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In what the British media is calling a "guerrilla ad campaign," Nissan recently stickered a handful of its fleet cars with "kill" graphics signifying motorsport wins. The targets? Porsche, BMW, and Audi. Guess which one couldn't take a joke. More »
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Once that bleeding-heart liberal Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970, the writing was on the wall for 11:1 compression hydrocarbon-spewing chrome chariots. Malaise Era, coming up! Still, it's now possible to breathe the air in Los Angeles. More »
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Back in May, we ran a post about how one Illinois officer received his comeuppance for doing his job by having his cruiser get ran over by a Camry. We now bring you the in-car video from the cop's perspective. The jury's still out on whether the 70-year old driver intended to dole out the harshness Killdozer-style or if he simply selected the wrong gear before trying to speed away angrily. We are leaning towards the former, which is evidenced by the screaming engine as the Camry driver keeps the gas planted even after mounting the Crown Vic. Hit the jump for the video. More »
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The infamous Truck Nutz have now been deemed illegal in Florida and are punishable with a measly $60 fine. If you remember, Virginia was working on enacting a similar bill that would make displaying the genitals a misdemeanor punishable with a $250 fine. What makes this even funnier is what some of Florida's senators had to say about the matter, including an admission of guilt by one. More »
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Despite how ridiculous it sounds, the above headline is absolutely true. A bill is being introduced in Congress that will establish some kind of safety standards to protect the walking blind from hybrids. Hybrids and other electric cars pose risks to the blind because they are too quiet. The blind listen for cars when crossing the street and having fleets of too quiet hybrids poses a dangerous risk, New York representative Edolphus Towns said. There's research to prove it too! More »
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As of October 1st, anyone caught doing 30mph over the speed limit in Florida faces vehicle confiscation, five to ten years in prison and a ten-year license suspension. Bill HB 137, which was signed into law earlier today, was originally targeted at motorcyclists, but was amended at the last minute to include all vehicles. The full text of the bill follows the jump. More »
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[Knowing your rights as a motorist is as important as knowing which pedal to hit when a tree looms. In a new, weekly feature called "Rules of the Road," Jalopnik's own political and legal wonk Matt Hardigree will cover the auto-related statutes that govern operation, registration and ownership of our cars. Read it. In addition to preventing minor inconveniences, it could determine whether or not you'll become roommates with a guy named "Ashcan" who has a penchant for frottage. — ed.] No one on this site, and no decent person I've ever met, thinks drinking and driving is a good idea. That disclaimer noted, we'll move on to address a common drink-related legal area. Whether returning from a tailgate party or merely transporting boozed-up friends from one kegger to the next, winding up with an uncorked bottle of Boones Farm in your car is a common eventuality. That means you'll be walking the fine legal line. It falls under the scope of the complex maze of state-level open container laws. More »
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Since the 1970s, the fascist overlords civic-minded city fathers of Coral Gables, Florida, have prohibited pickup trucks from parking overnight on streets, driveways, or anywhere else they might be seen. It's all about property values, you see; nice people don't have pickup trucks parked in plain view, apparently. It's hard to believe this is the same state that produced Lynyrd Skynyrd, the state whose brave CSA soldiers once fought and died for the glory of the South's future pickup trucks... but it's true... More »
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Speaking, as we were, of good ol' ThnderBlt, we noticed that one of his classmates from his rather chichi and exclusive high school made the news recently when she got all hepped up on a booze/Aleve cocktail and stole an ambulance on the Stanford campus. Two paramedics had a drunken student on a stretcher when law student (and Yale grad) Julia Powell hopped into their ambulance and drove off, ditching the emergency vehicle 1,000 feet away. How'd they catch her? She left her cell phone in the footwell. Note to aspiring lawyers: if you absolutely have to steal an ambulance, make sure you take your belongings with you when you exit the vehicle. She's just lucky Dr. Nikolas Van Helsing didn't swipe the phone. That guy'd run up a Verizon bill she'd be paying off for years. – Davey G. Johnson More »
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The Morley family has a released a statement of facts regarding the Macedonian trial of Nicholas Morley, which seems to jibe with what we've sussed ourselves about what went down the day before the 2007 Gumball 3000 came apart at the seams. According to the original accident investigator on the scene, as well as an investigator from nonprofit British organization TRL, Morley was traveling at or under 47 mph and would have had 1.6 seconds in which to stop from the point that Vladimir Cepuljoski pulled out in front of his Porsche. The full statement after the jump. More »
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According to Texas' highest criminal court, obscuring any part of a vehicle's license plate, including portions of state name text and/or artwork, provides Johnny Law with all the cause he needs to pull over, ticket, and/or arrest the offending vehicle's driver. The 8-1 decision issued yesterday, concerning a case in which a man picked up a DUI bust after being pulled over due to plate obfuscation caused by a dealer-installed license plate frame, left three of the judges proclaiming the statute to be "uncommonly bad." Judge Cathy Cochran's advice to Texas drivers? Spend a little extra money, if available, to get a personalized license plate without the doo-dad design details. – Murilee Martin More »
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Remember that bribery scandal over at DaimlerChrysler that hit late last year? Considering the wheels of justice aren't exactly AMG-V12 powered, the fallout from the ensuing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation is just now becoming apparent. The Detroit News is reporting DCX has fired or suspended an undisclosed number of employees for making illegal payments to entities in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa, possibly totaling $77 million. A company spokesperson says DCX has put safeguards in place to prevent such dealings, which one automotive analyst says happens "much less than people think." Sounds like a done deal to us. Now where's our envelope? More »
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Wot!? Apparently, the Greater Manchester Police (of the UK, natch) has been sending along a free gift with all speed camera tickets. That is, a bit 'o literature, a booklet called "A Book of Tricks," that at least one lawyer says contains information meant to intimidate and mislead would-be speeders — and the innocent — into compliance. The book outlines the department's "Operation Cheetah," instituted to catch those who would evade speeding tickets dishonestly. But drivers' rights groups say the book goes too far by scaring the accused from exercising their legitimate rights. Bully for you, constable! More »
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Authorities in Edmonton, AB have obviously been hitting the back issues of ReadyMade and Surveillance Weekly pretty hard lately, as they've begun disguising speed cameras as ubiquitous power transformers and roadside utility boxes. (Side note, when entering the 10 off of Fairfax in LA last week, we saw a metering-light control box with a giant illustration of what looked like Aaron Cometbus wheat-pasted to the side of it, Shepard Fairey-style.) Apparently, they've lifted the idea from the canny Australians, who've taken to setting up the cameras in the guise of lowly garbage cans. Sneaky, sneaky, you zany fellow former British colonies! More »
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Arm yourself against ticket-punching po-po by knowing exactly where to stop at an intersection with a stop sign. According to RoadSense, if there's a white line, stop just behind it. If there's no white line but a sidewalk, make like Shel Silverstein and halt where said sidewalk ends. And if you've got nothin' but a stop sign, baby, it's all about your best guess as to where the edge of the intersection is. If that's not enough clarification for you and/or you're in need of audiovisual aids, click the following link. You also might want to consider getting the hell off the road until a suitable donor brain is found. More »
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Sorry, we've been watching way too many CSI reruns lately. The word "hoon" simply makes us smile, in a giddy way that recalls a junior-high crush. Or an antelope in red argyle socks. In any event, authorities in Warrnambool, Australia aren't quite as enamored with hoons as we are and have passed "anti-hoon" legislation, which to us sounds suspciously like Executive Order 9066 or not. More »
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And speaking of activist judges, a Judge in Fairfax County, Virginia has been throwing out drunk-driving cases because he believes the current law is unconstitutional, the Washington Post is reporting today. Judge Ian M. O'Flaherty insists Virginia's DWI law unfairly deprives defendants of their constitutionally afforded presumption of innocence if breath tests indicate a blood alcohol content of .08 or higher. O'Flaherty said the burden of proof has been shifted from the prosecution to the defense. As you'd imagine, prosecutors are pissed, and not in the drunken-Englishman way. More »
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One caveat, if you're planning on using that helmet cam to record yourself being a tool tooling around: the resulting video can be be both entertainment and evidence. Police in New Zealand arrested a bunch of "stupid hoons" who posted a three-minute video clip to the Web that included them making repeated attempts at a four-wheel drift in a Subaru — apparently converted to full rear-drive — before slamming the car into a tree. They're getting community service, though the car is already beyond help. [Thanks to Stephen for the tip.] More »
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A 51 year-old Wales man has been jailed for five months and a judge has ordered his vehicles destroyed after he was caught driving on a suspended license. Laurence Dunne had been involved in two apparently minor hit-and-run accidents over the last few months and had his motoring privileges revoked. However, five days after the order came down, police spotted him driving again, and this time the judge wasn't so lenient. If we run into Tom Jones when we're in Vegas, remind us not to piss him off. Apparently, the Welsh can get pretty vindictive when they're angry. More »
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Tokyo police are cracking down on street racing by cracking down on racers' rest stops. It kind of makes sense: You can't keep racing all the time; after a while, even the most intrepid Hashiriya's head will turn to fish paste. And since police can't catch racers in the act, officials have slapped No Parking signs up around parking areas of the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway, places where racers traditionally rest before and after racing. According to some estimates, the action has cut the number of racers out on a typical night by up to 90%. More »
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It generally takes a crisis to get the American automobile industry to change. In the 1970s, the gas crunch forced its hand. In the 1980s, imports stole its bacon. So it retreated into what it knew best large vehicles with V8 power and longitudinal drivetrains. As in trucks and SUVs. Having been consistently resistent to CAFE requirements (while making some pretty amazing strides in fuel efficiency if you consider that, for example, the new Hemi gets more than twice the mileage of a 440 while making very similar power numbers and meeting LEV standards). Auto industry lobbyist Frederick L. Webber was so distraught by Katrina, however, that when cutting a contribution check to relief organizations, he realized he couldn't donate to political campaigns anymore. More »
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Everybody's got an angle on Katrina, and rightfully so. It's the most tragic thing in the United States that we've witnessed in our nigh-on thirty years. Being from California, we'd seen fire and we'd seen rain, but we've never seen anything like this hurricane. (Please, make the rhyming stop! And the James Taylor references, too. Thanks.) One concern, now that things are calming down a bit in the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast region, is that vehicles damaged by the flood will be cosmetically repaired and re-sold to unsuspecting buyers, both in the Gulf and elsewhere in the US. More »
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By the 100th pre-anniversary of the return of the Elder Race, Sweden wants all new cars sold in the country to feature breathalyzer ignition interlocks. Communication Minister Ulrica Messing outlined the plan in the G teborgs-Posten, saying that heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks might be fitted with the devices sooner. The decision still has to pass through Parliament, but with all the work the Swedish automakers have been doing on this, we can't see it not happening. More »
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A pro—speed camera organization knows what young people think of speed cameras, and in response, launched an ad campaign allowing them to express that opinion every time they use the loo in a nightclub. Wait, the ads are supposed to be promoting the use of speed cameras? Ah, piss off. More »
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California, the world's leading authority on air pollution, is mulling over a mandate that would require a vehicle's sticker to include the amount of greenhouse gasses it spews into the atmosphere. We don't know that this is necessarily a bad idea, but we wonder when they're gonna start labeling cattle down in Coalinga (aka, the Poo Zone), for their contributions to global warming. More »
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Some guys will do anything to make a deal. Including torching your car. Tobias Zachary Green, a Humble, TX, car salesman, got fingered in a scheme involving leaving customers' cars well-toasted, apparently in hopes of repeat business. Targeting customers whose credit was somewhere in the neighborhood of a Roman-era privy and those who couldn't make their loan payments, Green's "rotisserie scheme" has resulted in what investigators now believe to be 55,000 clams worth of claims on the fraudulent tip. More »
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In the United States, running illegal liquor has given us a rich cultural heritage Smokey and the Bandit, The Dukes of Hazzard, Bill France, etc. We actually border on a dry county, which is something we didn't think still existed when we left California's debauched womb for life in the South/Southwest. But apparently folks in the land of Oz, where the stereotypes are blonde and tanned surfer boys hoisting pints of Foster's, Paul Hogan decapitating crocs left and right as he hurtles by in his Subaru Outback, and gorgeous Sheilas who feed the meter for you, are also still dealing with the scourge of sauce-free communties. More »
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Speed cameras, designed to be embedded in road pavement, have been tested in several countries, including the US, and will soon began nabbing speeders in Malaysia. The Hidden Botts (named after those reflective roadway implants) system, which is effectively invisible to drivers, includes one stud that calculates speed and another — an infrared camera — that snaps a shot of a car's license plate. The cameras connect wirelessly to a central processing unit that manages the Orwellian application. The system works at speeds of up to 150mph (sorry, Alex) and can also track the location and times of all passing vehicles. More »
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Understand him, he'll understand you/For you are him, and he is you. More »
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Woe to you, DaimlerChrysler, oh earth and sea. For the federales bring the Number-crunchers of the Beast! Hot on a bribery investigation by the US Justice Department (and a booze-party scandal involving new boss Dieter Zetsche's wife), German regulators are investigating possible insider trading within DaimlerChrysler. Allegations arose after a routine check by a German financial-services watchdog firm, following a jump in DaimlerChrysler's stock value that came suspiciously on the heels of the announcement, last month, that chief executive Juergen Schrempp would step down. Sell, Mortimer, sell! More »
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Bloggers at Unbossed.com have uncovered an effort by some Colorado government officials to steer drivers onto a beltway around Denver — built through a public-private partnership — to protect the road's developers. According to the site, Local officials dropped the speed limit on a nearby two-lane, rural highway from 55 MPH to 40 MPH, and added a number of seemingly unnecessary traffic signals, allegedly to protect the revenue stream of the tolls. The state's highway authority also signed "non-compete" agreements with several municipalities that prevent the construction or improvement of any road that competes with the toll road, E-470. Colorado isn't the only state where such horse trading take place in the course of public-private business. Trouble is, they say, these practices are seldom covered by the local press. We only first heard about them on the "Dukes of Hazzard." At least drivers don't have to play the Boar's Nest, like the Gatlin Brothers did. [Thanks to RD for the tip.] More »
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Convicted on 29 misdemeanor charges, including 19 counts of annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18, eight counts of sexual battery and two counts of battery (which all occurred in a two-week period), Calvin Hoang Cat of San Jose is looking at two years in prison for grabbing young women's breasts during the parallel parking section of their driver's test. Cat claims the fondling was brought on by fear of being in a car driven by another person. We're wondering if he wasn't all hepped up on Twinkies at the time. More »
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Due to an explosion in the amount of Bermudan vehicle registrations, the government will soon consider banning car ownership for single people, married couples without children, and expatriates working on three-year contracts. They're also considering again outlawing the used car market, which was established eleven years ago. Previously, cars had to be destroyed or shipped off the island. The review suggests increased car pooling, with incentives to those who engage in it, as well as improved bus service for private schoolchildren. Our question, however, is this: will having a child to get a car become the new marrying for one's Green Card? More »
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"No, ma'am, there's no such thing as ticket quotas at the department," said officer Bob of the Pennsylvania State Police, right before a thunderbolt blasted his mustache into a puff of cinders. Act of a vengeful god or not, the PA State PD must explain the existence of documents that indicate officers receive pay incentives for writing additional traffic tickets, while whistle blowers are castigated from within the department. Apparently, troopers must officially deny a "ticket quota" exists because of a 1981 Pennsylvania law that bans the practice of ordering police officers "directly or indirectly" to issue a given number of traffic tickets. It seems supervisors were indeed reprimanded by department heads for not, er, reprimanding officers for not making their numbers, despite having exemplary records otherwise. More »
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The US Justice Department must not have read Jeremy Clarkson's excellent defense of bribery, apropos of VW's recent sex-and-bribery scandal, or they'd likely reconsider going after Mercedes for what may be similar offenses. (See also a more academically inclined defense by Pierre Lemieux.) The department's investigation was launched after a former Chrysler accountant alleged in a lawsuit that the company kept dozens of secret bank accounts from which to ply foreign dignitaries in Africa and South America. We thought those was called "counsulting fees," but then again, we live across the river from New Jersey. More »
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In some circles a "Bulgarian key fob" is probably a perverse double entendre, in others, it's merely a key fob that fires bullets. Police in the UK (Manchester, mostly) have been uncovering and seizing numbers of tiny twin-shooters, sold legally as in Bulgaria as flare pistols, but converted to fire live ammo. The guns came to public consciousness in the UK after a 19-year-old man accidently shot himself in the head while trying to show friends at a nightclub how its safety lock operated (die, brutal irony, die). Police say posession of the fob carries the same sentence as that of a traditional firearm, five years. [Thanks to RD for the tip.] More »
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Shemeko Howard, of Winchester, Kentucky, has been banned from driving or riding in any car with a sound system for a year, due to breaking her probation for drug trafficking by violating a noise ordinance. We bet Howard's friends are all joyously removing their stereos from their cars so they can tool around with her in compliance with the judge's decree that Shemeko is "not to be in any vehicle where any type of sound system is being operated." We can't wait to see how they're gonna enforce this one. More »
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Advocate groups are up in arms following a UK court's decision not to revoke the driver's license of Anna Walewska, a teenage race driver and Formula One hopeful — who was busted in the UK for driving 100mph in her Ferrari. The move effectively de-jeopardizes Walewska's blossoming racing career. Court magistrate of Central Norfolk, and reocurring villaness on "Rumpole of the Bailey," Vanessa Fairhead-Woolnough, instead decided on a penalty of merely five license points (rather than six plus an automatic ban). Fairhead-Woolnough said the penalty was more likely to improve Walewska's driving than would the discretionary 42-day ban at the court's disposal, and that the mild-mannered vicar was the real killer. More »
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