom bore who means well but understands nothing.

I have ploughed an independent field on this subject, with little success, as middle England morale is now so low they respond to almost nothing save the dinner gong.

The Alliance of British Drivers have given me fresh hope. Their expertise is enormous and in depth. They and a few others are joining the fight back for motorists against the money grabbing establishment, fake charities and fellow travellers. I am proud to be a patron.”

ABD Acting Chairman, Brian MacDowall said:

“Godfrey is spot on with his comments; the ABD, as a grass roots organisation, knows he is on the same wavelength as the majority of the public who are sick to death of being over regulated and over taxed out of their vehicles; the political class see drivers as a cash cow to be milked at will.

We are delighted to have him and our other outspoken, independently minded patrons, on board; with people of Godfrey's calibre we will be better equipped to fight back against the continuing war on the motorist”

Mr Bloom is a member of the European ‘Parliament’ for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire.
He is an ex HGV licence holder, British Army competition driver, has a clean license and 45 year no claim discount!

He is a retired investment banker highly knowledgeable about statistics and their misuse.

Camerafraud had this to say on the article:

UK has been using scameras for parking tickets for quite some time, and here is the result: "This will drive me out of business, kill local trade and drive customers to supermarkets and online shopping. That’s why so many local businesses are closing down. It’s a total nuisance. I’ve already had to shut down once because of traffic cameras."

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/hampstead_trader_claims_traffic_camera_is_killing_business_1_1857823

Hampstead trader claims traffic camera is ‘killing’ business

by Josh Pettitt Monday, February 4, 2013
10:39 AM

A Hampstead trader who has been in the area for 40 years has blamed traffic cameras for driving away customers and threatening the survival of his business.

Arvind Mistry who owns Belsize Stationers in South End Rd claims traffic cameras outside his shop are driving customers away after four received tickets in December. He said it it threatening business and is calling for common sense from TfL.

Regulars picking up bulky items from Belsize Stationers have been fined £130 for using the loading bay outside the shop in South End Road.

Last month, four customers were issued with parking tickets and some have told the owner of the shop, Arvind Mistry, that they will not return.

Mr Mistry, who has rented the premises for 25 years, has called on Camden Council, which operates the camera, to exercise common sense and stop “harassing” his customers.

Mr Mistry, 56, had to shut England’s Stationers in Finchley Road in June 2011 because of a similar problem.

He said: “This will drive me out of business, kill local trade and drive customers to supermarkets and online shopping. That’s why so many local businesses are closing down.

“It’s a total nuisance. I’ve already had to shut down once because of traffic cameras.

“All the traders are suffering and with things like this it will force people to shut up shop for good.

“We all agree with restrictions but there should be some common sense applied.”

Not only are his customers being hit with fines, but delivery drivers who park in South End Green are also being ticketed, claims Mr Mistry.

The shopkeeper, whose family also own House of Mistry Pharmacy a few shops down, claims tickets are issued when the camera registers more than three minutes passing without activity.

The council said tickets are issued after five minutes when there is no sign of loading.

Cllr Phil Jones, cabinet member for sustainability, said: “We understand the need to provide for customers and deliveries where there are local shops.

“We allow a minimum of five minutes to observe whether loading or unloading is taking place, and have provided pay and display parking for customers.

“We have reviewed the CCTV footage for the loading bay on South End Road. Penalties are issued when vehicles park here without loading or unloading. Our review found no errors with penalty charges in these cases.”
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272166/Big-brother-log-drinking-habits-waist-size.html#axzz2JhXYhdJ3

Big brother to log your drinking habits and waist size as GPs are forced to hand over confidential records

• Data includes weight, cholesterol, BMI, family health history and pulse rate
• Doctors will be forced to reveal alcohol consumption and smoking status
• Privacy campaigners described it as 'biggest data grab in NHS history'
• Part of new Health Service programme called Everyone Counts
• Officials insisted data will be anonymous and deleted after analysis

By Jack Doyle
PUBLISHED: 17:28 EST, 1 February 2013 | UPDATED: 03:54 EST, 2 February 2013

GPs are to be forced to hand over confidential records on all their patients’ drinking habits, waist sizes and illnesses.

The files will be stored in a giant information bank that privacy campaigners say represents the  ‘biggest data grab in NHS history’.

They warned the move would end patient confidentiality and hand personal information to third parties.
 
 

Data grab: Doctors will be forced to hand over sensitive information about patients as part of a new programme called Everyone Counts but campaigners have criticised the move

The data includes weight, cholesterol levels, body mass index, pulse rate, family health history, alcohol consumption and smoking status.

Diagnosis of everything from cancer to heart disease to mental illness would be covered. Family doctors will have to pass on dates of birth, postcodes and NHS numbers.

Officials insisted the personal information would be made anonymous and deleted after analysis.

But Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, said: ‘Under these proposals, medical confidentiality is, in effect, dead and there is currently nobody standing in the way.’ Nick Pickles, of the privacy group Big Brother Watch, said NHS managers would now be in charge of our most confidential information.

He added: ‘It is unbelievable how little the public is being told about what is going on, while GPs are being strong-armed into handing over details about their patients and to not make a fuss.

‘Not only have the public not been told what is going on, none of us has been asked to give our permission for this to happen.’

The data grab is part of Everyone Counts, a programme to extend the availability of patient data across the Health Service.
 
 

Campaigners for privacy: They warn the move would end patient confidentiality and hand personal information to third parties

GPs will be required to send monthly updates on their patients to a central database run by the NHS’s Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Health chiefs will be able to demand information on every patient, such as why they have been referred to a consultant. Another arm of the NHS will supply data on patient prescriptions.

In a briefing for GPs, health chiefs admit that ‘patient identifiable components’ will be demanded, including post code and date of birth.

NHS officials insist the information centre will be a ‘safe haven’ for personal data, which will be deleted soon after it is received.
The information will be used to analyse demand for services and improve treatment.

But a document outlining the scheme even raises the prospect of clinical data being passed on or sold to third parties.

It states: ‘The patient identifiable components will not be released outside the safe haven except as permitted by the Data Protection Act.

‘HSCIC ... will store the data and link it only where approved and necessary, ensuring that patient confidentiality is protected.’

 
Personal: The data collected includes pulse rate, weight, cholesterol levels, body mass index, family health history, alcohol and smoking status

Patients will not be able to opt out of the system.

Before the election the Tories condemned the creation of huge databases – including the controversial NHS IT project – and insisted it would roll back ‘Labour’s database state’.

But last month, in the first sign of a dramatic shift away from this position, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he wanted millions of private medical records to be stored and shared between hospitals, GPs, care homes and even local councils. He sold the programme as part of plans for a ‘paperless NHS’ by 2018 and claimed ‘thousands of lives’ would be saved.

But details of the changes have raised serious concerns among civil liberties and privacy campaigners, as well as health professionals

Last night GPs’ leaders said the latest proposals were too broad.

‘Patients must be given the option to opt out of any scheme that seeks to transfer identifiable information about them from their records to another source,’ said a BMA spokesman.

‘This opt-out should be widely advertised and explained in order that patients are reassured and understand the process being carried out.’

Phil Booth of the campaign group NO2ID said an unprecedented volume of data would be ‘sucked up’.

‘People have to trust in the notion of medical confidentiality. They expect to be able to talk in confidence to their GP,’ he said.

‘They don’t expect their private conversations to be uploaded on to a national database where they will be made available for any number of purposes for the benefit of persons unknown.’

A spokesman for the NHS said last night: ‘The NHS constitution makes clear what information can be used for by the NHS and this proposal complies exactly with that.’

(Thanks to www.motorists.org on the link).

Ban the Cams Note:  Lets count the days till this is abused.  OR worse there is a collision with a private/commercial airplane.  All it would take is some one operating a drone near a approach path to a airport.

http://www.livescience.com/26707-drones-watch-over-highways.html

Drones to Watch Over US Highways

by Jeremy Hsu, TechNewsDaily Senior WriterDate: 30 January 2013 Time: 10:34 AM ET

Drones could help human workers safeguard the 4 million miles of U.S. highways crisscrossing the country. The flying robots could inspect bridges and roads, survey lands with laser mapping, and even alert officials to traffic jams or accidents.

One such project focused on studying the use of drones recently received $74,984 from the Federal Highway Administration and the Georgia Department of Transportation. Researchers plan to spend the next year figuring out how drones could help workers as they go about inspecting and maintaining the safety of public roads and highways http://www.technewsdaily.com/5793-road-train-cars-leader.html.

"Drones could keep workers safer because they won't be going into traffic or hanging off a bridge," said Javier Irizarry, director of the CONECTech Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "It would help with physical limitations of the human when doing this kind of work."

Georgia represents one of several states considering how civilian drones could do some jobs for  transportation departments, the police and firefighters. The state is also competing to become one of several flight-test regions for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration http://www.technewsdaily.com/16046-drones-respect-privacy-bill.html — a step in the FAA's plan to open up U.S. civilian airspace to drones by 2015.

Drones of all sizes and shapes could help safeguard state roads and bridges, Irizarry said. Small drones with cameras might take off vertically from the back of a truck to help inspect a bridge. [Video: RoboBees Design Poses Intriguing Engineering Challenges http://www.technewsdaily.com/15900-robobees-design-poses-intriguing-engineering-challenges-video.html]

The larger, aircraft-size Reaper or Global Hawk drones could spend hours surveying traffic conditions or carry light detection and ranging (LIDAR) equipment that can map terrain with millions of laser pulses. That could potentially replace the expensive use of manned helicopters doing the same job.

Irizarry gave the example of the spherical drones that mapped a huge alien base in the 2012 science fiction film "Prometheus" as an analogy for how today's larger drones could aid in above-ground laser mapping. He has also enlisted the help of Eric Johnson, an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech, to figure out the best role for drones.

"We're going to look at the different divisions that [DOT] has and see how they do things like surveying, safety monitoring or using traffic cameras," Irizarry told TechNewsDaily. "Maybe they could be using drone technology http://www.technewsdaily.com/15815-military-drones-prowl-skies.html for a similar purpose."

But the human factor also matters. Georgia Tech researchers will spend the next year studying the best control schemes or interfaces for human workers to deploy drones — probably regular video displays rather than more futuristic augmented-reality goggles or technology, Irizarry said. They'll also consider how to retrain human workers if drones end up taking over some jobs.

Jim Walker, traffic consultant, and LA Tarone talk on Speed SCAMERAS!

http://media.wilknewsradio.com/a/70255853/jim-walker-traffic-consultant-and-la-tarone.htm?q=tarone walker

Jim Walker, traffic consultant, and LA Tarone

Tue, 22 Jan 2013|
Jim Walker, traffic consultant, and LA Tarone talke about speed cameras and work zone cameras and other traffic cameras.

click link to hear interview:  http://media.wilknewsradio.com/a/70255853/jim-walker-traffic-consultant-and-la-tarone.htm?q=tarone walker

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/40/4011.asp

Opinion: US Transportation Department Cracks Down On Wrong Ticket Scam
US Transportation Department more concerned with Super Bowl ticket fraud than far more serious traffic ticket fraud.

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) announced last week that it was cracking down on a ticket scam -- one having nothing to do with motorists. Instead of addressing unlawful traffic ticket quotas or inaccurate speed camera citations, the department is concerned about fraud related to ticket packages offered to fans interested in attending Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 3.

It is against DOT rules to offer an airline travel packages for the Super Bowl if the advertising implies game tickets are included in the price when, in fact, they are not. The department's consumer division allows defrauded individuals to file complaints and obtain a full refund if the complaint is found to be valid.

There are no consumer hotlines or refunds for those defrauded in the course of their ground-based travels, even though, in many cases, the deceptive conduct is supported by US DOT grant money. In Baltimore, Maryland, for example, the speed cameras are so inaccurate that as many as one out of every twenty http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/39/3976.asp citations went to innocent vehicle owners. Both the city and county of Baltimore operate cameras on federal-aid highways, according to a Government Accountability Office report http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/00/70.asp. Red light cameras in Howard County were directly paid for with a federal grant funds.

The federal money provides a substantial incentive. The National Highway Transportation Safety Agency provided the money for six fully-equipped police cruisers that the state of South Carolina used as a prize for the police agency http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/21/2106.asp that could write the greatest number of tickets. In 2011, the Livermore, California Police Department won a special prize for its creativity in the California Law Enforcement Challenge, as explained in the city's application for grant money.

"The traffic unit has been using an aerial lift truck to place an officer up in the air with a view of the problem intersection," Livermore's 127-page full-color award submission explained. "This program is affectionately called the Bucket Truck.' The officer in the 'bucket' observes traffic violations and calls those violations out to officers parked down the street from the intersections. Those officers stop the violators and issue the appropriate citations."

Though the department has no quota system, rewards go to those who produce numbers.

"In February 2011 the department issued 490 speed citations as compared to the 198 citations issued in February 2010, an increase of 147 percent," the application boasted. "For the first two quarters of 2011 we recognized Traffic Officer Nguyen for writing 206 seatbelt and car seat violation citations, Traffic Officer Rebiejo for writing 292 speeding citations, and Traffic Officer Robbins for making 11 DUI arrests."

Such incentives have driven state police officers to insert made up tickets into computer systems http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/30/3041.asp that resulted in license suspensions for innocent drivers, the arrest of sober motorists http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/38/3823.asp for driving under the influence and the falsification of records to increase grant funds http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/37/3789.asp.

Addressing issues that result in serious charges and arrests of the innocent is far more important than investigating shady Super Bowl ticket deals.