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Speeding tickets generate revenue for the city or county in which they’re issued. If the police department is low on revenue, they’ll set up a speed trap on a busy road and lie in wait for the non-violent speed violators. If the city is really desperate, they’ll invest in a speed camera system that will be distributed around the city and send citations to the registered owners of the alleged speeding vehicles. And if they’re still not happy with the money they’re making, they’ll start issuing speeding tickets to people who aren’t even speeding. In Baltimore, Maryland, they’ve generated over...

To make good on his offer to help Chicago combat violence, Gov. Blagojevich envisions putting speed cameras on interstates across Illinois -- and using the revenue to form an "elite tactical team" that would operate in Chicago and other cities. The idea is in its infancy, with no budget and no timetable. About 50 Illinois State Police employees have been assigned to work with Chicago Police on everything from tracking down illegal gun buyers to hunting for criminals on Chicago's expressways, Guerrero said. "I want to be judged not by the number of people we provide, but by the results...

Influential Republican senator, John Warner of Virginia, suggested on Thursday that Congress consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to investigate what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. Warner said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit. In 1974, Congress set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline...

Scientists say the jury is still out on whether rising sea temperatures will cause more hurricanes to hit U.S. coastlines. Yet some insurance companies are boosting premiums based on assumptions that they will... Costs for homeowner insurance along the East and Gulf coasts have risen 20% to 100% since 2004, says the Insurance Information Institute... In the three years through 2006, says the institute, property and casualty insurers registered record profits, topping out at $65.8 billion in 2006... Helping to drive these developments is a little-known tool of the insurance world: Computerized catastrophe modeling. Crafted by several independent firms and...

A San Diego couple were angered by a $350 bill sent by the La Mesa Police Department for seven hours of extra duty by officers who responded to their daughter's drunken-driving accident in September. Paul and Rebecca Hand didn't question the arrest or the more than $4,000 in DUI-related fines, the DUI education classes and 12 weeks of group therapy classes a judge ordered after the 22-year-old woman hit a parked car. They were alarmed by the bill from police that arrived eight months after the crash. They complained to La Mesa officials, saying they assumed property taxes paid for...

That is why the strategy is intended to create a layered defense that would create a national federal standard to operate a boat, Allen says. The Coast Guard will work with states to establish minimum safety standards and ways to enforce the new rules. That may include requiring boat operators to have a copy of the safety certification on board with them and a piece of identification that links them to the certificate. That's important, security officials say, because currently there is no uniform requirement for pleasure boaters to have identification on board with them on the water.

Health district takes the wrong enforcement approach So this 105-pound Southern Nevada Health District clerk walks into a bar and tells a tired, 265-pound, tattooed construction worker, 'You can't smoke in here. I'm citing you. That'll cost you $100 ...' " It's not a joke. The Southern Nevada Health District is preparing to turn office staff into the Puff Patrol, a crack law enforcement squad charged with sniffing out violators of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. The new law, approved by voters in November, prohibits smoking inside most businesses, including bars that serve food. Because a Clark County district...

The labor pains were coming, so Jessica Hodges got going. The 26-year-old bank teller from Burke sped toward Inova Fairfax Hospital, but before she got there, the law got her -- 57 mph in a 35 zone. Reckless driving. Hodges's labor pains subsided -- they turned out to be a false alarm -- but the agony from her ticket is mounting. She was found guilty of the July 3 offense and given a $1,050 civil fee on top of a judge-imposed $100 fine and court costs, making her one of the first to be hit with Virginia's new "abusive driver...

The Minneapolis bridge disaster that suddenly is the symbol of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure could tip the scales in favor of billions of dollars in higher gasoline taxes for repairs coast to coast. There are 500 bridges across the country similar to the Minneapolis span, and “these are potential deathtraps,” said Rep. Don Young, RAlaska, former chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “We have to, as a Congress, grasp this problem. And, yes, I would even suggest, fund this problem with a tax,” he said. One-quarter of the nation’s bridges, including the one in Minneapolis, have been classified as structurally...

Alcohol was recently sold to minors at 14 convenience stores, restaurants and bars in the city, according to police. Over the past two months, the Bristol Tennessee Police Department conducted a sting using 20-year-old women who bought the beverages using valid, state-issued identification bearing their photographs and correct ages, according to a news release. The buys were made at each of the 52 businesses in the city that hold alcohol permits. The sting is aimed at curtailing the sale of alcohol to minors, according to the police statement. “If we catch one person or business – then that is one...

A new Virginia Department of Transportation study shows accidents increased by nearly a third where red light cameras were used. The Virginia Transportation Research Council today released a report expanding upon earlier research into the safety effects of red light cameras in Virginia. The new study, funded by the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, provided a city-by-city assessment that showed significant increases in the number of injuries and accidents at intersections employing photo enforcement. The change in the frequency of injury accidents varied widely among jurisdictions -- down 5 percent in one but up between 6...

'He really abused me,' resident says after arrest by Orem police officer OREM - Two days after Independence Day, 70-year-old Betty Perry experienced an ordeal she said shouldn't be happening in America. The retired military and U.S. government employee answered the door at her home Friday morning to talk with a police officer about her bone-dry lawn and ended up getting arrested and suffering a bloody nose. "What have I done?" she asked. "I'm old now. I can't believe this." The Orem police officer, as yet unnamed by city officials, cited Perry for violating a city ordinance with her "sadly...

ut for all the talk about warming, leading politicians have yet to educate their constituents (and their colleagues) about an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight warming will require everyone to pay more for energy. According to most scientists, the long-term costs of doing nothing — flooding, famine, drought — would be even higher than the costs of acting now. But unless Americans understand and accept the trade-off — higher prices today to avoid calamity later — the requisite public support for real change is unlikely to build. Energy is currently underpriced in part because its cost...

A tax increase on smokers is moving a step closer to reality. The Legislature's budget-writing committee agrees to increase the tax from $.77 per pack to $2.02. The hike would start September first. If approved, the increase would make Wisconsin's tax the fourth highest in the country behind New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington.

The state's hospitals would be subject to a new state tax of up to one percent of revenues under a proposal that won support from the Legislature's budget-writing committee today. Governor Jim Doyle pitched the $418 million hospital tax as a way to access $700 million in federal funds for hospitals to use over the next two years to treat additional Medicaid patients. But Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are skeptical, saying there's no guarantee the money won't be tapped for other things. But they couldn't get the one Democratic vote needed to keep the tax out of the...

NEW YORK April 20 (UPI) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday he is considering a plan to reduce traffic by charging a fee to drive in the city's central business districts. "Using economics to influence public behavior is something this country is built on -- it's called capitalism," Bloomberg said. His "congestion pricing" plan, modeled after a similar plan in London, would charge motorists at much as $8 to drive in key business areas, The New York Post reported. Taxicabs would be exempt. The plan would need state approval. Bloomberg did not say Friday how the tariff would...

As if it weren't enough that the price of cigarettes has skyrocketed, some 4,329 Pennsylvanians who purchased cigarettes over the Internet or from out-of-state mail order companies will soon receive a letter from the state Department of Revenue asking them to pay state taxes on their purchases. Under the federal Jenkins Act, vendors that ship cigarettes into another state are required to release information about the purchases to state taxing authorities, according to the statement. "Unfortunately, many Web sites falsely advertise that cigarettes can be purchased tax-free," said Thomas W. Wolf, Pennsylvania's acting secretary of revenue. "In fact, in Pennsylvania...

They can't send 'guru of ganja' to jail, but feds will retry case Federal prosecutors brushed off a judge's suggestion that they not retry a prominent marijuana advocate on cultivation charges and said Friday they would press ahead, even though he cannot be sent to prison if he is convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan made the announcement at a hearing in San Francisco before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who presided over the first trial of 62-year-old Ed Rosenthal of Oakland. When Bevan said last month that the government intended to retry the self-described "guru of ganja," Breyer urged...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Twenty-nine Michigan State Police troopers scheduled to be laid off this weekend will remain on the job at least until June, thanks to a deal struck Friday. The Michigan State Police Troopers Association decided to give the state Treasury nearly $400,000, enough money to at least temporarily avoid what have been the first state police layoffs since 1980. ``This is troopers taking care of troopers so that troopers can take care of the people of Michigan,'' union president Mike Moorman said in a statement. The deal at least delays trooper layoffs at more than 20 posts...

Bills Aim To Head Off Taxes On Internet Commerce By J. SCOTT ORR WASHINGTON — With the federal income tax deadline quickly approaching, millions of Americans are scrambling to complete their returns. But there's another tax deadline looming, one that sends shivers up and down the Internet backbone. On Nov. 21, the federal moratorium on taxes on Internet access as well as limitations on sales taxes will lapse unless Congress acts to make it permanent. At stake are billions of dollars consumers could be forced to pay to surf the Internet, buy merchandise, maybe even send e-mail. While states hope...