Connecticut has found a new way to tax the drivers... snowy car tickets.

State Police are aggressively ticketing drivers who ignore Connecticut's new "ice missile" law, which requires motorists to remove all snow and ice from their vehicles.

Since the law took effect Jan. 1, state police have issued at least 230 tickets to truckers and motorists who were driving snow-covered vehicles. At $120 per summons -- the fine is $75 plus $45 in various surcharges -- that amounts to $27,600 in tickets in a month and a half.

If snow is on a vehicle and it comes off, you're responsible," Vance said.

Vance could not break down the number of tickets issued to motorists and truck drivers, who face the added burden of clearing snow from tall trailers not easily accessible from the ground.

According to the law, drivers must "remove any accumulated ice or snow from such motor vehicle, including the hood, trunk and roof of such motor vehicle, so that any ice or snow accumulated on such vehicle does not pose a threat to persons or property while the vehicle is being operated on any street or highway of this state."

The law was passed in 2010 but implementation was delayed to Jan. 1, 2014, to allow the public to become aware of the regulation and for trucking companies to develop ways to remove snow from big rigs.

If snow falls off a passenger car and damages another vehicle or causes an accident, the operator can be fined $200. Commercial drivers face a $500 fine.

Found on
http://www.greenwichtime.com/local/article/Ice-missiles-snowball-into-cash-for-state-5243274.php

And that is my news for the day

Baltimore Maryland stoplight cameras grossly inaccurate and ripping off residents. City didn't bother releasing this info, the newspaper did

a secret audit from 2012 of the traffic cameras in Baltimore, MD should heat things up a bit. In an audit of the city's 83speed cameras, The Baltimore Sun is reporting that 13 had a double digit error rate, which helps account for a system-wide error rate of 10 percent. Of course, the secret part of this secret audit was that the findings were never released to the public.

City officials originally said that the cameras had an error rate of less than a quarter of a percent, but the audit found that most were not only off, they were way off – three specific locations in the city had error rates that varied from 35 to 58 percent. As the article points out, a total of 700,000 tickets were issued in fiscal year 2012 averaging $40, and a 10 percent error rate would mean that close to $2.8 million in fines were collected erroneously.

http://www.autoblog.com/2014/01/24/audit-finds-baltimore-speed-cameras-wrong-2-8m-video/