Things That Really Grind My Gears

[NickNels]

getting a $100 ticket in the mail today with a photo of my licence plate for apparently going 60 in a 40 in DC on the way home from phish. fucking horse manure.

If it is anything like AZ, I would not pay that ticket.  A photo ticket sent by mail does not ensure you actually received the ticket.  If you do not pay the fine by the due date, a police officer has to be sent to physically issue the ticket.  Considering you live in CT I don\'t see them making the trip up from DC.

It happened to me in AZ a couple times (that state is ridiculous with those cameras).  My plates were registered in CT.  I never had any reprocussions from not paying those tickets.  They were sent to my CT address.

pay it. i have had my license suspended that way in VA. the policing/traffic court system in the DC metro area is an evil neverending shitstorm of douchebags taking your money. get out while you can.

Really?  I find that hard to believe...how could they suspend your license based simply on the assumption that you received a piece of mail?  There is no chance that would hold up in court.  Holly, you didn\'t pay a ticket you received in the mail from a speed trap and they suspended your license?  How did you find out your license was suspended?

I really think i\'m right on this one.  Unless you return a signed receipt with your payment they can never prove that you received this ticket.  It is just a money generation scheme for Washington DC.  Any money they see from those cameras is a bonus.

Dave...I know how you like to fight the "for the principle of it" battles...this is one of them

[Mamalakabubadaya]

getting a $100 ticket in the mail today with a photo of my licence plate for apparently going 60 in a 40 in DC on the way home from phish. fucking horse manure.

If it is anything like AZ, I would not pay that ticket.  A photo ticket sent by mail does not ensure you actually received the ticket.  If you do not pay the fine by the due date, a police officer has to be sent to physically issue the ticket.  Considering you live in CT I don\'t see them making the trip up from DC.

It happened to me in AZ a couple times (that state is ridiculous with those cameras).  My plates were registered in CT.  I never had any reprocussions from not paying those tickets.  They were sent to my CT address.

pay it. i have had my license suspended that way in VA. the policing/traffic court system in the DC metro area is an evil neverending shitstorm of douchebags taking your money. get out while you can.

Really?  I find that hard to believe...how could they suspend your license based simply on the assumption that you received a piece of mail?  There is no chance that would hold up in court.  Holly, you didn\'t pay a ticket you received in the mail from a speed trap and they suspended your license?  How did you find out your license was suspended?

well i was dumb about it and thought i was invincible. didn\'t pay the ticket, moved to a new address, never heard anything.... got pulled over and had some problems.

you can\'t not pay those things in va/dc/md. they will get ya.

[zuke583]

getting a $100 ticket in the mail today with a photo of my licence plate for apparently going 60 in a 40 in DC on the way home from phish. fucking horse manure.

If it is anything like AZ, I would not pay that ticket.  A photo ticket sent by mail does not ensure you actually received the ticket.  If you do not pay the fine by the due date, a police officer has to be sent to physically issue the ticket.  Considering you live in CT I don\'t see them making the trip up from DC.

It happened to me in AZ a couple times (that state is ridiculous with those cameras).  My plates were registered in CT.  I never had any reprocussions from not paying those tickets.  They were sent to my CT address.

pay it. i have had my license suspended that way in VA. the policing/traffic court system in the DC metro area is an evil neverending shitstorm of douchebags taking your money. get out while you can.

Really?  I find that hard to believe...how could they suspend your license based simply on the assumption that you received a piece of mail?  There is no chance that would hold up in court.  Holly, you didn\'t pay a ticket you received in the mail from a speed trap and they suspended your license?  How did you find out your license was suspended?

well i was dumb about it and thought i was invincible. didn\'t pay the ticket, moved to a new address, never heard anything.... got pulled over and had some problems.

you can\'t not pay those things in va/dc/md. they will get ya.

you got pulled over in the virginia area, right? nick was able to skip his tix becaue he knew he\'d never get pulled over in arizona again. if dave thinks it may be forever before he drives in that area of the country, then it might be worth the risk. holly, you f\'d up because you drive to virginia like 4 times a year

[SkyePrizm]

you can\'t not pay those things in va/dc/md. they will get ya.

Dave, I agree with Holly.   You gotta pay it.  It sucks.  But I really have it on good authority that DC are bastards and will eventually find you.

With that said, if anyone gets pulled over in hamden for speeding, say Mark is your cousin.  It worked for a scumbag ex of mine.  He was so proud he had to call me up and tell me.   (he is not mark\'s cousin, obviously.  but i guess they don\'t check these things. and let him go).

[skalnbyc]

Article in today\'s WSJ on the traffic camera subject.  

Even has a mention of cameras in New Haven, CT.  

Good thing Phoenix installed the cameras in November; I was certainly speeding on Breakfast tour just one month prior:

Get the Feeling You\'re Being Watched? If You\'re Driving, You Just Might Be
Cameras to Catch Speeders and Scofflaws Are Spreading -- And Sparking Road Rage

By WILLIAM M. BULKELEY

The village of Schaumburg, Ill., installed a camera at Woodfield Mall last November to film cars that were running red lights, then used the footage to issue citations. Results were astonishing. The town issued $1 million in fines in just three months.

But drivers caught by the unforgiving enforcement -- which mainly snared those who didn\'t come to a full stop before turning right on red -- exploded in anger. Many vowed to stop shopping at the mall unless the camera was turned off. The village stopped monitoring right turns at the intersection in January.

Once a rarity, traffic cameras are filming away across the country. And they\'re not just focusing their sights on red-light runners. The latest technology includes cameras that keep tabs on highways to catch speeders in the act and infrared license-plate readers that nab ticket and tax scofflaws.

Drivers -- many accusing law enforcement of using spy tactics to trap unsuspecting citizens -- are fighting back with everything from pick axes to camera-blocking Santa Clauses. They\'re moving beyond radar detectors and CB radios to wage their own tech war against detection, using sprays that promise to blur license numbers and Web sites that plot the cameras\' locations and offer tips to beat them.

Cities and states say the devices can improve safety. They also have the added bonus of bringing in revenue in tight times. But critics point to research showing cameras can actually lead to more rear-end accidents because drivers often slam their brakes when they see signs warning them of cameras in the area. Others are angry that the cameras are operated by for-profit companies that typically make around $5,000 per camera each month.

"We\'re putting law enforcement in the hands of third parties," says Ryan Denke, a Peoria, Ariz., electrical engineer who has started a Web site, Photoradarscam.com, to protest the state\'s speed cameras. Mr. Denke says he hasn\'t received a ticket via the cameras.

Protests over the cameras aren\'t new, but they appear to be rising in tandem with the effort to install more. Suppliers estimate that there are now slightly over 3,000 red-light and speed cameras in operation in the U.S., up from about 2,500 a year ago. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that at the end of last year, 345 U.S. jurisdictions were using red-light cameras, up from 243 in 2007 and 155 in 2006.

One traffic-cam seller, Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions Inc., recently reported it had installed its 1,000th camera, with 500 more under contract in 140 cities and towns. Rival Redflex Holdings Ltd. says it had 1,494 cameras in operation in 21 states at the end of 2008, and expects to top 1,700 by the end of this year.

Municipalities are establishing ever-more-clever snares. Last month, in a push to collect overdue taxes, the City Council in New Britain, Conn., approved the purchase of a $17,000 infrared-camera called "Plate Hunter." Mounted on a police car, the device automatically reads the license plates of every passing car and alerts the officer if the owner has failed to pay traffic tickets or is delinquent on car taxes. Police can then pull the cars over and impound them.

New Britain was inspired by nearby New Haven, where four of the cameras brought in $2.8 million in just three months last year. New Haven has also put license-plate readers on tow trucks. They now roam the streets searching for cars owned by people who haven\'t paid their parking tickets or car-property taxes. Last year 91% of the city\'s vehicle taxes were collected, up from "the upper 70s" before it acquired the technology, says city tax collector C.J. Cuticello.

Not that it\'s been smooth sailing. Mr. Cuticello recalls the time he tried to help tow the car of a woman who owed $536. She knocked him over, jumped in the car and drove away. She was later arrested for a hit-and-run.

City leaders have generally maintained that while revenue is a welcome byproduct of traffic citations, the laws are in place to improve public safety or reduce accidents.

But a study in last month\'s Journal of Law and Economics concluded that, as many motorists have long suspected, "governments use traffic tickets as a means of generating revenue." The authors, Thomas Garrett of the St. Louis Fed and Gary Wagner of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, studied 14 years of traffic-ticket data from 96 counties in North Carolina. They found that when local-government revenue declines, police issue more tickets in the following year. Officials at the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police didn\'t respond to requests for comment.

George Dunham, a village trustee in Schaumburg, says installing the red-light camera at the mall "wasn\'t about the revenue -- no one will believe that, but it wasn\'t." On the other hand, he says, with fuel taxes and sales taxes falling, its retreat on the camera has had a "painful" impact on Schaumburg\'s $170 million budget.

Cameras to catch speeders on highways, which are common in Europe, are just starting to spread in the U.S. Last June, Arizona added a provision for speed cams on highways to its budget bill, with an anticipated $90 million in fines expected to help balance the budget.

State police started placing the cameras on highways around Phoenix in November. In December, a trooper arrested a man in Glendale while he was attacking a camera with a pick ax. In another incident, a troupe of men dressed as Santa Claus toured around the city of Tempe in December and placed gaily wrapped boxes over several traffic cameras, blocking their views. Their exploits have been viewed more than 222,000 times on YouTube.

facist state representative Sam Crump has introduced a bill in the legislature to remove the cameras, which he says were approved "in the dead of night...as a budget gimmick."

In the meantime, the cameras are still being rolled out, and have already issued more than 200,000 violation notices since September. They are set to take a picture of cars going more than 11 miles over the speed limit, and they also photograph the driver.

Some entrepreneurs are trying to help camera opponents fight back. Phantom Plate Inc., a Harrisburg, Pa., company, sells Photoblocker spray at $29.99 a can and Photoshield, a plastic skin for a license plate. Both promise to reflect a traffic-camera flash, making the license plate unreadable. California passed a law banning use of the spray and the plate covers, which became effective at the beginning of this year.

A free iPhone application available on Trapster.com lets drivers use their cellphones to mark a traffic cam or speed trap on a Google map. The information on new locales is sent to Trapster\'s central computer, and then added to the map.

Other anti-cam Web sites counsel people to examine the pictures that come in the mail with citations. If the facial image is too blurry, they say, drivers can often argue successfully in court that no positive identification has been made of them.

Studies are mixed on whether traffic cameras improve safety. Some research indicates they may increase rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes when they see posted camera notices. A 2005 Federal Highway Administration study of six cities\' red-light cameras concluded there was a "modest" economic benefit because a reduction in side crashes due to less red-light running offset the higher costs of more rear-end crashes.

A study of crash causes released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last July found about 5% of crashes were due to traveling too fast and 2% were from running red lights. Driving off the side of the road, falling asleep at the wheel and crossing the center lines were the biggest causes identified.

Write to William M. Bulkeley at bill.bulkeley@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1

[jocelyn]

So I had this Cadbury Egg in my cabinet left over from Easter. I decided I needed some chocolate in a serious way. As I was eating it, I became aware of a ticklish feeling on my face, hand, and arm. I looked down and there were ants all over my arm. They were swarming all over my face too. Inside the Cadbury Egg, about a zillion ants. I definitely ate a whole bunch of them.

What the hell. Today sucks!

[tyzack]

So I had this Cadbury Egg in my cabinet left over from Easter. I decided I needed some chocolate in a serious way. As I was eating it, I became aware of a ticklish feeling on my face, hand, and arm. I looked down and there were ants all over my arm. They were swarming all over my face too. Inside the Cadbury Egg, about a zillion ants. I definitely ate a whole bunch of them.

What the hell. Today sucks!

i almost threw up reading this.

[jocelyn]

Sorry about that.

It was pretty bad for me, too.

[Spacey]

I was eating lunch but now puked. Some of it is in my shoe.

[derickw]

well think of it this way, you\'ve had your protein for the day.

[ds673488]

at lease they werent fire ants

still very nasty...although dont worry too much, ants are perfectly fine to eat

[thatguy]

eeeeeewwwwww

[tyzack]

The 24/7 Media cycle.

[Yoda]

Things That Really Grind My Gears....

I\'ve been trying to see this movie Hunger since it\'s original release date of 12/5/08 (which was pushed to 3/30/09) and there is only one theatre (and one screen) on the east coast playing this movie (SVA Theatre on 23rd St in NYC), yet stupid movies like Aliens In The Attic are being played in over 3,000 theaters...  To top it off, this movie is already available in Europe on Region 2... I contacted IFC Films to find out what the release date is and they responded back that there is no expected release date yet.  What the "F"....

[kindm's]

Things That Really Grind My Gears....

I\'ve been trying to see this movie Hunger since it\'s original release date of 12/5/08 (which was pushed to 3/30/09) and there is only one theatre (and one screen) on the east coast playing this movie (SVA Theatre on 23rd St in NYC), yet stupid movies like Aliens In The Attic are being played in over 3,000 theaters...  To top it off, this movie is already available in Europe on Region 2... I contacted IFC Films to find out what the release date is and they responded back that there is no expected release date yet.  What the "F"....

To me this would be an acceptable use of bit torrent.

You are doing everything in your power to see the movie legally but the powers that be are preventing you.

We had a similar issue when Idiocracy was released. It was only being shown in Canada and fox was refusing to release the movie in the states.

So it was procured by other means. I would say you should do the same.