Speed Trap Karma Part 2: NMA E-Newsletter #698

Reason.com recently published a list of eleven U.S. towns where their police forces were either disbanded or their autonomy as a governmental entity was dissolved because of an addiction to, and dependence on, ticket revenue. We thought it would be informative to present excerpts from Reason’s article for those cities along with select driver-sourced comments […]

Speed Trap Karma Part 1: NMA E-Newsletter #697

Reason.com recently published a list of eleven U.S. towns where their police forces were either disbanded or their autonomy as a governmental entity was dissolved because of an addiction to, and dependence on, ticket revenue. We thought it would be informative to present excerpts from Reason’s article for those cities along with select driver-sourced comments […]

Red-Light Camera Merry-Go-Round in North Carolina: NMA E-Newsletter #694

Red-light cameras have once again been declared unconstitutional in North Carolina. No one is surprised because this is the second time RLCs have been declared in violation of state law. Policing for profit, even if it is allegedly designed to benefit the school systems, always has a stench about it. Case in point—the city of Greenville […]

What’s Up with Philly?

By Shelia Dunn, NMA Communications Director Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared as the cover story in the Winter 2022 Edition of the National Motorists Association’s quarterly magazine Driving Freedoms. If you would like to receive our magazine, please become a member of the NMA today! The City of Brotherly Love seems anything but when […]

Another Speed Trap Town Gets Caught: NMA E-Newsletter #686

Have you ever gone on a road trip and been caught in a speed trap in some little town in the middle of nowhere? That’s what happened to many motorists who drove through Brookside, Alabama in the last few years. The state’s Appleseed Center of Law and Justice has dubbed this town of 1,200 the […]

The USDOT, Speed Cameras, and Automated Corruption: NMA E-Newsletter #683

It didn’t take long after Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Transportation Secretary, introduced his department’s 42-page National Roadway Safety Strategy for people to grasp the importance of a tiny sentence buried in Note 3 on Page 28 of the report: “Promote speed safety cameras as a proven safety countermeasure.” Protestations emanated from as far away as the […]

And So It Begins—Vision Zero from the Top Down: NMA E-Newsletter #682

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently announced that his department wants to drastically reduce deadly traffic accidents through vehicle and street design changes. The USDOT also plans to use $14 billion in funding from the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill to encourage the states to make extensive use of speed cameras to enforce lowered […]

Crime Isn’t the Only Thing That Doesn’t Pay

By NMA President Gary Biller Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared in October 2021 as NMA E-Newsletter #668. If you would like to subscribe to the weekly one-topic newsletter that comes to your inbox on Sunday mornings, please click Here.   Care to hazard a guess on how much money the city of Los Angeles […]

Why Fight a Traffic Ticket?

Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on the NMA Blog in March 2018. Did you ever feel that you were already considered guilty when you received a traffic ticket even though, under the US Constitution, you are innocent until proven guilty? This includes any kind of traffic ticket coming from either a law enforcement officer […]

Crime Isn’t the Only Thing That Doesn’t Pay: NMA E-Newsletter #668

Care to hazard a guess on how much money the city of Los Angeles has raked in from traffic and parking enforcement during their last five fiscal years, which end each June 30th? If your estimate is more than half a billion dollars, you are getting warm. During those five years, Los Angeles collected more […]