Have you ever hit the throttle when a traffic light turns yellow, and then it turns red faster than you thought? We know it's happened to us, and for the most part we thought the problem was our bad timing. In six cities across these United States, missing a yellow light has less to do with bad timing, and more to do with shorter amber signals.
Six cities have been busted recently for having an amber light that lasted less than the minimum timing at an intersection, and millions of dollars in fines have been collected when drivers went through the premature red and got caught on camera. Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; Lubbock, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Union City, California all cut the timing on their lights, and while some have paid back the fines, others have not. In Dallas, over $700,000 was collected in a matter of eight months, and in Tennessee the light timing was changed at only a few intersections, which just so happen to be the areas where local law enforcement set up traps.
While the millions of dollars in fines collected in these six cities is horrible, what's worse is that shorter amber lights mean more accidents and more injuries on the road. Hit the link below to read more information regarding the cities that were caught cheating, and if you get pulled over for blowing a red, make sure to time the light. The problem may not be you after all. Thanks for the tip, Thunder!
Whatever you do,kids, do not steal a donut truck and try to drive that bad boy through Tama County, Iowa. They will make it positively rain police on you. Frank Alvarado found this out the hard way when he stole a donut van from a Donut Delite driver on his rounds, and ended up on a five-and-a-half-hour run from the law.
Alvarado stole the van from Rock Island Hospital in Illinois, and then took off into Iowa, getting to Tama County before he was spotted. Before he could say "Sprinkles!", the donut thief was being pursued by five Tama County sheriff's deputies, plus four more officers from three other police agencies. And get this: one of those other officers came in his personal vehicle. As we said, you don' t mess with the donuts in Tama County. Their reward for catching this criminal: all the donuts in the van.
Actually, we really want to get Mr. Alvarado's side of the story in this, because who steals a donut (!) truck and then hauls tail hundreds of miles west? Sounds like a Cannonball Run... or something... But we feel like Franky "The Donuts" Alvarado is the key to a story even better than this one. Thanks for the tip, Alberto!
It's a well hidden secret here in the States, but in Eastern Europe, Poland is a street racing Mecca. Concrete contests of speed are so prevalent in the land of the prior Pope and origin of the pirogi, that police in Lodz are conceding certain streets to rebellious racers. The goal is to concentrate racing to a speed limit-free zone, with hopes that racing-related accidents will plummet in other areas of town. Both police and the Lodz motor club will supervise the action on closed streets to ensure that complete lawlessness doesn't commence.
It seems everybody wins thanks to this unorthodox solution, with dragsters getting a place to hang and innocent drivers and bystanders having a better chance of not becoming collateral damage, like what happened last week in Maryland. Such a compromise would never happen in the US, however, as police (and insurance companies) would sooner take your license than leave speed limits to the ego of the driver and power of the car.
In a move sure to please more than a few motorists, police in Tulsa, OK are testing new sirens on their patrol cars with a tone low enough to send vibrations through targeted vehicles and their occupants. It sounds strange, but as cars become more isolated from the outside world, it has become increasingly difficult for cops to grab the attention of wayward motorists. Locked in our motorized cocoons, a wailing siren just can't be heard over the din of cell phones, Sponge Bob and iPods.
This new and innovative (and non-sadistic) approach called the Rumbler is designed to blast a deep tone up to 70 yards away to alert drivers through vibrations in their backsides. The Tulsa police have three units in use, with three more expected within the next ten days. Law enforcement officials in Washington DC, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida are also trying the technology. Talk from the officers and the public indicates this apparently harmless approach works pretty well. If put into widespread use, it seems to us that the booty-shaking siren just could become the best part of being pulled over.
Follow the jump for video of the Rumbler in action and hear what the new sound of police sirens may soon be in your city. Thanks for the tip, Screwtape!
Neenah, Wisconsin has such a speeding problem that it can't keep up. Even with a full court press of law enforcement, drivers continue to speed and have even sped by other motorists receiving their obligatory revenue-production invoice. In an effort to keep drivers on their toes while also leaving time to fight real crimes, the Neenah PD will post cardboard cutouts that look like an officer pointing a radar gun in strategic locations. Like something out of Weekend At Bernie's, the paper tigers will be rotated with living, breathing officers so that the ruse has a chance of effecting change. At this point, it's less about filling the coffers and more about quelling an epidemic of overly-velocitized drivers.
We already know that overseas, police cars are not the full-size cruisers we have patrolling our highways in America. But come on, there's a limit.
This Fiat 500, all decked out in police striping and with a little flashing light on the roof, was snapped while parading around Amsterdam with the Dutch police. Unfortunately, the text that came out of the online translator was about as intelligible as a tourist swaggering out of an Amsterdam "coffee shop", but as far as we can tell the car was used purely for demonstration purposes, much like Scotland Yard has displayed constabulary-striped supercars and F1 racers, before the law-enforcement markings were removed and the car went back to civilian duty.
It's a far cry from the Spyker C8 or the BMW M3 that the Dutch police showed recently, but this 500 just looks so darned eager to serve and protect, doesn't it?
When news broke of Michael Schumacher's adventure behind the wheel of a taxi in Germany, most of us chuckled at the thought of the multiple-champion driver hustling a cab through the streets of Munich. German police were evidently not quite so amused, and have reportedly launched an investigation into the matter.
Both Schumacher and Tuncer Yilmax, the cabbie whose taxi Schumacher commandeered in exchange for fare plus a 100-Euro tip, are under investigation by the Coburg traffic authority for their respective involvement in the erstwhile-amusing affair.
"That was an offence against transport laws. We will have a hearing," said a local law enforcement official. Schumacher's response: "You just have to laugh about it". We'll go with Michael's approach, but keep you posted on what couldn't very well turn into the court-room drama of the year.
[Source: Autosport, photo by Lars Baron/Bongarts/Getty]
Police and rescue vehicles pump out an array of aural and visual warnings to tell motorists and pedestrians to get out of the way. With distractions like cell phones, MP3 players, eating on the run, and applying a fresh coat of Revlon, civil servants still can't seem to grab our attention. That's where Federal Signal's Rumbler comes in. The new audio warning system doesn't pierce your ears with loud, screeching sirens. It uses low frequency sounds coming from two sub-woofers and an amp to shake the ground in ten second increments. The pulses can be felt 200 feet ahead of the vehicle, giving motorists plenty of time to clear a path in times of emergency. The new device is now being used in the U.S., though we've never felt it, so the next time you hear kickin' bass coming up from behind you, it could be Shaq or it could be the fuzz. Either way, it's best to just clear a path.
Here's a novel way to ask for Mr. Maglite to introduce himself to your personage in a blunt manner. Simply present this little confection under glass the next time the jack booted thug officer appears at your window demanding license and registration. While it may sound kind of funny on the Web, certain officers are touchy about the donut cracks. It is produced in the USA, by an entrepreneur, though we've got no word on how good the enclosed doughy treat is. So, it seems like this bit of trinkum is a good way to have a laugh while blowing a little money. The maker reports that nearly three quarters of their production has been to police officers, so clearly there are good humored cops out there. We never seem to meet them. They must all be stuck in the drive thru.
Checker did it with taxi cabs a generation and a half ago, but since then, purpose-built working cars haven't been produced in mass quantities. Carbon Motors thinks it's about time the fuzz get their own purpose-built ride, instead of being forced to modify a civilian car. Law enforcement agencies have kept Ford's Panther platform alive long past its expiration date, but even that is winding down. Carbon's E7 looks to step in and fill the niche that the eventual phasing out of the Panther will provide (nevermind that there's been some adoption of the even tighter quarters of the Chrysler LX cars). Police need cars that are tough and economical to run and maintain. With those criteria, it's easy to see why the Crown Victoria is the Queen of fleet. They take a pounding, they're relatively cheap, and they're big enough to hold the constabulary essentials and leave room for perps, even if there's precious little elbow room for Officer Krupke.
Carbon's got to make a case for a niche application, limited production vehicle with some expensive hardware. A twin-turbo diesel inline six is not as cheap a power unit as Ford's long-serving and robust (let's not talk about valve guides and seals, please) modular V8. The aluminum spaceframe that Carbon designed as the basis of the E7 is also not cheap, but the tradeoff for the high cost componentry is a 250,000 mile durability spec. By the time Crown Vics reach that kind of mileage, they're no longer cruisers - usually having long been handed down to less demanding city departments. The car looks like vaporware currently, though there's plenty of CG eye candy at the Carbon Motors website for dreamers to feast upon. Hey, fire trucks are manufactured by niche producers that charge a bundle for vehicles that serve forever, and it could make sense for police departments, too. It all comes down to how durable the cars actually are, how expensive they are to run and maintain, and how much the initial cost is. You know, just a few minor numbers to run.
Have you ever hit the throttle when a traffic light turns yellow, and then it turns red faster than you thought? We know it's happened to us, and for the most part we thought the problem was our bad timing. In six cities across these United States, missing a yellow light has less to do with bad timing, and more to do with shorter amber signals. 
This Fiat 500, all decked out in police striping and with a little flashing light on the roof, was snapped while parading around Amsterdam with the Dutch police. Unfortunately, the text that came out of the online translator was about as intelligible as a tourist swaggering out of an Amsterdam "coffee shop", but as far as we can tell the car was used purely for demonstration purposes, much like Scotland Yard has displayed constabulary-striped 
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