Two articles from different sources, reporting on different parts of the country

Seen in the Boston Herald:

Pike officials, under fire for approving a hefty toll hike scheduled to take effect July 1, faced more heat yesterday after the Herald reported that there was a 23 percent increase in speeding tickets on the Pike during the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2007.

State Police spokesman David Procopio said strict speeding enforcement is one of the reasons the Pike is so safe. Three people died in roadway crashes in 2008 on the 138-mile Pike, he said. There have been no fatal crashes on the Pike this year, he said. […]

But Mike Kelleher, who founded an anti-toll-increase group and lives in East Boston, said the 40 mph Ted Williams Tunnel, where he once got a speeding ticket, is heavily patrolled – and he wonders if Pike drivers are being targeted so the cash-strapped agency can bring in more dollars.

I’m sure that it’s pure coincidence that the increased visibility of state troopers on the Mass Pike happened just as noise started to be made about the Mass Pike’s dire financial condition as the market crashed.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi (via the Clarion Ledger):

Police Chief Lee Shelbourn said Monday he was told to double the number of citations and set up more roadblocks to help ease Petal’s budget crisis.

But Mayor Carl Scott and the Board of Aldermen deny giving such instructions.

Shelbourn would not disclose who gave him the instructions. He said his department did as it was told but isn’t planning to do it anymore.

"The Police Department is not supposed to be a money-making organization," he said. "Our purpose is to provide public safety to the citizens of Petal … to where they can feel safe at night."

I should mention that I don’t mind enforcement of traffic laws.  There are times I wish there were a bit more enforcement (although I wish some sanity prevailed in regards to the some of what’s being enforced.)

But traffic enforcement as a means of revenue enhancement just reeks of unfairness.

Perhaps it is pure coincidence that the Mass Pike decided to promote safety and compliance with traffic laws at this time.  But if revenue wasn’t at least part of the motivation…well, shouldn’t that increased police presence have been the norm all along?  And, isn’t adding to law enforcement costs at a time of a budget crunch rather dumb, unless that change will drive new revenue?

For those of you who are so inclined, it seems that the New York Times has a fascinating, if sad, interactive map online, showing the foreclosure rates by census tract in its primary market for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Given prior public debate about setting up photo radar on Avon Mountain and on I-95, as well as West Hartford’s ‘warnings only’ photo radar… well, given the tightness of the budget and congestion on Connecticut highways, it’s not surprising that some photo traffic enforcement measure would have some traction in the Connecticut legislature this session.   From the Courant:

Camera traffic enforcement bills have never gotten traction in Connecticut, but several have again been introduced this year to place radar cameras on state highways to nab speeders or to allow municipalities to install cameras at intersections to catch red-light runners.

So far, all but one have flopped, and the lone survivor still faces major problems — including criticism that camera enforcement bills aren’t all about safety but are partly motivated by a thirst for government revenue during a state budget crisis.[…]

The lone bill to survive the transportation committee would allow a two-year trial of using cameras for red light enforcement in New Haven, though the original measure would have covered all cities and towns. Another proposal — to use radar cameras for highway speed enforcement — was killed by the committee, though it was offered by Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The governor’s office refuses to pronounce it dead, but for now the New Haven bill is considered the only live one.

[S]ome — like Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain, Guerrera’s fellow transportation committee co-chairman — say that it won’t be many years before a traffic camera bill becomes law, based on citizens’ gradual acceptance of camera surveillance all around them.

"Almost any business you go to, they’ve got cameras," DeFronzo said. "Larger cities have authorized cameras," such as New York and Philadelphia, to catch red-light runners. "In Europe, [radar cameras for speeders] are prevalent."

He said people commonly walk around now with "little video cameras … in their cellphones. You can be totally minding your own business, but if you look unusual or do something odd, you can end up on YouTube. It doesn’t have the same shock value that it used to."

Slippery slope, anybody?

While I won’t jump on the meme that the feds have turned socialist, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a Connecticut state legislator by the name of Karl Marx.  From the Greenwich Time:

A Connecticut legislative committee has endorsed a proposal to prohibit fuel distributors from charging varying amounts to gas stations based on their location.

The practice, known as zone pricing, has been criticized by lawmakers for the past several years as unfair to drivers and gas stations.

They say it inflates wholesale gas prices in wealthy areas, putting those dealers at a disadvantage and hurting consumers.

Distributors say zone pricing lets them respond quickly to local competition because they can immediately cut their prices to match those of nearby stations with lower wholesale prices.

Well, I suppose if this comes to pass…and if Massachusetts’ proposed 19¢/gallon tax hike goes through…this would at least put an end to the time-honored practice of traveling miles just to save a few cents a gallon.

At least the state hasn’t tried legislating the price of gas…yet.

I’ve been busy and have once again accumulated a pile of articles worth mentioning without having the time to go into much detail.

• Business Insurance has an article summarizing a recent Hewitt study, reporting that 19% of all employers are planning to eliminate employee health benefits over the next 3-5 years.  It’s not clear from the BI article how much of that is the result of the economy, and how much of that arises from expectations of a federal-run health care program emerging in the near future.
   
• Insurance Journal mentions that the Senate has failed to act on extending the National Flood Insurance Program.  If the program is not reauthorized by 11:59pm tonight, no new NFIP policies may be written, and NFIP policies may not be renewed starting tomorrow…..at least until a bill reauthorizing the program or a continuing resolution passes both houses.
   
• Arguments were heard yesterday before the California Supreme Court challenging Proposition 8, an initiative amending the California state constitution to prohibit previously-legal same-gender marriages.  Patrick Edaburn at The Moderate Voice notes with some disappointment that the debate suggests a 5-4 ruling upholding the validity of the Proposition.  He also expects a 5-4 ruling that marriages formalized before passage of Prop 8 would remain valid under California law. 

  If this challenge fails, I imagine pretty quickly we’ll see another suit brought on equal-protection grounds, challenging the gender inequity of Prop 8 and/or challenging the unfairness of some same-gender couples having their marriages recognized while others’ are not.
   

• The Courant has run an article reporting on a bill moving through the state legislature which would make it illegal to “block the box” – that is, to enter an intersection without the ability to exit it before the traffic light changes. 

  Personally, I’m amazed that it isn’t already illegal; I guess I need to revise my opinion of oh-so-many drivers encountered at congested intersections on my commute route from “criminal” to merely “rude”.  
   
  Of course, I expect that this bill, if it becomes law, will be at least as rarely-enforced as other recently-passed common-sense traffic laws in Connecticut – the cell-phone ban, and the requirement that drivers clear their vehicles of snow and ice.
   

• Hartford’s residual glory as the former insurance capital of the nation seems to have tarnished a bit further in recent days.   The Courant reported that the Phoenix Companies lost their biggest distribution channel recently, when State Farm stopped selling their products.  And, the Wall Street Journal passed along a rumor that The Hartford is in talks to sell its life insurance operations to Canada’s Sun Life, in an effort to staunch the flow of bad news from HIG’s economic woes.

And people wonder why I hate driving in West Hartford.   From the Courant:

Speeders beware — you are being watched.

But the speed-detection camera installed this week at Boulevard and Whiting Lane is a kind of compassionate Big Brother that just wants to slow down drivers. Those photographed traveling 45 mph or faster at this 30-mph location will get a photo with a warning letter.

The legislature prohibits using these radar cameras for enforcement purposes, so the joint effort by police, the engineering office and the public works department amounts to a public awareness campaign.[…]

Only one speed-detection unit at a time will be equipped with the camera. After this introductory period, drivers won’t know which of the units has the digital eye, McCue said.

The camera will photograph cars traveling 15 mph over the speed limit or faster. Each image shows the vehicle, with a magnified view of the front license plate.

Kraus’ staff will download the images and keep them in a computer file that will be available for public viewing. Printouts of the images will be given to the police department.

A “public awareness campaign”.  Riiight.

So, yesterday (Wednesday) we in Connecticut were treated to a lovely New England style slop-storm, featuring several inches of snow, followed by quite a bit of rain, which resulted in a thick, solid hunk of ice covering every unsalted outside surface.

This hunk of ice is annoying for folks who had the misfortune to be parked outside during the storm.   I know, because I chiseled it off my vehicle before driving home from work yesterday.  It’s always a fun chore for me, since I drive an SUV, and short people are not built to clean ice off tall vehicles…especially when standing on an ice-covered parking lot.

When popping out of the office at lunch, and again when running errands this evening, I noticed that not everyone else had been as diligent.  The daytime sunshine and (relative) warmth permitted just enough thawing that it was common to see sheets of frozen slop flying from the tops of cars, SUVs, and delivery trucks.

One of those ice missiles caused an accident.  Another smashed a windshield.  And I was very nearly in an accident caused by another driver trying to avoid a third hunk of mother nature’s love.

Folks, there’s a reason that it’s now against the law to drive a snow/ice-covered vehicle in Connecticut, even if the cops seem not to be interested in enforcing that law.  If you can’t be bothered…someone could easily be hurt.

Who says hacks must be limited to MIT? 

Via KXAN:

Austin drivers making their morning commute were in for a surprise when two road signs on a busy stretch of road were taken over by hackers. The signs near the intersection of Lamar and Martin Luther King boulevards usually warn drivers about upcoming construction, but Monday morning they warned of  "zombies ahead."

In roadgeek circles, there is perennial debate about whether speeding tickets are a means to enforce safe driving, or are a way for governments to derive additional revenue from citizens.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch Tuesday pointed to a paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis which is set to be published in the Journal of Law and Economics.  The abstract reads:

Municipalities have revenue motives for enforcing traffic laws in addition to public safety motives because many traffic offenses are punished via fines and the issuing municipality often retains the revenue. Anecdotal evidence supports this revenue motive. We empirically test this revenue motive using a panel of annual data for North Carolina counties from 1990 to 2003. We find that significantly more tickets are issued in the year following a decline in revenue, but the issuance of traffic tickets does not decline in years following revenue increases. Elasticity estimates reveal that a ten percent decrease in negative revenue growth results in a 6.4 percent increase in the growth rate of traffic tickets. Our results suggest that tickets are used as a revenue generation tool rather than solely a means to increase public safety.

It’s worth noting that in some states, municipalities retain the revenue from speeding tickets they issue.  In other states, the money flows up to the state, regardless of which law enforcement agency issues the ticket, either to discourage abusive speed traps, or because of the state’s judicial structure.

Connecticut is a state where townie tickets fill state coffers.

Since the state General Assembly will be debating the question of granting towns the authority to gain revenue from sources other than property taxes…I wonder if someone should send a copy of this paper to legislators.