NATIONAL MOTORISTS ASSOCIATION


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Dear Massachusetts Motorist,


Hearings

Earlier this year there were a couple of important hearings and their outcome could potentially effect our lives as motorists in this state.

First, with the National Motorists Association's input a Boston attorney filed a suit with the Massachusetts Courts of Appeal to have the mandatory and non-refundable court fees associated with fighting a traffic citation removed. In March the courts heard his case, together with another case of a motorist who wanted to appeal the fees to fight a parking ticket.

After thinking about it for a couple of months, the panel of wise men decided they just couldn't find anything wrong with a town charging its residents $275 to appeal a $8 parking ticket, but they are still considering the $75 fee people must pay if they want to challenge a traffic citation.

Then right after Raynham became the third Massachusetts town (after Foxborough and Swampscott) to reject red light cameras, state legislators gathered to hear from lawyers hired by the red light camera system manufacturers who wined and dined them earlier, and from the companies themselves that just spent over $160,000 on lobbying and campaign donations, how red light cameras are not about money.

At the other side of the table sat Dave Condon. Dave is a biker from Salem and he volunteered to present a joint statement of the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association and the National Motorists Association. He provided the legislators with real-world evidence from Washington, DC, North Carolina and Florida how red light cameras increase - and not decrease - accidents. He presented solutions, such as using longer yellow lights based on actual speeds of traffic to reduce incidence of red light running, and he listed all the states and municipalities in the US that have already banned the use of Automated Traffic Enforcement systems as dangerous and counter-productive.

Afterwards the lawmakers retreated to think about how the people that they represent might be feeling about this issue.


The Case of a Mistaken Identity

Speaking of automated law enforcement: According to the Globe, John Gass got his license suspended because a computer scanning the Registry pictures decided he looked like a known terrorist. There was no hearing - just a suspension notification letter. Gass then spent ten days on proving to the Registry again that he was who he said he was, so that he could continue to drive for a living. Was the computer program to blame? According to the spokeswoman for the developer of the software, "it can reduce fraud by 80 percent." Was the Registry wrong? Nope. But the tsarina of Massachusetts driver's licenses admitted, "there are mistakes that can be made."


There Is Good News

Speeding-related fatalities in Massachusetts have dropped in recent years, falling from 143 in 2007 to 76 in 2009. It was reveled as part of the story on how the cops in the state write less and less speeding tickets. But first the shrill self-proclaimed "safety advocates" (including the spokesman for the insurance industry and another one for a towing and travel planning service) had their say about how speed kills and wastes gasoline.

I'm not saying the lower fatality figures are the result of police writing less speeding tickets. What the figures do suggest is that writing more speeding citations does not save lives.


Thank you for supporting the NMA,

Ivan
MA State Coordinator


8/11

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