Topics: Traffic tickets and accidents - 62 results

The legal limit for drivers’ blood alcohol content should drop to .05 from its current level of .08, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended this week. Lowering the limit at which a driver is subject to arrest “could reasonably be expected to have a broad deterrent effect, thereby reducing the risk of injuries and fatalities from crashes associated with impaired driving,” the NTSB asserts in its report. About 1.4 million people are arrested for driving under the influence each year. …

Cameras at traffic intersections photograph drivers who run red lights, making sure they are ticketed. Citizen activists say these cameras do not promote safety but are primarily for making money. The founder of the Red Light Camera Protest Group points out that the yellow light at one intersection in Fremont, Calif. was increased by a fraction of a second, and the number of violations dropped by over 50 percent. But the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says its studies conclude …

  A camera at the intersection of Northgate and 27th Streets in Oakland, Calif. ambushes drivers running red lights and raises more than $3 million per year. For example, Ronald Pond received a $541 ticket because this camera caught him turning a right on red — at about 4:30 a.m. with no other traffic around. It’s a perfect example of “gotcha” government that prompts irate calls to eliminate the red light robots. Twenty-one states have red light cameras but nine …

Suspicion of driving under the influence is not grounds in and of itself for police to draw blood from a suspect without first acquiring a warrant, the Supreme Court ruled today. In Missouri v. McNeely, the Court upheld a Missouri State Supreme Court ruling that police could only take a blood test without a warrant in an emergency or under exigent circumstances. A person’s blood alcohol content naturally dropping over time does not count. “The question presented here is whether the …

Perfect timing for National Distracted Driving Awareness Month: A California appeals court has ruled that using a map application on a smartphone is just as much in violation of the state’s distracted driving laws as using the phone to place a call or write a text message. Steven Spriggs, 58, was using his phone’s GPS map looking for a way to avoid a traffic jam in 2012 when he was pulled over by a motorcycle cop and issued a ticket for $160. Spriggs …