Posted on 04/05/2008 6:56:50 AM PDT by kellynla
It's 1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday in February and a Toyota Camry is driving west on the 91 Express Lanes, for free, for the 470th time.
The electronic transponder on the dashboard – used to bill tollway users – is inactive. The Camry's owners, airport traffic officer Rudolph Duplessis and his wife, Loretta, have never had a toll road account, officials say.
They've never received a violation notice in the mail, either. Their car is registered as part of a state program which hides their home address on Department of Motor Vehicles records. The agency that operates the tollway does not have legal access to their address.
Their Toyota is one of 996,716 vehicles registered to motorists who are affiliated with 1,800 state and local agencies and who are allowed to shield their addresses under the Confidential Records Program.
An Orange County Register investigation has found that the program, designed 30 years ago to protect police from criminals, has been expanded to cover hundreds of thousands of public employees – from police dispatchers to museum guards – who face little threat from the public. Their spouses and children can get the plates, too.
This has happened despite warnings from state officials that the safeguard is no longer needed because updated laws have made all DMV information confidential to the public.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Related piece:
“DMV wants $8,442 for list of agencies with protected plates”
http://www.ocregister.com/article/program-dmv-records-2012250-register-million
ping
Ya might want to alert our fellow Californians...
Some are more equal, and that is quite a sum.
BTW, Arguably, earthquakes, brushfires and mudslides are "weather"
California certainly is not the only state that enables public officials to live above the law. In Maryland, some cops in Montgomery county refuse to pay speeding tickets that they received from speeding cameras while driving police cars.
It is too bad these people cannot be fired and permanently disallowed from ever working for government again. But of course, this is why so many people in this country have nothing but feelings of cynicism and contempt for government in general, because anyone who is "on the inside" gets a free pass while everyone else has to obey the law.
Well in Conn. you have blizzards. I think there is no place in USA that is totally devoid of natural disaster - earthquake, blizzard, flood, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, mudslides, volcanos, etc. We thought maybe New Mexico, but it has that “dormant” volcano.
I think it's because California has some very interesting crimes.
LOL, parents need to get their children into the lucrative government business - - generous pension and benefits, essentially unfireable, easy hours, work at your own pace, retire in your fifties, maybe even your forties....
I'm glad to see that someone is finally telling the public the real reason that we have to put up with the traffic congestion caused by the use of Diamond Lanes out here on the Left Coast.
The fact that the politicians can drive the Diamond Lanes free of the car pool restriction is that reason. It is the only reason. It certainly a fact that Diamond Lanes take up way more real estate on our freeways than can possibly be justified by any improvement in traffic flow that theoretically results in the greater use of car pools. That simply didn't happen in sufficient numbers to justify the continued deployment of our Diamond Lanes. It is way past time to bury this bad idea.
Another example of why every family should have a member who either works for the government or is an attorney.
Three children and four grandsons all within a 45-minute drive. You will put up with a lot of Left Coast nonsense for that privilege.
And don’t tell me, let me guess......98% of these people are Democrats, right? Do I get the brass ring for cutting to the core of the problem? They are getting closer and closer to the old Pol communists with their job perks. Yes, some ARE more equal than others.
No, no, noooooo! Those things are the "result" of evil humans breathing, living life and having those dastardly fleshly desires for food, clothing and shelter.....polluting the purity of their surroundings by their existence......disturbing Gaia in the process.
Who thinks this is limited to Kalifornia? LOL! This sort of thing is NORMAL in govt. Bureaucrats regularly get away with crimes that would put regular citizens in jail. They are quite brazen. You should see the crud that goes on in any govt office... State, local or Federal. Right now the entire executive structure of the DOD under the new NSPS system is systematically stealing every cent they can for personal pay raises and bounses. Nothing can be done, even though these civilian traitors are ruining our war fighting capabilites.
Those of us old enough remember a time when California was the Promised Land, when we would watch the sunshine-covered Rose Parade while the snow piled up outside, or the women “wished they all could be California girls”.
Now California is essentially a Third World slum, with all the attendant corruption, crime, filth, and dismal quality of life more in tune with Tegucigalpa. So many people are leaving that if you factor out the illegals, it is LOSING population.
Maybe it’s time to give it back to Mexico. In a very few years, when the Hispanic population exceeds 51%, they will be voting secession anyhow, so let’s save all the trouble and let them have it.
New Mexico is supposed to be the safest state regarding natural disasters, but it does have other problems (drunk driving, tailgaters, Democrats).
It's true that the Jemez mountains are a huge volcano that is supposed to blow up every 200,000 years or so. I've heard it's due.
Some animals are more equal.
/sarcasm>
“It’s true that the Jemez mountains are a huge volcano that is supposed to blow up every 200,000 years or so. I’ve heard it’s due.”
Who documented that it blew up 200,000 years ago?
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