Garrett M. Vonk

Traffic politics are a major point of contention for me, encompassing a huge range of issues from red light cameras to random checkpoints. For this reason, I’ll probably check out Parking Wars on A&E as long as I can take it without changing the channel in frustration.

A blog I found last year, ambiguously named The Newspaper, does a fantastic job of rounding up the “politics of driving” stories. Here’s a sampling of the stories they covered this year:

In September, motorist Brett Darrow’s videotaped harassment during a traffic stop in a small Saint Louis city became international news. Our follow-up coverage showed area police continued to harass the young motorist, and even threaten him, over the publicity.

We also helped spread the word in June about the Virginia’s so-called abuser fees that turned what other states treat as an ordinary speeding ticket for driving as little as 15 MPH over the limit in a 65 zone (or 10 MPH over on sections of Interstate 85) into an offense carrying a maximum penalty of $3550. [...] Many motorists in the same state were surprised to learn in October that they faced a $2500 fine for not making a lane change away from a police officer stopped on the side of the road.

[...]

In April, we broke the news that a little known California agency intended to install speed cameras and the first-ever stop sign — not stoplight — camera, in violation of state law. We followed up with a report on the stop sign camera’s activation in July. But the news was not good for the ticketing industry in Minnesota. The state’s supreme court struck down of the legality of red light cameras with a strongly worded decision in April. In Kansas, ticketing picked up as police struck deals to hide video cameras in commercial big rig trucks to issue tickets to passing motorists.

Some UK motorists discovered ways to prove speed camera tickets inaccurate, including the use of a cell phone’s GPS readings as evidence.

Some of that stuff is pretty infuriating. (stop sign cameras?)