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HOUSTON -- The Houston Police Department launched a new creative campaign to crack down on dangerous and aggressive drivers, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday. The plan calls for putting plainclothes officers in different locations around the city to spot drivers who are speeding, not wearing seat belts, or changing lanes erratically. In one tactic, senior Houston Police Officer William Dodson will dress in street clothes and stand at a street corner with a sign in his hand. Some people could mistake him for a vagrant, but on closer inspection, they will see that the sign is reminding people to wear...

A NewsChannel 5 investigation uncovers what could become a major ticket-fixing scandal in the city of Nashville.And it raises new questions about whether there's one set of laws for those with connections -- and another for the rest of us.But unlike a ticket-fixing problem exposed by NewsChannel 5 Investigates three years ago, it's not the city's elected judges who are dismissing the tickets.So who is it?Our chief investigative reporter Phil Williams has an investigation more than six months in the making.***When you're out on the highway, the radar detector doesn't know who you are.But when deputy juvenile court clerk Matt Drury got ticketed for...

A Journal front-pager recently noted an Arizona man charged with attacking a freeway speed camera with a pick ax. Here's the rest of the story: He was fined $3,500, not given a parade. But don't despair. We still live in a democracy. One Arizona sheriff recently proved you could get elected by opposing speed cameras. Meanwhile, the state legislature is considering bills to dismantle the system created by Gov. Janet Napolitano when she faced a gaping budget deficit, before she escaped to the Obama Department of Homeland Security. Petitioners in Arizona are also gathering signatures to put the question directly...

Caught out in a fib to get out of a speeding ticket, do you put your hands up - or dig yourself deeper into a hole of your own making, asks Clive James. In a case which has deep resonance for Britain and the entire civilized world, the whole of Australia has been glued to the media in recent weeks, following the story of an eminent judge who has ruined his reputation because he tried to lie his way out of a speeding fine that would have cost him about £36. At the age of 70, he is about to...

St. Louis, MO- The city installed red light cameras at twenty intersections, and they've taken in nearly $2 million in fines since they were installed last summer. Traffic Law Center where spokesperson Ann Horner says she see flashes from the camera on a daily basis. Horner however says there are no consequences for not paying. She says if you have outstanding parking tickets you cannot renew your plates or driver's license, but there's nothing in place like that if you get a red light ticket. Horner says it's all unconstitutional because there's a presumption of innocence in this country, and...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States is working to rush assistance to Mexico as it fights violent drug cartels, including equipment to help authorities track the narcotics mafia, according to the top US military officer. "We're all working very hard to move the capabilities that are desirable to Mexico as quickly as we can," Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters by phone from his aircraft after holding talks in Mexico. During his meetings with the country's military leadership, Mullen said he discussed how Washington could help in the battle against the powerful cartels, citing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) as a...

It's believed that he earned upwards of £24,000 through his scam.Abdul Musa, a garage owner from Blackburn, Lancashire, today begins a 16 month stretch in jail after police discovered he was getting paid to take the blame for other people’s speeding offences. According to reports he charged customers £200 a time for his ‘services’, admitting to authorities that he had been driving a car when it got caught on camera. With his service proving particularly popular with local taxi drivers it is believed that he made upwards of £24,000. It is though that he falsely accepted responsibility for at least...

Speeding? You'll pay higher 'taxes' Watch out, leadfoots: Many strapped cities and towns are trying to fix their budgets by stepping up traffic enforcement. By Christopher Solomon MSN Money Here's a tip for the next time you're barreling down U.S. 425 through northeastern Louisiana: If you see a sign that reads "Baskin Town Limits," slow down. Way down. Baskin has been expecting you. Between 2004 and 2006, little Baskin (population about 200) got 87% of its town budget from speeding tickets, the highest percentage of 304 Louisiana municipalities surveyed. "It is primarily a tool in many communities to raise revenue,"...

As a prank, students from local high schools have been taking advantage of the county's Speed Camera Program in order to exact revenge on people who they believe have wronged them in the past, including other students and even teachers. Students from Richard Montgomery High School dubbed the prank the Speed Camera "Pimping" game, according to a parent of a student enrolled at one of the high schools. Originating from Wootton High School, the parent said, students duplicate the license plates by printing plate numbers on glossy photo paper, using fonts from certain websites that "mimic" those on Maryland license...

Motorists will face amateur speed traps run by local volunteer groups in towns and villages across the country, it was revealed yesterday. Under rules to be sent to police forces in the new year, bands of volunteers will be supplied with speed detection equipment and asked to use it to identify drivers exceeding limits in their area. On watch: A speed trap volunteer in action whereby anyone caught going over the speed limit will be contacted later by the police The guidelines, prepared by the Association of Chief Police Officers, will set a national pattern for schemes which have been...

In 2002, police in the city of Detroit gave out a total of 126,007 traffic tickets. Last year, the number of tickets grew to over 245,000 - a 94% jump. The increase was even larger in small towns like Plymouth which saw the number of tickets go up from 440 to 2,500 — up 480 percent — over the same amount of time. According to Detroit area police the reason for the increase is dwindling property tax revenue. That lack of property tax revenue has forced local governments in Michigan to use average citizen drivers to fill the coffers. You...

NEWCASTLE, Wash. – Residents in Newcastle who complain that drivers are speeding through their neighborhoods will now be able to prove it. Newcastle police are arming residents with radar guns. "We all have little kids and they're riding their bikes in the street and running around and we all get in a big hurry to get out kids here and there and not be late for appointments or whatever,” said Cheryl Coupens, one of the first people to sign up for the program. When civilians clock someone speeding, they jot down the vehicle information and pass it along to authorities....

The Illinois State Police are using vans with cameras and radar guns to photograph motorists and other drivers who speed through highway construction zones, and are enforcing strict penalties for alleged offenders. Citations for a first offense are $375, and a second offense can cost $1,000 and a 90-day suspension of driver’s license. State Police officials said four white vans, which are equipped with radar guns, cameras and a monitor to show drivers their speed, have been deployed at different construction zones in the state. As of Thursday, June 5, those vans are deployed at the widening project on the...

A Henry County judge fined a Palos Park teen $2,000 Thursday for driving at least 55 mph over the speed limit in January. Gianna Didiana, 17, was extremely upset when Judge Dana McReynolds imposed the fine, according to Henry County Assistant State's Attorney Lewis Zimmerman. Ms. Didiana also was sentenced to six hours in jail and ordered to perform 240 hours of community service. Mr. Zimmerman said an Illinois State Police trooper was coming off the Geneseo exit onto Interstate 80 eastbound on Jan. 21 when Ms. Didiana drove past the state trooper in a Mercedes Benz at a high...

The driver of the car that struck and killed a police officer on a Howard County highway last year was traveling 16 mph over the speed limit at the time of the accident and swerved at the last moment. Police Chief William J. McMahon said Grissom was traveling 71 mph in the 2007 Nissan Sentra that hit Cpl. Scott Wheeler that June afternoon. The speed limit at the site of the accident - Route 32 near Interstate 95 - is 55 mph. In a written statement, Wheeler's widow, Tracy, said: "We are disappointed that the grand jury chose not to...

EDMONTON -- Chronic speeders could find their cars automatically slowing down when they try to pass the posted speed limit if Paul Boase has his way. The Transport Canada researcher has been road-testing a device that combines a global positioning system and a speed map with a way to override the car's manual controls. He presented his findings at a traffic conference Thursday in Edmonton. "The technology has the ability of just saying, okay the posted speed limit is 50, so we'll let you go 55, that's it," Boase said. He tested the technology on 10 volunteers in the Ottawa...

OCALA, Fla. - A car traveling at high speed down a private airport runway ran off an embankment and was airborne for 200 feet before smashing into a tree early Saturday, killing all five young men in the vehicle, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Investigators did not know whether the BMW was alone or was racing another car on the air strip at the exclusive "fly-in" community of Jumbolair Aviation Estates, where pilot-actor John Travolta has a home, officials said. According to the preliminary investigation, the car ran off the 85-foot-high embankment at the end of the runway. When it...

Parents of Windsor High student first in county to use tracking device data to fight son's speeding ticket By DEREK J. MOORE THE PRESS DEMOCRAT Shaun Malone was livid when his parents installed a global positioning device in his sports car to monitor his whereabouts and how fast he drives. But now the Windsor High School junior hopes to beat a potentially expensive speeding ticket using data from the device. The case represents the first time anyone has contested a speeding ticket in Sonoma County courts using a global positioning system, which pinpoints speed and location using lightning-fast calculations and...

All right Al Gore III, you're still the tops when it comes to speeding in a Prius - but not by much. Steve Wozniak is right behind you. And when I say speeding, man o' man, do I mean speeding. You probably remember when the son of the former vice president was caught going 105 mph in Southern California last month. Well, a mention of that in a recent Roadshow column led a buddy of Wozniak's to check in, claiming that the co-founder of Apple Computer was ticketed for going 105 mph on Interstate 5 earlier this year. Whoa. Mr....

DOVER, N.H. - A man with a penchant for speedy driving has come up with an unusual tactic for beating speeding tickets — raise the limit. So far this year, Larry Lemay has been ticketed four times for speeding. Rather than slow down, Lemay is suing the state Department of Transportation to study traffic and speed limits across New Hampshire, to see whether limits could be raised. Lemay's lawsuit, filed in Strafford County Superior Court, also asks a judge to order the Transportation Department to pay for his legal fees and the cost of the study, an estimated $1,853. Lemay...

Four teenagers were killed early Thursday morning when the stolen SUV they were in and a train collided. It happened in Baytown at Archer Road and Fleming around 3:30 a.m. According to the Harris County Sheriff's Office, six teenagers were in the stolen Jeep when the driver apparently did not see a Union Pacific train that had apparently been stalled on the tracks for some time. The SUV slammed into the tanker car at a high rate of speed and went under it into a ditch. Four people in the backseat, three girls and one boy ages 12 to 15,...

Only 354 of 90,000 police caught on camera speeding or jumping red lights last year were punished. Last night forces were accused of double standards after it emerged that only one in 200 officers was fined or given points, compared with 84 per cent of ordinary drivers. In a quarter of the cases the police cars had their blue lights flashing, suggesting officers were attending an emergency. However, nearly all of the rest had the slate wiped clean by senior police, saving them from three points on their licence and a £60 fine. Managers have the discretion to cancel tickets...

TRENTON, N.J. — It will be agonizing, emotional and draining. Most of all, it will be painful. New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine faces months of intensive therapy to recover from serious injuries suffered in an April 12 crash on the Garden State Parkway. "It is a grueling course that he's going to go through," said Kathleen O'Donnell, an inpatient rehabilitation manager at Atlantic Health, which operates several northern New Jersey health facilities. "My heart goes out to him." Corzine has been in intensive care since breaking 11 ribs, his sternum, a leg, his collarbone and a vertebra in the...

BREAKING NEWS: Corzine still critical, on ventilator By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Posted Friday, April 20, 2007 at 2:08 pm CAMDEN — Though top staffers hoped early on that Gov. Jon S. Corzine would be back on the job about a week after a car crash on the Garden State Parkway, it's become clear there are no quick fixes for the governor's injuries. He remained on a ventilator and in critical but stable condition today, more than a week after badly hurting his leg and chest. The last major medical milestone came Monday, when doctors performed the third and final...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The SUV carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about 91 mph moments before it crashed, Superintendent of State Police Col. Rick Fuentes said Tuesday. The governor was critically injured when the vehicle crashed into a guardrail on the Garden State Parkway just north of Atlantic City last week. He apparently was not wearing his seat belt as he rode in the front passenger's seat. The speed limit along that stretch of the parkway is 65 mph. The state trooper-driven sport utility vehicle was in the left lane with its emergency lights flashing when a pickup...

A New Orleans city Councilwoman was busted going over 100mph down I-10 in New Orleans. Her response was the classic, "Do you know who I am?" God, I hate self-important politicians. Link to relevent reports- http://blog.nola.com/graphics/2007/04/pdfs_morrell_driving_reports.html

     Overtaking ... video from bike shown on YouTube   Man nicked by YouTube video  February 16, 2007           BIKER Jeremy Parrott is set to become the first person prosecuted for speeding because of a video posted on YouTube. Parrott, 37, filmed himself — with a camera fixed behind his windshield — allegedly speeding at 100mph.Police were made aware of the video on the website and traced Parrott because he was filmed leaving his front door in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset. He was quizzed and freed on bail. Cops expect charges of dangerous driving to be brought...

See for example this thread first. The police claim they clocked someone going 147 mph on Scottsdale's loop 101. I drive through there fairly often, it has its share of Porsches, BMW's and the like. But in this case...? Read on. Today's news is of driving fun on Scottsdale's famed Loop 101 He thought he could fly ...but in a Hyundai? Something's wrong with the cops' radar gun!

Speeding: Now you will be finger printedby STEVE DOUGHTY Last updated at 00:17am on 22nd November 2006    . Motorists pulled over by police face the threat of being fingerprinted from today - further inflaming fears over the growth of the Big Brother culture.They will be asked to use a hand-held fingerprint reader which will check their identity against the 6.5million recorded prints of crime suspects. Although the scheme, to be tried out by ten police forces, will be voluntary at first, the Government has admitted it is considering making it compulsory. It would work in the same way...

LONDON (Reuters) - A British motorist who blew up a road safety camera which had caught him speeding was jailed for four months Wednesday, Greater Manchester Police said. Craig Moore, 28, took his revenge on the camera, which had flashed him in the Hyde area of Manchester, in August 2005.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday. The driver was caught traveling 161 km/hr (100 mph) in a 100 km/hr zone in eastern Ontario Sunday. "A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident. Local police said it was the first time they had ever heard of such an excuse. "I've never been...

See for example this thread first. From Scottsale comes news of this joker The scofflaw, high-speed mortgage broker! Highway 101 Is where it was done To gamble, she'd best stick with poker!

PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) - As a mortgage broker in Arizona, Francesca Cisneros is used to working with big numbers. It's the double-digit speed limits she has trouble with. Cisneros racked up 70 speeding tickets in the last five months, a record for the Scottsdale Police Department, police said on Friday. Speeding cameras in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, snapped pictures of the 32-year-old woman as she tore through the sun-baked city in her Honda Civic between March 2 and July 31. "She told arresting officers she was speeding because she seemed to be late for client meetings all the time,"...

MEL Gibson was speeding, drunk and absolutely certain of how this episode would end when he was pulled over and arrested by a police officer in Malibu. Gibson, 50, told Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy James Mee he "owned" Malibu as he was driven, handcuffed, to the Los Hills sheriff's station early on Friday morning, and he would "get even" with him. "I'm going to f--- you," Gibson reportedly said. "You're going to regret you ever did this to me." What followed will cast a shadow over the remainder of the American-born, Australian-raised Gibson's career as one of Hollywood's most...

DENTON - "Grandma" lost her argument for a contrived ballot nickname. But Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn of Austin might have found a plank on which to build a campaign against Gov. Rick Perry. It's a plank 600 miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It's a giant, privately owned, multilane tollway that would part the Texas countryside the way the governor parts his ample hair. Strayhorn, a Republican running as an independent candidate, has criticized the Trans-Texas Corridor tollway plan loudly for months. So have the other principal challengers in this traffic jam of a race, novelist Kinky Friedman of Medina...

We used to fingerprint felons -- now, we're "inking" traffic scofflaws. Run a couple of mph over the speed limit in the state of Kansas (or even fail to "buckle up for safety") and you'll be duly entered into the Kansas Bureau of Investigation's electronic fingerprint database -- a privilege once reserved for actual criminals, not ordinary citizens who commit minor violations of the motor vehicle code. KBI, authorized by the state government, will be "testing out" 60 automated fingerprint readers throughout the state beginning this month -- all of it funded by a $3.6 million grant from the Department...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Stressed Miami drivers speed, tailgate and cut off other drivers so frequently that it has earned the city the title of worst road rage in a survey released Tuesday. Norwalk, Conn.-based AutoVantage, an automobile membership club offering travel services and roadside assistance, also listed Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles and Boston among the top five cities for rude driving in its first "In the Driver's Seat Road Rage Survey." "The advent of road rage is part of every day life," said Todd Smith, director of corporate communications for AutoVantage's parent company, Affinion Group, which has offices in...

After last week's discussion of whether cops always obey the traffic laws they're sworn to enforce, I've had lots of folks say I can kiss goodbye any chance of getting off with just a warning the next time I get caught lead-footed. Probably true. But readers also had other thoughts, like if it's really so bad if cops do what a lot of Las Vegas Valley drivers do, and top the speed limit by a few ticks. Some aren't too sure it's the worst thing in the world. No harm, no foul. Sparking the debate is the case of Joshua...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — To some towns it’s an important stream of revenue. To some drivers it’s highway robbery. Tim Gant, a guardrail inspector from Clarksburg, says his tiny West Tennessee town is a speed trap that artificially drives down speed limits so it can drive up collections from speeding tickets. Gant has persuaded state Rep. Chris Crider, R-Milan, to introduce a bill that would require blue speed limit signs for any municipality that gets more than half its revenue from traffic tickets. "Most folks around my speed-trap town refer to the problem as ‘legal highway robbery,“’ Gant said in...

Nestor Traffic Systems photographed more than 2,600 alleged speeders this fall -- snapping as many as seven cars a minute -- in and around Akron school zones. The take in fines in that 19-day period: nearly half a million dollars. The tripod-mounted mobile cameras nailed the most drivers in the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Copley Road, near Erie Island Elementary School in West Akron. Nestor nabbed more than 1,000 drivers there and issued $182,000 in fines, nearly 40 percent of the total. The second-busiest stakeout was in the 400 block of Darrow Road near Betty Jane Elementary School in...

To combat the high volume of speeders through residential areas, Howard County police are sharing some of the responsibility for identifying those speeders with the people they believe know those areas best: the residents. Through the department's Speed Monitoring and Radar Team (SMART) program, citizens are getting the opportunity to wield radar guns and record tag numbers in an effort to slow speeders and make their neighborhoods safer. Howard County police officials began the program in 1998, after seeing the success of the SMART program in Montgomery County. Community action "It is a community response to a community program so...

http://www.midistudio.com/Studios/TedK/tedk50s.htm MIDI - BEEP BEEP While leaving the Camp Cindy Ditch...Al said his goodbyes He said something dumb, you know pandering Al...that is no big surprise He looked to his left at a deputy...who did not give him a big smile Al gave the guy the evil eye and stared at him awhile A Jew, a Jew...the cop must be a Jew He got into his limousine and headed for his flight He was thinking he cannot be late for it or he'd be stuck all night He told the driver he's really screwed if he didn't make it on...

A driver for the Rev. Al Sharpton led Ellis County sheriff's deputies on a nine-mile chase at speeds up to 110 mph before state troopers stopped the car, authorities said. The driver was rushing Sharpton to the airport after his visit with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on Sunday at her camp outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford. The car carrying Sharpton and two other passengers was clocked doing 110 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 35 in Ellis County in North Texas, said Lt. Danny Williams. The car ignored deputies' attempts to stop it and continued speeding and...

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) -- The chief financial officer of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has completed half of a 24-hour jail sentence for speeding and is to return this weekend to complete the other half. Thomas M. Schoewe, 52, pleaded guilty Aug. 5 in Rogers District Court for reportedly driving 110 mph on Interstate 540. A state trooper stopped Schoewe in his red Corvette at 1:30 a.m. Jan. 1. District Judge Doug Schrantz sentenced Schoewe to a day in jail.

Ross Perot fined for speeding in his boat By Coggie Gibbons (News from 2005-07-01 Edition) American billionaire and sometime Bermuda resident Ross Perot was fined in Magistrates’ Court this week for two marine offences. Former U.S. presidential candidate Mr. Perot, 75, of Tucker’s Town, pleaded guilty to operating a power craft without reasonable consideration on July 24 last year in western waters and speeding in a restricted area where the limit was five knots. Inspector Philip Taylor, prosecuting, told the court that a member of the public in a boat in waters off Watford Island, Somerset saw Mr. Perot’s 38-foot...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A motorcyclist captured on film by German police racing at 251 km per hour (155 mph) on a road near Berlin has set a new unofficial national record for speeding, Bild newspaper reported on Monday. Travelling more than twice the speed limit of 100 kmh, the motorcycle rider was caught on film in a police radar trap near Bad Freienwalde outside Berlin but authorities don't know who the speeder was because motorcycles have no front licence plates. "We are not able to identify him," said Lothar Wiegand, a spokesman for the Brandenburg Transport Ministry in Potsdam. While...

Rico Lamar Porter doesn't have a license to drive, but apparently he thought he had a license to fly Wednesday afternoon. Porter, 27, of 25 Dyer Drive, Hickory, was arrested after leading state police on an eight-mile, 170-mph chase on traffic-congested Interstate 70. That's no misprint. Commonly referred to as a sport bike or "crotch rocket," an aerodynamic motorcycle like the one Porter was operating is capable of speeds of around 200 mph. Trooper Martin Gonglik was running radar about 4:20 p.m. near the Dunningsville exit of the highway when he clocked Porter going 120 mph. Gonglik activated the lights...

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Washington State Patrol troopers pulled over Porsches, Ferraris and even a Lamborghini on Interstate 5 this weekend as more than 50 drivers, many in luxury cars, set out on a five-day rally that involves driving from city to city to collect poker cards. The 2005 Players Run began in Seattle and has stops in Ashland, Ore., San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego en route to Las Vegas. Drivers, who pay $9,800 to participate, collect playing cards along the way until they have enough for a poker hand. After they reach Las Vegas on Wednesday, they're treated...

Dubai: Traffic Department officers in Dubai are grappling with an unexpected problem - speeding motorists making indecent gestures to radar cameras. A source from the Radar Department at Dubai Traffic Police said such incidents were quite common and mainly involved young men, but sometimes women as well. "A few days ago, I saw the radar picture of a young man naked and driving at very high speed. This picture was very embarrassing, and it was clear the young man had done it on purpose. He did not even bother to hide the number plate of his car. "Another picture was...