“Window obstructions” can give cops the pretext for a stop [Chicago Tribune]
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Posts tagged as:
traffic laws
- U.K.: “Families told doormats are health and safety risk” [Telegraph]
- Montana judge holds onto case for 34 years before finally issuing ruling [Popehat]
- Free speech and the web: panel from American Constitution Society convention [Above the Law]
- “Driver with ‘0′ license plates wrongly issued dozens of tickets” [Chicago Tribune, Obscure Store]
- Florida judge who presided over Anna Nicole Smith custody case accused in civil suit of looting elderly widow’s assets; probe however led to no criminal charges [Miami Herald, Bob Norman/Broward Palm Beach New Times]
- Economist/YouGov poll finds public supportive of limiting medical malpractice payouts [Point of Law]
- Someone writing San Francisco docket reports may have pawkish sense of humor [Lowering the Bar; Arcata, Calif. Eye's famously droll police blotter, mentioned in this space five years ago]
- Suing over co-worker’s perfume [two years ago on Overlawyered]
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“A Portland attorney who blamed his German luxury car for a speeding ticket was told he was responsible, not the automaker,” reports AP/OregonLive: C. Akin Blitz brought in a PowerPoint presentation and the testimony of a mechanic to bolster his argument “that he had no idea his BMW 535xi was going 76 mph in a 55 mph zone because of its handling characteristics”, but Clatsop County Circuit Judge Philip Nelson disagreed and fined Blitz $182.
P.S.: Ken at Popehat: “Legal realism note: as a rule, you will not find traffic court judges sympathetic to the defense ‘Your honor, I am not guilty because my German luxury car is too awesome.”
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Because, as Scott Greenfield points out, “This is NY. Death is no excuse.” [Jalopnik]
The District of Columbia has a new way to raise revenue: “When Anderson complained to a supervisor at DPW she was told that she could lease the property from the District and avoid future tickets.”
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You do have to wonder what the cops are thinking in some of these cases.
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Jim Moffett, waking up in intensive care in Denver, was reported to be “dazed and confused” at learning he was being charged with a traffic violation. [AP/Foster's Daily Democrat]. Update (thanks to Kimsch in comments): police rescind ticket.
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California is reaching for revenue by steeply hiking the fine you’ll pay when a patrolman writes a “fix-it” ticket over some minor repair needed on your car (via Amy Alkon).
More states are toughening mandatory seat-belt laws in search of cash: for one thing, the federal government bribes them to do so, and that’s aside from the ticket revenue.
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Bakersfield, California: 3000 drivers stopped, no drunk drivers apprehended. “By the way, the Supreme Court carved out an exception to the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment for roadblocks — but only for apprehending drunk drivers,” not for other purposes such as catching drivers with lapsed licenses. (DUIBlog, Dec. 9 via LexMonitor).
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Wouldn’t you have been too? Data entry was blamed. “Do not send cash,” the ticket advised. (Obscure Store).
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- Saying fashion model broke his very fancy umbrella, N.Y. restaurant owner Nello Balan sues her for $1 million, but instead gets fined $500 for wasting court’s time [AP/FoxNews.com, NY Times]
- Spokesman for Chesapeake, Va. schools says its OK for high school marching band to perform at Disney World, so long as they don’t ride any rides [Virginian-Pilot]
- More on Chicago parking tickets: revenue-hungry Mayor Daley rebuffed in plan to boot cars after only two tickets [Sun-Times, Tribune]
- Too old, in their 50s, to be raising kids? [Houston Chronicle via ABA Journal].
- Britain’s stringent libel laws and welcome mat for “libel tourism” draw criticism from the U.N. (of all places) [Guardian]
- Beaumont, Tex.: “Parents sue other driver, bar for daughter’s DUI death” [SE Texas Record, more, more]
- “Three pony rule”: $600,000 a year is needlessly high for child support, even if mom has costly tastes [N.J.L.J., Unfiltered Minds]
- Advocacy groups push to require health insurers and taxpayers to pay for kids’ weight-loss camps [NY Times]
- Lester Brickman: those fraud-rife mass screening operations may account for 90 percent of mass tort claims [PoL]
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Wired magazine (May) carries this bit of advice from attorney David Brown, author of Beat Your Ticket:
3. Stall. Two weeks before your trial, request a continuance from the court clerk. The longer you delay, the more likely the officer won’t be able to attend, which should result in a dismissal if you ask for one.
Question: is it ethical to advise clients to ask for continuances with the purely tactical aim of increasing the burden on an opponent, as opposed to the more aboveboard reasons one might have for such a request?
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Turns out their economic appeal for municipalities isn’t so closely related to whether drivers are plowing through cross traffic against the stop light: “In Los Angeles, officials estimate that 80% of red light camera tickets go not to those running through intersections but to drivers making rolling right turns”. (L.A. Times via Bainbridge and Drum).
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But won’t California lawmakers have to consider an exception for emotional support animals? (Steve Geissinger, San Jose Mercury News, May 6)(more).
A study by University of South Florida researchers will give critics new ammunition (USF via Balko; earlier).
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The Northeast as a region has been relatively resistant to the revenue-generating law-enforcement mechanism, but Connecticut Gov. Rell is now proposing them for a stretch of I-95. (Mike the Actuary, Feb. 11). In fairness, it might be argued that cameras deployed to auto-ticket speeders may not generate as bad a set of unintended consequences as cameras set up at traffic signals.
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More damning evidence on a subject on which there’s been plenty already (Sept. 6, 2001, Sept. 24, 2006, etc.; Oct. 31, 2006): “a study by the Federal Highway Administration and the Virginia Department documented a 12 percent increase in rear-enders at Northern Virginia intersections where cameras enforced red-light violations. Although proponents of cameras contend the number of such accidents decreases as motorists become used to this new enforcement technology, the study says that isn’t so. Meanwhile, simply extending the time that the traffic light stays yellow helps reduce violations and accidents. However, that solution isn’t necessarily popular with towns that see red-light tickets as a revenue source, the [Miami] Herald says.” (Martha Neil, “Traffic Cameras Mean More Rear-Enders”, ABA Journal, Oct. 31; Larry Lebowitz, “Red-light cameras a signal for war”, Miami Herald, Oct. 29).
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