Be careful if you take I84, one of Connecticut’s main drags. You could turn into collateral damage of a war between feuding State Police troops. There might be a pizza prize on your head.

A memo, written by the commander of Troop I in Bethany, created an uproar in Connecticut and beyond. Lt. Anthony Schirillo III, Troop I’s commander, issued an “all hands on deck” email for Friday, says the Connecticut Post. “We have to issue 60 infractions/misdemeanors each shift for a total of 180 infractions, in order to outperform Troop F and Troop G,”  Schirillo wrote.

Schirillo told his men that Troop F had written 301 tickets, Troop G had outdone them with 345 tickets:

“We can do better. I am asking that everyone, myself included, contribute to this effort. Based on the number of on-duty personnel, 60 infractions a shift would proportionately put us above both troops. Note, if we happen to issue 350 tickets in one day that would be stellar.”

Putting even more fire under his men, Schirillo offered, in a follow-up email, pizza to the trooper writing the most tickets.

Matthew Andrews, president of the Connecticut State Police Union, said state law prohibits quotas:

“Our members won’t comply with an illegal order or a ticket quota and will always use discretion as allowed by our department policy and the law. This wasn’t just specifically Troop I. It’s going on around the state that there’s an increased desire to issue more tickets and we don’t think it’s proper. “

Lt. J. Paul Vance, spokesman for the state’s Division of State Police, played down the incident, saying that Schirillo was merely cheerleading:

“There’s no way there were any required quotas. Lt. Schirillo was saying, `Let’s go and work and give a little bit more, work a little bit harder, there are speeders out there.’ It was motivational and maybe he needed a little polish on it.”

Schirillo lists the FBI National Academy and the University of Connecticut as places where he received education. He is Chairman of the Homeland Security Region 1 Steering Committee and the Emergency Management Director of the Town of Stratford. He seems to be polished enough.

Volkswagen received a legal black eye from its estranged Japanese partner Suzuki. Volkswagen had taken a silly trademark fight all the way  to the General Court of the European Union, and lost today, Reuters says. This is unrelated to the divorce proceedings between Volkswagen and Suzuki, but it definitely comes at an inopportune time.

In 2004, Volkswagen contested a trademark application by Suzuki for “SWIFT GTi.” The mark had been granted by the EU’s Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM).

Europe’s second highest court ruled today that there is no likelihood of the SWIFT GTi being confused with Volkswagen’s Golf GTI. According to the ruling,

“OHIM correctly held that the average consumer in Sweden, Benelux, Germany, France, Italy and Austria would not assume that all vehicles, parts and accessories come from the same manufacturer simply on the basis of the combination of the three letters ‘gti’, and accordingly any likelihood of confusion was excluded.”

A spokesman for VW said that his company might appeal. Or not

Here are eight mind-boggling reasons why you could be pulled over, ticketed, or maybe even arrested while driving or even parking your car. They have been collected by the Criminal Justice Degrees Guide, the people who help you get a job as a police officer. They should know.
1.      Your Door Is Open Too Long
According to section 811.490(b) of Oregon’s state traffic laws, it is a Class D traffic violation to leave a car door open “for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.” The unloadiong of dogs, suitcases, groceries or anything else without two legs can get you in trouble.

2.      You Accidentally Screeched Your Tires
In Derby, KS., you can be pulled over and ticketed if your tires screech. The fine can be up to $500 or 30 days in jail.

3.      You’re Singing A Rap Song With Your Windows Down
Section 13-53(a) of the Rockville, Maryland,  municipal ordinance states that, “[a] person may not profanely curse and swear or use obscene language upon or near any street, sidewalk or highway within the hearing of persons passing by, upon or along such street, sidewalk or highway.”

4.      You’re Driving Near A Bar
Several states have passed laws allowing “sobriety checkpoints” along roads with a high instance of alcohol-related accidents, as well as “no refusal” weekends in entire urban areas. In these cases, police officers in cities like Austin and Houston, Texas may stop your vehicle without probable cause.

5.     You Camp In A Wagon
According to Section 86.025 of Wisconsin traffic law, it is “unlawful for any person or persons to camp in wagons [. . .] on the public highways.”

6.      You Parked In Front of Dunkin Donuts on Main Street West in South Berwick, Maine
It is illegal in the township of South Berwick, Maine, to park on “Main St. (West) in front of Dunkin Donuts to a point 25 feet south.”

7.      You’re Having Sex In The Front Seat of Your Taxi During Your Shift
It is illegal for Massachusetts cab drivers to have sex in the front of their cabs if they’re on the clock. If the woman is on top, this is doubly illegal.
8.      You’re A Child, And You’re Driving A Big Wheels Tonka Truck
In Canton, Ohio, it’s against municipal ordinance to “go upon any roadway” if you’re on “roller skates or riding in or by means of any coaster, toy vehicle, skateboard or similar device.” The penalty is a fine up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.

Want more silly laws? There is no shortage. Know silly laws and ordinances where you live? Let’s hear them.

 China has a new star. It’s the police force of Qionglai, a small city near Chengdu, Sichuan. Qionglai’s finest perform some kind of a reverse gangsta rap.

Want more? Mei wen ti! No problem.

Welcome to China. Don’t you wish we would get something similar, say from the TSA? if you still want more (and there is much more,) Gochengdoo has a vast collection.

So the policeman has the X1 towed. In America, that would be that. But this is China. To maintain a harmonious society, the owner needs to be notified of the towing. Now, the policeman has a problem: There is no license plate on the car, so how should he know the owner?

A fast thinking member of Beijing’s Finest whips out a piece of chalk, kneels and writes (translation courtesy Carnewschina: )

“To the owner of the BMW X1 car. Please contact the local police station for information concerning your property.”

It looks like it hasn’t been raining for a while. The chalk may still be there when the owner comes back.

Not a good day at Tesla: As if it’s not enough that the blogosphere is aflutter with bricked roadsters and unauthorized GPS tracking, on top of it we have fresh news from England that Tesla’s suit against Top Gear has been  thrown out.

In 2008, Top Gear had said that the Tesla Roadster would only get 55 miles instead the 200 miles Tesla had specified. To underscore that point, a Tesla Roadster was pushed into a garage.

Tesla brought suit for libel and malicious falsehood. Last October, British Justice Tugendhat disallowed the libel claim and asked that the malicious falsehood claim should be amended if it were to be allowed to proceed.

Tesla’s lawyers handed in an amendment. Justice Tugendhat read it and ruled today that Tesla’s second attempt to formulate their malicious falsehood case on damage was so “vague” and so “gravely deficient” that “it is impossible to say that it has a real prospect of success or is in respect of a real and substantial tort.”

Which, to use the term du jour, bricked the lawsuit. The incriminated video has been “removed by the user.”

I am amply qualified to make the call on this topic. I have been a TV addict since I was a preschooler in the late 50s, and I still consider television to be the finest educator in my life, so I believe that I can make a well-informed opinion about the medium.

The fact that my television roots extend into the pre-Kennedy era in the White House means that I can include the 50s TV shows in my range of expertise. However, my choice for 3^rd place has its roots in late 60s TV and takes place on the mean streets of LA, ‘Adam 12’.

The first and only requirement of my contest is the generous use of police cars in the opening credits and ‘Adam 12’ fits the guidelines. The dispatch message is a call to action for the boys to roll, and the 1968 Plymouth Belvedere is the starring set of wheels in the introduction to season one of ‘Adam 12’.

Malloy pinned the Belvey down a straight stretch of LA pavement as he and Reed tackled everything and anything each week in the half hour crime show. It was a magic sequence that opened up endless possibilities for the boys every time they jumped into the car.

Number two on my list came from the 50s and was an early pioneer in cop car TV shows. ‘Highway Patrol’ had a strong theme song that suited its no-nonsense message every week. Its star was Broderick Crawford, and he never built his acting career around a comedy theme.

The opening sequence was filmed from above the highway and involved two 1955 Buick Century patrol cars in a roadblock with a subsequent driving sequence with Crawford behind the wheel of one of these special CHP order Buicks. It was a stylish introduction to a pretty cheesy TV program.

My choice for number one was a well-scripted 80s TV show called ’Hill St Blues’. The introduction featured a police garage door opening and a 1976 Dodge Monaco flying out, light bars blazing, as it answered an armed robbery call.

The posse of police cars grew as they charged towards the robbery location sliding around corners on the slippery winter streets. It was television magic and viewers loved every minute of trouble on the Hill.

‘Hill Street Blues’ had a brilliant opening sequence and was my runaway choice as the best cop car stars in a TV police drama. The music, the driving and the gritty realistic feel to the introduction put this show in front of every one of its competitors.

It was a bonus that it was also a very good TV show.

For more of Jim and Jerry Sutherland’s work go tomystarcollectorcar.com

First fallout of  TrueCar.com’s run-in with regulators: TrueCar suspended its service in Colorado. In an e-mail sent to dealers, a Colorado TrueCar account manager told his flock that the suspension is voluntary while TrueCar tries to work out with the state how to “conform to the rules of the road in your state.” In the e-mail, obtained by Automotive News [sub], TrueCar account manager Thuy Adomitias writes:

“We feel comfortable that we will be able to address any regulatory issues by Jan. 17, at which point we will be reactivating our service, including automatically reactivating your account.”

Colorado was not the only state that put TrueCar under the magnifying glass.  Regulators and dealer associations in several other states had contacted TrueCar. However, TrueCar did not extend the suspension to other states.

TrueCar said it will comply with all state laws and will change its Web site and methods if necessary.

Car companies have deep pockets, therefore, they get sued all the time for the silliest things. A good deal of what you pay for the car goes to paying lawyers. Those of the car company, and especially those who start class action suits. When the suit is won or settled, the lawyers get a fat cut of the award, and the customers get a coupon for a free oil change or other valuable stuff.

A woman from Los Angeles has plaintiff lawyers very worried.

According to the Los Angeles Times, “Heather Peters is an angry consumer who knows she has little chance of winning a war with Honda Motor Co. and its army of high-priced lawyers.”

But what if that army of high-priced lawyers is disarmed and must stay home? Heather Peters has devised a strategy that cuts out the lawyers.

For years, there have been class action suits over the fuel economy of Honda’s
Civic hybrid. Plaintiffs said they were duped into buying an expensive car that doesn’t get the stated EPA mileage. In a proposed class-action lawsuit settlement, trial lawyers would get $8.5 million. Civic owners would get as little as $100 and rebate coupons for the purchase of a new vehicle.

Heather Peters won’t settle with Honda. Instead, she will plead her case at the Small Claims Court in Torrance. According to California law, neither party is allowed to bring a lawyer to  Small Claims Court. Peters will sue on January 3^rd, because in 2012, California raises the Small Claims limit to $10,000. Peters will be asking for the maximum.

She is also asking Honda owners to follow her example. She set up her DontSettleWithHonda.org website and a DontSettleWithHonda Twitter account. The site state-by-state instructions for filing these lawsuits.

According to the LA Times, 200,000 Civic hybrids were sold over six years. Used car buyers are eligible as well, which could bring the number of claimants to half a million.

“This could create a lot of problems in the industry,” said Aaron Jacoby, the Los Angeles defense attorney who heads the automotive industry group at the Fox law firm.

If revolutions can be started with Twitter, then surely groups of claimants can find each other and plan a united, but separate assault.

Mass filings could tax the resources of a company, which has to send an employee to the hearing if the state does not allow lawyers. Most of all, they could make plaintiff’s attorneys look for other deep pocket targets.

She may need a little help with the video presentation. Or maybe that’s part of the strategy.

Al E. Forrest sat in the driver’s seat of a 2003 Ford Explorer with another man in the passenger seat as two police officers came up on either side of the vehicle. According to Officer Kevin George’s testimony, he just wanted to see if the Explorer driver was okay. The officers had no suspicion of any criminal activity prior to approaching the Explorer. When George poked his head into the driver’s window, Forrest looked surprised to see a cop staring at him through the window. George said this was a sign of “nervousness.” When George saw money in Forrest’s left hand, he ordered the man out of the SUV. This was the beginning of the legal problem for the Columbus officer.

“We note initially that the police needed no suspicion of activity, legal or illegal, in order to walk up to or approach the Ford Explorer,” Judge G. Gary Tyack wrote for the appeals court. “What a person willingly displays in public is not subject to Fourth Amendment protection. However, Officer George went far beyond approaching the vehicle.”
Forrest did not immediately get out of the Explorer. Instead, he rolled up the window and removed the keys from the ignition. Unsatisfied with this response, George pulled open the car door and yanked Forrest out. George had no warrant and had still not observed any illegal activity. Because of this, a Franklin County Court of Common Pleas judge suppressed evidence obtained from arresting Forrest. The state appealed. The three-judge appellate panel found the prosecution’s claim that exceptions to the Fourth Amendment applied to be entirely unpersuasive.

“The state argues probable cause to arrest and then search incident to arrest are present, but both fail because they are premised on Forrest’s wrongfully refusing to obey the order to step out of the vehicle,” Judge Tyack wrote. “The officer, however, had no basis to order Forrest out of the vehicle because he lacked reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal activity when Officer George reached across Forrest’s body to grab his hand and pull him out of the vehicle. Since there was no lawful arrest, the search and seizure cannot be justified as a search incident to a lawful arrest.”

With the suppression motion upheld, the state has no case against Forrest. A copy of the decision is available in a 30k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Ohio v. Forrest (Court of Appeals, State of Ohio, 12/6/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

A pair of senior police officers in Brindisi, Italy were arrested Tuesday in a speed camera bribery scheme. The owner of a BMW X6 blew the whistle on officers Giuseppe Manca and Antonio Briganti after a speed camera accused him of driving 160km/h (99 MPH) on state route 16, where the limit is 110km/h (68 MPH).

The driver faced a fine of between 500 to 2000 euros (US $650 to $2615) plus license points. The officers offered to make the conviction disappear for payment of 250 euros (US $327) in cash. The officers were able to erase the conviction from the speed camera logs to prevent detection of their tactics.

The attempt at secrecy failed when the BMW found he was out of cash. The driver’s account of what transpired is supported by surveillance video showing one of the policemen escorting him to a bank in the village of Pezze di Greco to withdraw money. Judge Paula Liaci ordered Briganti and Manca to be placed in preventative detention.

Meanwhile, the public prosecutor in Grosseto conducted four raids on the offices of speed camera companies in Capagnativo and Scarlino. Investigators uncovered irregularities in the way speed camera contracts were handed out in those jurisdictions between 2005 and 2007. Previously, local police handled speed camera operations, but prosecutors insist forgery, corruption and bid rigging led to the decision to contract out the photo ticketing services.

Investigations into Italian speed camera fraud have been in the works for years. Earlier this month, seven were arrested in Frosinone for rigging speed camera contracts. In March, the Guardia di Finanza announced five indictments in Brescia. In August 2009, speed cameras were shrouded in black plastic as up to 200 officials faced charges in Caserta. In September, a judge ruled that a group of 15 mayors, cops, speed camera company employees should stand trial on fraud charges.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

A while ago, we showed you a video of an angry Shanghainese woman, towing a tow-truck away. Alas, the video was staged. This time, it’s serious. Or so they swear over at Carnewschina, and at the TV station in Liaoning Province that showed on the evening news what happened when the police wanted to tow a Buick Excelle. The Buick’s driver, a resolute woman, had different ideas.

The Buick was already hitched, but on the wrong end. Using the fact that the Excelle is a front-wheel-drive, the woman could liberate it from the claws of the tow truck, and drive away. What is interesting to watch is how the police in the alleged police state reacts.

If the woman would have bumped an American cop with the door, and then shoved him, she would be in cuffs. If she would have kept on driving with an American cop standing in front of the car, she would have found herself tased, bundled up, arrested, and in a world of hurt. In China, she simply drives away.

They have her number and will catch up with her later.

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Tuesday rejected a class action lawsuit filed against the speed camera program in the nation’s capital. Motorists Henry Dixon and Cuong Thanh Phung argued the city violated their constitutional guarantee to equal protection of law by treating drivers pulled over for speeding more harshly than drivers mailed photo tickets for speeding.

The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against Nixon and Phung, finding no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment (through the Fifth Amendment) because drivers apprehended for speeding by police officers are not similarly situated to motorists photographed and accused of speeding by a photo radar device. The district judge reasoned that the camera is unable to confirm that the owner was the driver, so the greater punishment should not be imposed. The three-judge appellate panel agreed with the lower court’s conclusion, but for a different reason. The speed camera law can stand under the “rational basis test” used to insulate government actions from constitutional challenge.

“The District’s disputed traffic enforcement policies neither burden a fundamental right nor target a suspect class,” Judge Harry T. Edwards wrote for the appellate court. “Therefore, in attacking the rationality of the District’s legislative classification, appellants have the burden to negative every conceivable basis which might support it. Appellants have not met this burden.”

Drivers who exceed the speed limit by 30 MPH — and this could include driving as little as 55 MPH on a wide, six-lane boulevard — are subject to a $300 fine and ninety days in jail if pulled over by the Metropolitan Police Department. If, on the other hand, American Traffic Solutions decides a vehicle is speeding, the company can only issue a civil ticket.

“The District has decided that the best way to deter speeding is through the creation of some variability and uncertainty in the city’s enforcement schemes,” Edwards wrote. “The wisdom of such a determination is not the appropriate subject of equal protection review.”

Washington’s cameras have issued more than $312 million in citations since 1999. The appellate judges found aspects of the program that increase that revenue actually help the city’s legal case.

“Because automated traffic enforcement (ATE) does not require police officers to pursue, detain, or arrest speeding motorists, it is axiomatic that the District’s use of this enforcement system substantially increases the number of speeding motorists who will be detected and face a monetary penalty,” Edwards wrote. “It is true that the owner of a vehicle who receives a citation may request a hearing to demonstrate that he or she was not driving the car when the speeding violation occurred. But the District has good reason to assume that most persons who are cited via the ATE will not contest the fine, either because they are actually guilty of speeding or because objecting is not worth the aggravation.”

A copy of the decision is available in a 45k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Dixon v. District of Columbia (US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit, 12/20/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

As long as a police officer cites his own safety as the reason, he may frisk any motorist during a traffic stop and remove objects from his pockets, according to a ruling handed down Tuesday by the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. A three-judge panel evaluated whether Officer Joe Moreno was following the law when he searched driver Ivan Rochin after he was pulled over in Albuquerque, New Mexico for driving with an expired registration.

“No one likes being pulled over for a traffic violation,” Judge Neil M. Gorsuch wrote for the court. “Still, for most drivers the experience usually proves no more than an unwelcome (if often self-induced) detour from the daily routine. But not every traffic stop is so innocuous. Sometimes what begins innocently enough turns violent, often rapidly and unexpectedly. Every year, thousands of law enforcement officers are assaulted — and many are killed — in what seem at first to be routine stops for relatively minor traffic infractions.”

According to the latest available Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics, six officers were killed while pursuing a ordinary traffic infractions in 2009. That represents 0.0008 percent of the 706,886 sworn officers nationwide. Four of these patrolmen were gunned down as they approached the stopped vehicle, and only one was shot while standing at the offender’s vehicle window.

In this case, Rochin happened to match the description of someone wanted for a drive-by shooting. Moreno ordered him out of the car and performed a pat-down search that turned up glass pipes containing drugs. Rochin objected that it was absurd for the officer to remove the pipe from his pants on “officer safety” grounds, but the court ruled such a search was objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

“A reasonable officer could have concluded that the long and hard objects detected in Mr. Rochin’s pockets might be used as instruments of assault, particularly given that an effort to ask Mr. Rochin about the identity of the objects had proved fruitless,” Gorsuch wrote. “To be sure, the pipes Mr. Rochin turned out to have aren’t conventionally considered weapons. But a reasonable officer isn’t credited with x-ray vision and can’t be faulted for having failed to divine the true identity of the objects.”

The court upheld Rochin’s conviction. A copy of the decision is available in a 20k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  US v. Rochin (US Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit, 12/13/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

After performing a thorough performance audit, Denver, Colorado’s city auditor is no longer convinced of the value of red light cameras and speed cameras. The Denver Police Department (DPD) deputized the Dallas-based firm Affiliated Computer Services (ACS, a division of Xerox) to issue red light tickets at four intersections and speeding tickets throughout the city with five roaming vans. The program has little more to show for itself than a profitable bottom line.

“Unfortunately, DPD has not demonstrated that the photo radar program has a positive impact on public safety,” City Auditor Dennis J. Gallagher wrote. “Because these programs were sold as public safety enhancements but are widely viewed as a cash grab, it undermines public trust to maintain photo enforcement programs that are profitable but whose safety impact has not been conclusively shown. If this situation persists, then the photo enforcement programs should be shut down.”
The audit noted the speed van program has been operating since 2002 without any objective measurement of the impact on safety. Instead, city officials relied on the report of the number of violations generated by ACS as the sole measure of effectiveness.

“A reduction in violations does not necessarily entail a significant reduction in speed, nor does it indicate a decrease in accident rates or pedestrian injuries,” the audit report noted. “Further, a 2006 internal DPD assessment suggests that DPD believes driver’s habits adjust as citizens become familiar with the locations of the photo radar vans. Therefore, a decrease in violations does not directly correlate to a sustained decrease in speeds after photo radar is deployed to a different location.”

Photo radar generated $3.6 million in revenue in 2010 and that amount is expected to top $7 million by the end of 2011 because ticketing operations expanded to seven days a week. With the red light camera program, certain types of accidents did decrease at the camera intersections, but the audit pointed out the city could not legitimately credit the improvement to cameras.

“At three of the four intersections with red light cameras, the number of right angle accidents was decreasing before the red light cameras were installed,” the report explained.
The full safety impact is impossible to gauge because city leaders increased the duration of the yellow lights, enlarged signal heads and installed countdown timers at the intersections where cameras were installed. The engineering improvements helped make the intersection safer, but also reduced the number of violations issued. To boost the number of tickets, ACS and Denver began ticketing people who stopped at red lights — but their car was photographed protruding a few inches beyond the stop bar. No other jurisdiction in the state tickets drivers who fully stop at red lights.

“Program revenues spiked largely due to more precise stop line enforcement,” the audit explained, “By April 2011, ACS was able to dramatically increase the number of incidents captured by the red light cameras due to the upgrades.”

These extra picky violations are the sole reason Denver’s red light cameras are profitable.

“DPD should also be aware that while program revenues recently increased in Denver, if DPD or Denver policymakers change the violation point to better align with practices in other municipalities, program revenues may decline to the point where they do not meet the budget for the program,” the audit explained.

In its response to the report, Denver police insisted it was impossible to conduct a study that would satisfy the auditor’s concerns. The most the department would do would be to have ACS conduct a study to justify continuing the ACS program by June 30, 2013.

A copy of the audit report is available in a 4mb PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Denver Photo Enforcement Program (Denver, Colorado City Auditor, 12/15/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

The Florida legislature’s authorization of red light cameras last year was superfluous, a divided state Court of Appeals panel ruled yesterday. The majority sided with the city of Aventura in overturning a Miami-Dade County Circuit Court decision from last year that found Aventura had jumped the gun by giving American Traffic Solutions (ATS) a green light to mail out automated tickets without waiting for the state’s permission.

Florida law does not allow a city to adopt an ordinance in conflict with a state statute. The majority argued a provision requiring traffic officers only to issue traffic tickets for violations they personally observed is not in conflict because the same officers can “observe” the infraction on video under the Aventura photo ticketing ordinance.

“The ordinance allows for a traffic control infraction review officer, who although sharing the qualifications of the type of officer referenced in section 316.640(5)(a), is instead appointed by the city pursuant to the ordinance and for the distinct purposes of viewing recorded images and issuing corresponding citations in accordance with the ordinance,” Judge Angel A. Cortinas wrote for the majority. “Accordingly, we find the trial court erred in its determination that section 48-26 allowed the cameras to serve as the sole basis for issuing a notice of violation in direct conflict with section 316.007, Florida Statutes.”

The majority also noted that the state legislature authorized the use of red light cameras in 2010, without mentioning that lawmakers specifically rejected attempts to include retroactive language legitimizing camera programs that started before 2010.

Judge Leslie B. Rothenberg disagreed with her two colleagues with a dissent that noted the state specifically abolished municipal courts. She argued Aventura created a different standard of proof and liability for red light violations with penalties conflicting with those set by the legislature. The state punishes the driver with a $60 fine, but the city goes after the vehicle owner with a fine of up to $500. These standards are judged by a Aventura’s own special master, not through a judicial officer established by the legislature.

“The city is essentially utilizing the state’s uniform traffic control devices (traffic lights), approved and regulated by the state for enforcement of the state’s uniform traffic control laws, to punish violators through the city’s own enforcement program and to pocket the revenues it collects for its own benefit,” Rothenberg wrote in her dissent. “This is exactly the sort of inconsistent application of traffic laws and traffic penalties the people and legislature of this state sought to preclude by abolishing all of the municipal courts and enacting a uniform statewide traffic control system.”

A copy of the decision is available in a 140k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Aventura v. Masone (Court of Appeals, State of Florida, 11/30/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) succeeded Monday in having a license plate with the slogan “Choose Life” blocked in North Carolina. US District Court Judge James C. Fox granted the liberal group’s request for a preliminary injunction against issuance of the plate while the lawsuit makes its way through the court.

On June 30, Governor Bev Perdue (D) signed a law giving motorists the choice of paying $25 extra to have the plate instead of the standard-issue “First in Flight” logo on their license plate. Other available show a preference for individual NASCAR drivers or carry messages such as “Play Tennis,” “Save the Sea Turtle,” “I’d Rather be Shaggin’,” “Support Our Troops” and “Kids First.” The ACLU argues that the lack of an plate expressing support for abortion violates their First Amendment rights.

Half of the states offer Choose Life plates, which have withstood some, but not all, legal challenges. The US Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, Eighth and Ninth Circuits upheld the constitutionality of the plates in Tennessee, Missouri and Arizona, while the Seventh Circuit struck down the plate in Illinois. The legal issue centers on whether the plate represents governmental speech as opposed to individual speech. The attorney general’s office argued the legislature is directly accountable for the message it chose.

“Each of the voting members of the General Assembly on either side of the issue regarding these plates took a stand which they knew could mean the difference as to whether they might be re-elected or not,” Special Deputy Attorney General Neil Dalton wrote in a brief to the court. “By taking this action they knew that some North Carolina license plates would bear the message ‘Choose Life’ and that no North Carolina license plates would bear the ‘alternative’ messages sought by the opponents of the ‘Choose Life’ plate.”

Judge Fox sided with the ACLU which argued that the legislature prevented individual speech when it specifically rejected amendments to the legislation that would have authorized a competing “Respect Choice” plate.

“The state should not be allowed to use its authority to promote one side of a debate while denying the same opportunity to the other side,” ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation spokesman Katy Parker said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our arguments in this case, and hope the court agrees that the First Amendment prohibits the blatant type of viewpoint discrimination the state has proposed through this one-sided license plate scheme.”

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Wintertime is coming, mama, the windows are filled with frost. So I went over to the nearby strip mall to get some thermal underwear. That doesn’t rhyme even half as well as Dylan’s most forced rhymes, but it’s really what happened. There’s a C.W. Price store in the mall. It used to be a location of the A.J. Wright chain that went under, and from the looks of things, all they needed to change were the signs. C.W. Price carries pretty much the same overstocked and distressed merchandise as A.J. Wright. Not quite as depressing as shopping at Big Lots but definitely not the Somerset Collection. While I was at the store of course I had to check out the cheap R/C cars that they had on sale for $6.99 and $7.99 with the other Christmas toys. At first glance they looked like Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bugattis and Ford GTs. Actually, at second and third glance they still looked like those cars, scale models accurate down to the Veyron’s distinctive black hood, horseshoe Bugatti grille and exposed mid-mounted W16 engine.

Not-a-Bugatti

Nowhere, though, do the words “Ferrari”, “Lamborghini”, “Bugatti”, or “Ford” or those companies’ badging appear anywhere on the R/C cars or on the packaging. In some unintentional irony filtered through the joys of “Chinglish”, the Ford GT does have a decal at the top of the windshield that reads “FAMOUS CAR”.

Can I write anything funnier than reality?

Welcome to the wonderful of Chinese manufacturing where out the front door your vendor sells you your patented or licensed goods and out their back door they sell essentially the same products, only without branding, to dollar store distributors. It’s not a new story. Years ago Georgena Terry, founder of Terry Precision Bicycles for Women, found knock offs of her patented woman’s bike saddle on sale in the US that, based on the molding markings, had to have been made by her own supplier in China.

Legitimate Lamborghini? 

My guess is that something similar happened with these R/C cars. Xiangda Toys Factory, and Hunson Trading Co. are the brand names on the toys. What little that I could find out about the companies is that Xiangda makes R/C toys and the Hunson distributes R/C toys and other toys to dollar stores in North and South America. The Hunson labeled toys carry the XTR brand, which I’m guessing stands for Xiangda Toy Racing.

Here’s what I think is going on. If Xiangda or Hunson want to reply, we’ll give them an opportunity to do so. I think that Xiangda is the manufacturer and the Hunson is the distributor of all of these, regardless of how the specific toys are branded. On the multitudinous Chinese goods trading sites, you can find Hunson offering toys branded with names like Lamborghini so it’s possible that one or both of the companies has a legitimate license to make scale models. The toys could be complete knock offs, but they appeared, as I said, to be fairly accurate in terms of body shape, so they just as likely could have been molded with tooling made to produce licensed goods. I’m guessing that someone thought that they could make a few extra yuan by diverting some goods to market without the additional cost of paying a royalty fee.

There appears to be little risk. After all, this is being done in plain sight. Since they don’t sell the cars branded with the real car company names, as long as those brand names never appear on shipping manifests or customs documents nobody will ever be the wiser. Bugatti, Ferrari and Lamborghini’s licensing agents and lawyers don’t typically shop in stores like C.W. Price. Ford’s lawyers might have driven by the Price store on Telegraph in Redford, on their way to the Glass House in Dearborn, but again, they’re not likely shopping for their kids’ toys at dollar stores and deep discounters. Though it’s likely to be under the radar of white shoe law firms and their clients, dollar stores and deep discounters are still big business. There are over 20,000 stores operated by the three largest dollar store chains. Licensing deals typically pay 7-12% of wholesale prices as royalties. That means that for every one of these R/C cars that are distributed, somewhere between 25 and 50 cents doesn’t get paid to a car company that is rightfully theirs. That may not sound like much but when you consider that these toys are shipped over by the container load the IP infringement from quasi knock offs like these must represent significant sums of unpaid royalties.

Scale model radio control Fauxrrari

Of course, these days cars’ shapes are protected under intellectual property laws just as surely as Ferrari’s prancing horse and Lamborghini’s pawing bull are protected trademarks. My day gig is custom machine embroidery and I’ve gotten cease and desist letters from car companies unhappy about my embroidery designs that portray their cars. They were overreaching but it seems to me that while artists and photographers might have some leeway and fair use rights to create original art depicting a protected car design, there’s no doubt that if a car’s shape is copyrighted, making and selling scale models of that car would be infringing on the car company’s intellectual property, with or without a logo decal.

It happens with race cars too. When A.J. Wright was still in business, during the holiday season they’d sell R/C Formula One cars that looked just like the Ferrari and McLaren F1 cars, down to the coloring of the sponsors’ decals. Only if you looked closely the sponsors’ names were close but actually fictional, and nowhere did it say the team names or F1. It reminded me of a store that would advertise selling “names like Hitachi and Sansui” and when you get there they are selling knock off brands named Hatichi and Sunsai.

This isn’t going to stop. As long as there’s a market for quasi knockoffs and as long as the Chinese government and Chinese industries benefit from those knock offs they will continue to be made. If General Motors couldn’t get Chery to stop making the QQ, a copy of a real car, Ford isn’t going to get Xiangda to stop making scale model Famous Cars.

The US Supreme Court earlier this month heard oral arguments in a case that will set the legal boundaries for police GPS surveillance of automobiles. Last year, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that police were wrong to spend a month tracking the every move of Antoine Jones, who was arrested on October 24, 2005 for drug possession (view opinion). A tracking device had been attached to Jones’s Jeep without judicial approval. The high court judges engaged in heated debate about the rights of motorists in connection with the Fourth Amendment.

“It seems to me the heart of the problem that’s presented by this case and will be presented by other cases involving new technology is that in the pre-computer, pre-Internet age much of the privacy — I would say most of the privacy — that people enjoyed was not the result of legal protections or constitutional protections; it was the result simply of the difficulty of traveling around and gathering up information,” Justice Samuel Alito summarized. “But with computers, it’s now so simple to amass an enormous amount of information about people that consists of things that could have been observed on the streets, information that was made available to the public.”

The administration, represented by Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreben, argued that police do not need to obtain a warrant because location information could have been obtained this information through ordinary surveillance methods. That means anyone could track even supreme court justices without violating their privacy.

“So your answer is yes, you could tomorrow decide that you put a GPS device on every one of our cars, follow us for a month; no problem under the Constitution?” Chief Justice John Roberts said. “Your argument is, it doesn’t depend how much suspicion you have, it doesn’t depend on how urgent it is. Your argument is you can do it, period. You don’t have to give any reason. It doesn’t have to be limited in any way.”

Roberts suggested the process of obtaining a warrant serves as an effective limit. Scalia seemed to suggest that state legislatures were best suited to decide what limits should be placed on police tracking, not the courts. Other justices worried about the implications of allowing unrestricted tracking.

“[It's] an easy way, to pick someone up for speeding when you suspect something far worse but have no probable cause,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. “It’s all in the computer. The police can say, we want to find out more about X, so consult the database, see if there is an indication that he was ever speeding in the last 28 days.”

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy compared the GPS tracking to the use of speed cameras and red light cameras for tracking purposes.

“Lots of communities have, including Washington, cameras on — at intersections on stop lights,” Kennedy said. “Suppose the police suspected someone of criminal activity and they had a computer capacity to take pictures of all the intersections that he drove through at different times of day, and they checked his movements and his routes for five days. Would that be lawful?”

Justice Elena Kagan suggested constant police surveillance of an individual is obviously a violation of privacy.

“If you think about this, and you think about a little robotic device following you around 24 hours a day anyplace you go that’s not your home, reporting in all your movements to the police, to investigative authorities, the notion that we don’t have an expectation of privacy in that, the notion that we don’t think that our privacy interests would be violated by this robotic device, I’m — I’m not sure how one can say that,” Kagan said.

The justices are expected to arrive at a decision by spring.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Maryland state law prohibits municipalities from paying contractors to operate speed camera and red light cameras on a per-ticket basis. In an October 27 ruling, the Court of Special Appeals found that localities are free to ignore this legal requirement.

A group of motorists in 2008 filed a class action lawsuit against Montgomery County, the cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg, and Chevy Chase Village because each paid Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) $16.25 for each ticket the company issued, in violation of the statute.

“If a contractor operates a speed monitoring system on behalf of Montgomery County, the contractor’s fee may not be contingent on the number of citations issued or paid,” state code section 21-809 states.

According to the county’s original contract, ACS was to “install and support all traffic camera equipment” and “supply an automated violation processing services solution that is capable of supporting high volume program operations.” Montgomery County was first given authorization to use cameras over the veto of then-Governor Robert L. Ehrlich (R) in 2006 and the grant was later expanded to all other jurisdictions in 2009. The motorists argued they have the right as private citizens to pursue a claim against the state government to remedy an illegal act. The General Assembly took no action to bar such suits. The appellate court insisted the legislature only allows fighting a ticket in a lower court and that broader challenges taken to a circuit court are not allowed.

“Although appellants argue that it is impractical to bring an action challenging the propriety of a contingency fee in the district court, we see no other way to interpret the plain language of this provision — appellants are permitted to raise any defense in the district court regarding the legality of the citation,” Shirley M. Watts wrote. “Appellants, therefore, had the opportunity — which they failed to exercise –to challenge in the district court the speed citations they received, presenting the argument that the contracts between appellees and ACS were unlawful.”

Prince George’s County district court judges have already stated that they will not consider evidence that a driver is innocent of a speed camera accusation at trial. On September 4, 2008, Montgomery County changed the wording of its contract to state: “Contractor provides vehicles and equipment, but does not operate the speed monitoring system.” The appellate court accepted this as sufficient, even though there is no difference in the way the system is operated.

“We are aware of appellants’ insistence that the amendments to the contracts between appellees and ACS do not resolve the contention that ACS is an operator of the speed cameras,” Watts wrote. “We discern, however, no basis to look beyond the plain, unambiguous language of the contracts, which specifically provides that appellees and not ACS are operators of the speed cameras in Montgomery County.”

A copy of the decision is available in a 100k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Baker v. Montgomery County (Court of Appeals, State of Maryland, 10/27/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

The Federal Highway Administration this week turned down the state of Georgia’s request to relax the occupancy requirement on the new Interstate 85 high occupancy toll lanes (HOT lanes) in Gwinett County. In October, the state imposed the toll on the existing carpool lane, raising the number of occupants qualifying for a free ride from two to three.

The initial $5.50 on top of the occupancy change proved too much and traffic ground to a halt in the general purpose lanes while the toll lanes remained relatively unused. In a panic, Governor Nathan Deal (R) moved on October 6 to slash the toll and request a waiver from the Federal Highway Administration to drop the occupancy requirement back down to two.

Groups opposed to the tolling are now redoubling their efforts to pressure state officials to cancel the project they see as an absolute failure. The Stolen Lanes coalition held a town hall meeting on Saturday featuring two state senators convinced that the tolls ought to be removed. The State Road and Toll Authority (SRTA), in a written response to a set of coalition questions, emphasized that the tolls are only meant to reduce congestion.

“The Express Lanes project was never intended to be a revenue generating system,” the agency’s letter stated. “Though we do not expect any excess revenue for several years, a final determination of the use of excess funds has not been made at this time. We are collectively working with other transportation agencies both at the state and federal level to determine how those funds would be utilized in the future, if and when excess revenues occur.”

Chris Haley, a co-founder of the Stolen Lanes group, insists the HOT lanes are making congestion worse, and not better, so the system ought to be scrapped entirely.

“In my opinion, a system to ‘collect money to pay for a system to collect money to pay for a system’ is clearly an example of government run amok,” Haley told TheNewspaper.

SRTA officials touted the issuance of 108,000 Peach Pass toll transponders as evidence that drivers are slowly embracing tolls and insisted that the HOT lanes need more time to prove themselves. Only 23,762 were used on I-85, and the number includes 6231 “toll-exempt” passes, 2761 passes for “emergency” vehicles, and 791 government passes.

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Prince George’s County, Maryland judges are tired of complaints that photo enforcement citations are inaccurate or otherwise invalid. To speed proceedings on “speed camera day” when automated citation cases are heard, at least one judge is cautioning motorists not to bother attempting to prove their innocence, regardless of the merit of their argument.

“This is a speed camera violation session,” District Judge Jean S. Baron said on November 9. “The only defense the court is going to accept is if you were not the driver of the vehicle and you have the name and the address of the person who was driving and you present that to the court under oath, I will accept that as a defense. Please don’t tell me that you know you couldn’t have been going that fast or there’s something wrong with the equipment.”

Will Foreman, owner of Eastover Auto Supply, has infuriated local prosecutors by offering a mathematical proof that his delivery vehicles were incorrectly accused of speeding. He used the photographs taken by the speed camera vendor Optotraffic to create a time-distance calculation showing his vehicles could not possibly have traveled at the velocity alleged. To counter this, Optotraffic press spokesman Mickey E. Shepherd, who is not a scientist, would present evidence at trial that the camera equipment verifies its own accuracy.

“There’s someone here from the jurisdiction who testifies that the equipment was calibrated and validated — or it is self-calibrating — then I’m not going to be able to accept that as a defense,” Judge Baron said. “Keep that in mind. Now if you want to accept responsibility and enter a guilty plea, I will take that into consideration and in all probability I will give you a probation before judgment and greatly reduce the fine. Now that’s up to you” (listen to the judge’s full statement).

Foreman’s concern about camera accuracy is echoed in correspondence between the town of Cheverly and Optotraffic. Cheverly this month stopped letting Optotraffic issue photo tickets and switched to Brekford, an upstart rival to the established players American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia.

“Not only are the cameras still not functioning properly, they now are producing violations for invisible vehicles going 76 miles per hour and bicycles going 38 and 57 miles per hour and now violations with just a part of a vehicle in only one photo,” Town Administrator David Warrington wrote in a July 26 letter to Optotraffic. “Finally, we continue to get false speed readings for vehicles that have an irregular size such as buses and trucks with ladder racks. Rather than have meeting to have Mickey tell us ‘that it’s technical’ we would like you to have an explanation for the equipment problems provided to us in writing. I look forward to hearing from you in the next ten days.”

On September 23, Judge Gerard F. Devlin prohibited Foreman from introducing the letter as evidence. Judge Devlin then took matters a step further by jailing James Bradford, 71, for contempt for saying “I was not speeding” after Devlin told him to stop repeating an argument he rejected (listen to the exchange in court).

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

Private citizens can arrest other motorists suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), the Louisiana Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. A three-judge panel considered the case of Tracy L. Common who was stopped in Westwego by Gretna Police Detective Brian Rico at 9pm on December 31, 2006. Rico was off-duty and outside his jurisdiction.

That night, Rico saw Common’s Chevy S-10 pickup truck swerving on the road and felt the driver was seriously impaired. He activated the lights on his unmarked car and conducted a stop without waiting for the local police to arrive. When Common hopped out of the car, Rico conducted a pat-down search which turned up 50 pills and $1100 in cash. A later search of his car by local police uncovered $2000 and some marijuana.

Though Rico was a police officer, the court assumed he was acting as an ordinary citizen, citing the 2008 appellate case Louisiana v. Lavergne which upheld a DUI traffic stop performed by a volunteer firefighter from Texas.

“Our brethren on the First Circuit held that the defendant’s erratic driving was sufficient to justify a stop for the felony offense of aggravated obstruction of a highway of commerce, which authorized a private citizen to make the arrest,” Judge Susan M. Chehardy wrote for the Fifth Circuit panel. “In this case, as in Lavergne, Detective Rico observed the defendant driving erratically when his vehicle swerved across three lanes of traffic on the Westbank Expressway and nearly collided with Detective Rico’s vehicle…. Here, as in Lavergne, we see no error in the finding that a private citizen who witnessed aggravated obstruction of a highway is authorized to arrest a defendant.”

State law allows private citizens to make arrests for felony offenses, and driving in a way that endangers human life qualifies under the highway obstruction statute. As a result of Rico’s search, Common was found to be in possession of MDMA or ecstasy, for which he was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. The sentence was later upgraded to ten years after the lower court learned it was Common’s fourth felony conviction. Common argued the evidence should be thrown out because it violated his constitutional rights. The court disagreed.

“Evidence seized pursuant to a search by a private citizen, acting in his capacity as a private citizen, is not excluded under the Fourth Amendment because the amendment only protects individuals against governmental intrusion,” Chehardy wrote. “Thus, the pills confiscated by the private citizen would not be excluded under the Fourth Amendment.”

The judges found procedural errors with the penalty imposed, so they ordered him resentenced. A copy of the decision is available in a 500k PDF file at the source link below.

Source:  Louisiana v. Common (Court of Appeals, State of Louisiana, 11/15/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]