Swampy? Not.

With the second tropical depression of the storm season garnering local attention, there is another storm looming that aught to set off alarms in the swamp, but few seem to bother or make needed preparation.

Today, people have grown accustomed to endless war and that very consequential mindset translates from the most profound to the most mundane.

Our love/hate relationship with automobiles and roads makes for a constant state turmoil. We vacillate from lust for luxury to road-rage wrecks. We are so dependent on this mode of mobility that it would be easier to kick a heroin habit than it is to withdraw from driving.

On the lighter side, one has to laugh at the ever increasing traffic calming devices that seem to pop up overnight. The baffling bump-outs, curious curbs and senseless sidewalk alterations are the gift of a confederacy of dunces at FDOT.

No shit Sherlock, which way do we go.

OK whatever. No one pays too much attention to these things, until you slam your wheels up on them. No one seems care one way or the other and that is why these stupid things are multiplying faster than parking meters.

On the serious side, another two red-light cameras are installed at locations near you. In time every intersection that promises the most return of revenue for those who benefit from legalized extortion will be outfitted with these scameras. Drive and Text all you want for now, just don't make rolling rights on red.

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Road Racket

In South Florida Turnpike, CASH is a 4 letter word.

I've said it before and here it is again. SomePass others don't.

When is the motoring public going to get a voice and stop the racket on our roads...

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SomePass

Road Raunch

The days of romance with the american road are long gone thanks in no small part to greed at the hands of officials quick to embrace Red Light Cameras and any scheme that goes ching-ching in their grubby little minds. The motoring public should take note of alarm and caution with developing issues. Wake up and smell the racket.

While the number of tickets is issued is plunging, the costs are soaring.

City commissioners are closely monitoring the situation because their budget depended on bringing in $3 milllion from red-light camera tickets. Now they think they may collect as little as just $500,000 in light of the higher costs and fewer-than-expected tickets.

Pembroke Pines has similar cost concerns. That city has received $76,294 from citations, but the red-light camera program has cost $83,337. Legal fees encompassed $33,189 of that, with the rest going to ATS to manage the cameras.

I will wager $158. the light runner in this vid was on the phone.

Technology is inherently neither good nor bad. Automation today is a sacred cow (cash cow that is) for municipalities and MDX strapped for cash. Taking the human out of the equation not only eliminates jobs but more so de-humanizes reasonable enforcement and civility. When technology is used by special interest to undermine our quality of life, things get ugly. In an authoritarian grab for money, officials hide behind the pretext of safety and suppress the simple truth that the motoring public is a silent tax base ripe for extortion.

Buk 50

..."Drivers headed to the Keys over the Presidents Day weekend on Florida's Turnpike will encounter the newest change in toll collecting: No cash, please.

At 12:01 a.m. Feb. 19, crews will begin to close all the old-fashioned toll booths on the 47-mile Homestead Extension, which runs from Miramar to Florida City. The transition is expected to take about 48 hours.

You'll pay either with SunPass, or you'll be billed later, based on photographs of your license plate as you drive under overhead gantries. Monthly bills will include a $2.50 service charge.

It's part of a multi-year plan to convert the entire turnpike system to a cashless toll road."...

Some Pass, Others Don't

My problem with the sunpass is not its popularity, that's understandable. My concern is the highjacking of motorists dollars for the benefit of a few. The carrot that gets you on board is personal convenience, the joy of uninterrupted driving. But the greedy underbelly is a system that holds millions of our dollars in a collective minimum balance that is invested for profit that is not shared with those who put up the capital. Between public debt and private profit is the secret mantra of the self serving.

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another $#$%^&* ticket

To their credit the Triple A (American Auto Association) appears to be one of the few voices of the motoring public expressing futile opposition to the current plague infesting our roadways. Sadly our whispers are being drowned out by an element of our communities blinded by the allure of a revenue stream the size of the Amazon river that is too tempting for those money grubbers to do the right thing by we the people.

Just Doing Their Job

People who say they are just doing their job and their job is to reduce the quality of life for others are just part of the problem.

Safety, Yeah Right

From the comfort of their bunkers, grubby authoritarians followers are poised to shake-down the motoring public. How do they sleep at night? Very well no doubt in their kevlar pajamas.

Turn Don't Turn

Of the 16 municipalities that issue citations for right turns and were able to break down their violation data, 100 percent acknowledged the majority of their tickets come from right turns. The total of right-turn citations going out per town ranged from 100 percent to 64 percent. Six municipalities estimated the rate of right-turn tickets was 90 percent or higher of the total violations.

The Camel's Back

I am running out of Christian Goodness for zero tolerance, My Jewish self is hating on the hundreds of thousand of millions extorted and my Muslim side is about to go bombastic if folks don't wake up soon and demand to Right the Wrong that are red-light scamera citations.

Just a Matter of Time

I guarantee you that sooner or later if you drive daily, a big fat ticket or two are in the stars for you. It will not come with any lubricant, instead it will feel like a corn cob soaked in gasoline.

Road Rant

Horse Crossings

Automobiles are wonderful contraptions, they have altered our way of life in countless positive ways. Since the early days of our romance with mobility, cars and trucks have served so well that with the passing years we have altered the landscape so that cars seem more populous than people. And like guns and cell phones, cars don't harm people, people do.

Flash of the Crash

But cars are not just heaping careening hunks of metal and petrol. They have become extensions of our identities. The have come to define our culture in the sunshine.
And what some see is ugly. We see a spiderweb of concrete and asphalt that sever the land in a tangle of pavement, glaring sign pollution and the occasional costly citations for moving violations.
One can even get a hefty fine for standing still doing nothing.

Fender Bender Splendor

The auto industry has been a gold mine, black gold that is, from petrolium pumpers and car makers worldwide to the mechanic down the street. Auto-centricity ain't no cottage industry. In less than 100 years of our recorded human history, we have mechanized, industrialized and radicalized our footprint on this fragile planet. In an effort to go to and fro with ease, we have inadvertentely trampled nature into a globally warmer submission.

Speed Zone Ahead

Today, for much of the motoring public, we are navigating the mine-field that are the American roads. This lifestyle choice comes with necessary risks and engineered requirements that have us in a stranglehold of modernity for our personal convenience at the expense of the environment.

Every Day P.S.A.
(public service announcement)

The message here is simple. We get it.
We get that venturing out strapped to a tank is a well rehearsed routine with improvised road humps. Most of the time traffic moves allong in a orderly crawl of 30 mph. But the roads are also the stage for an un-orchestrated dance of a thousand misfits. The streets are teeming with volatile uncertainty and chance. One thing is certain, be prepared to be photographed.

Cluster-Flubb

What began as an honest experiment in modern independence has morphed into a greasy display of the pitfalls of blind-folded science. Not only do cars contribute to the demise of our legacy, they also are a the third largest expenditure for most households in cities like Miami where there is little or no practical alternative to transportation.

Red-Fright Scamera

Conventional etiquette says that staring is not polite. Who wants cameras all up in their business? Not anyone i know. But the snaky governor and his grubby lawmakers in our great state capital cleared the way for this invasive technology in a money grab that will yield buckets of billions from now on. We are now in the clutches of a surveillance society where obnoxious gawking paparazi apparatus , though un-welcomed, are to be planted at every intersection.

Smile, Its the Red-Light Bandit

There is nothing cute or quaint about getting tickets in the mail. Often hundreds of dollars each, these unwelcome correspondences are being sent in bulk to citizens struggling to make ends meet with already strained budgets. If we could get the figures on just how many of these legal extortion shake-downs are issued, the numbers would be alarming to some, but not me. I've gotten three.

Houston, We Have Another Revenue Stream

Some folks have no problem being part of the problem. These are the same folk who, when in uniform, have not qualms issuing a citation to their on mothers. After all its the law... and followers will calmly pull that proverbial lever of collection. Take the human out of the equation and we have a self induced sci-fi authoritarian nightmare come true.

Have a Shifty Day, Sir

I actually almost yearn for the old days when an real starchy "human" being would deliver the bad news of an infraction. With courteous community service their cringing guiding motto, our traffic cops were the only ones deputized enough to make judgment on your ass right there on the side of the road. If one were really good at arguing, the encounter would be a non-event.

Professor Prophet

Today we have deputized technology. We have handed over the unsavory task of shaking down the citizenry to lifeless contraptions that breed on our very complacency. How will the world as we know it end? One camera at a time.

Slamming On the Brakes

This guy is on my VIP list.
(Valor In Public)

How Low Can You Go

Pumped up oil executives have announced that OPEC is considering changing the currency of oil from dollars to euros. Elsewhere China has announced that it no longer wants to buy our ailing currency. How much more of a beat-down can the almighty US dollar take? We have not seen the bottom of this fabricated economic caldron but its not gonna be pretty until we unveil our secret weapon.




Unauthorized Cars Will Be Tarred and Fined

Hey wait, that's my... Great Car-Art.
With this sublime symbol of suburbia no words are necessary to remind us of the ubiquitous automobile and its skids across our cultural landscape.
Did you leave anything in the car?

The Motoring Publix

The business of art is a slippery affair. Artist have a responsibility to be socially relevant, to draw for others a picture that clearly illustrates our human condition in an increasingly complex environment of information and distraction. The artist must also make light.



the Walk-Don't-Walk tree

The fruit$ of a depressed populace does not fall far from the tree of greed.




Science is a Sacred Cow

Each advancement in technology can be viewed with stereo vision. One eye on the golden calf, the other on the ground chuck. Science without Civility is a certain psychic train-wreck barreling around the corner.



Blooming Bluebeam Batman

Someone at the local newspaper called Norman Brahman the Car Guy. maybe so, but he is so much more than an auto dealer. he is the guy who would like to change the culture of corruption in Dade County.
This car goes to Stormin'Norman.



Cyclists across the Julia Tuttle Causeway

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Harvest Moonshine

Tis the Season of Decay

With the end of summer now official, it is time to appreciate autumn in the swamp. The cooler nights are a welcome relief from the record breaking global warmthing. The anticipation of a bountiful tourist season prods us onward.  Yet all is not well in this seaside oasis.  Life in South Florida looks a drab austere when colored with the rusty palette of fall... and the predictable regressive groupthink.

Scamera Wars

Miami Beach is going headstrong with their embrace of Red-light Scameras. The blasted gizmos are being installed one at a time.  One a day that is.  These insidious eyes-in-the-sky are a blight on our quality of life and harbingers of Orwellian things here today.  Wake up people and smell the extortion. 

Severe Beach Erosion

"If your voice is not heard, if you do not take the time to listen and learn what is going on and get engaged, you may see our fine Town decline into chaos."   surfside mayor Dietch  9/13/2010

As with Florida Hometown Democracy and Amendment 4 on the November Ballot, the Town of Surfside is once again a microcosm of the bigger blunder.

How We Doing?

Construction of our Community Center – we will be swimming next spring

Modern parking meter pay stations – contracts are executed and work will be completed this calendar year

Fixing the long neglected water and sewer infrastructure – these projects will be completed over the next five years

Document management equipment that will allow us to properly maintain public records – this will reduce costs and allow the Town to be fully compliant with state statutes

Purchasing a new telephone system – this will replace the functionally obsolete system

Procuring new architectural and engineering consultants – this will ensure that we always receive the best value for needed services.

And don't forget to throw some money grubbing' red-light cameras into the strained budgetary.

Developer Missed the Bus 

The site of the old Surfside 6 Motel on Collins and 92 street sits empty for 3 years and counting.

"The first thing is, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if Mr. Deitch hadn’t given special zoning accommodations to the proposed hotel across from the houses on Harding and reduced development requirements elsewhere."  Charles Burcket Previous Mayor of Surfside

Little Amendment That Could 

Letter to current Mayor from a resident community organizer.

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Daniel Deitch, Mayor

Daniel;

I read your latest note and I respectfully disagree.

We did not elect you and the other commissioners to continue to spend on over-paid engineers and/or department heads. We hoped you would be fiscally aware and cut expenses. Yet each of the items in your "good news" entails spending more of our limited resources. Nowhere do you propose any cuts-only further expenses. This will not restore Surfside as a great community.

Following is my personal list of misplaced activities:

Hiring a new Town Manager without an advertised search is dictatorial!

Nearly 50% of the town budget goes to the police department!

The historical deficiencies you refer to are really the overly bloated and unnecessary expenses being sucked out by administrative salaries, perks and pensions!

It is better to show fiscal responsibility than to accuse concerned residents of devising.

We are desperately trying to make you aware of the true needs of our Town.

A PETITION IS THE AMERICAN WAY OF PROTEST!

DO NOT PUT US DOWN! We knew enough to rid the town of the former commission and we also know enough to VOTE on issues of importance. We are not a small group - we are more than 610 registered Surfside voters who signed petitions in only 10 days rather than the 20 days to which we were entitled.

While I have the floor, I must digress to address Marta: You of all people, who left your homeland of Cuba and the life you had because of the loss of rights - Marta, how could you not vote to let us vote? I will never understand.

Thank you.  DORIE LURIE

 

Shady Isles

Through decades and numerous administrations, Surfside has managed to resist persistent requests by developers to build taller and taller condos. It would be an embarrassment to have our current town attorney (who is partly responsible for the uber-development of Sunny Isles into a condo canyon) to do an encore performance on Surfside's building code.

Down the Drain... 

And for the latest twist of this bizarre tale of sleepy town:

The five Surfside residents who sponsored the "Right to Vote" petition received knocks on their door this afternoon fromSurfside police officers. The police officers handed them a letter stating that the whole petition drive had been disqualified.

Alas with the fall comes the realization that we should not cry over spoiled swamps, we should learn from Forest Gumps, keep an eye on the chumps.

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Smile, you're on Red Light Camera

Uncle Samuel Wants Your Wallet

Thanks to a new law in Arizona, people that look like mexicans or any other illegal immigrant stereotype can now be hassled in public, hauled of for further humiliation. Folks across the nation are weighing in on both sides of a complex issue, of finding a balance between tough policy and civil liberties. With the tsunami of people lured to america with the prospect of more stuff, folks have some legitimate concerns.



What in Tarnation@#$%&*!

Here in the swamp and in cities nationwide, there is a growing threat of a new kind of illegal alien trickling into our neighborhoods in an oily slick of dirty tricks.

Red-Light Cameras are invading our byways and highways.




Tic, Tax, Tons of Cake

Thanks to a shoddy new law secretly crafted by your state reps and signed by govnr Cripst, town officials across the Florida can now use foreign cameras and private technologies to further trap and snarl the motoring public. Some places like Aventura and North Bay Village already have the robust surveillance gadgets installed, they did not wait for the law that sanctions this insidious invasion of privacy and the illegitimate issuance of excessive fines. Our elected officials in Tallahassee got up to speed and have given the green-light. They are now complicit in the extorting of the public to create an obscene revenue stream that evaporates into pockets quicker than they can collect it. People pay but the real cost of this new shakedown that is being played out across the nation is a diminished quality of life for the majority.




Get the Red Out

Little is heard or read on the MSM of this impending doom. No one is concerned until it is them on the receiving end of this new schtick. Big Brother knows the motoring public has no unified voice.

You may have guessed by now that I got a "ticket" in the mail.
So I did a little surfing and found some glaring inconsistencies in the logic that attempt to justify the use Red Light Cameras.



Cross-hairs On the Crossroads

A review of preliminary collision data supplied by the city of Corpus Christi, Texas shows that the installation of red light cameras has done nothing to improve safety. Overall, the accident situation worsened at photo-enforced intersections at a time when decreased traffic levels have brought accident rates nationwide to an all-time low. The total number of accidents in Corpus Christi increased 14 percent, from 310 incidents to 353, at nine locations where automated ticketing machines were stationed. Contrary to the claim that red light cameras reduce the severity of collisions, the number of accidents involving injuries increased 28 percent from 140 to 179. Rear end collisions also increased by nearly a third from 160 to 208.



Need for Greed

...But calculations show that the cameras would bring $39.3 million into the revenue stream in the first year and up to $160.5 million by 2013-14. "I believe this is nothing more than a revenue grab," Rep. Robert Schenck, R-Springhill, said on the House floor. "The government has an insatiable appetite for our people's hard-earned money. This is the biggest, biggest intrusion of government into our lives. What's next?" The bill would put an end to municipalities splitting the fines with camera vendors. It also would require cities and counties to post signs at intersections with cameras, notifying drivers that they could be nabbed via camera for running a red light. The bill also ensures that drivers who turn right on red "in a careful and prudent manner" could not be ticketed.



What Do They Take Us For...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Red light cameras will be fully legal in Florida on July 1. Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday signed a new law authorizing the cameras as enforcement devices despite opposition from AAA. Lawmakers for several years had rejected the legislation. Opponents argued the cameras would violate privacy rights and individual liberties as well as being a "revenue grab." The bill includes a $158 fine that would be assessed against owners of vehicles caught on camera running red lights. Of that amount, $75 would go to local governments. The rest would go to the state, which must use $10 for health care and give $3 to the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis for brain and spinal cord research. AAA contended that too little of the money will go to health care and too much to general government spending. The state is expected to receive $29 million in the first year, jumping to nearly $95 million in 2013-14. Local governments would net $10 million the first year and nearly $66 million in 2013-14, according to state economists.




Right Of Way

Florida Court Rules Red Light Cameras Illegal

A Miami-Dade County Circuit Court judge has ruled that red light cameras may not be legally used to issue traffic citations in the state of Florida. Judge Gerald Bagley yesterday dismissed charges against motorist Richard Masone who had received a red light camera ticket in the mail from American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The company operates the program on behalf of the city of Aventura...



What's Next for Red Light Cameras... your bedroom perhaps?


This problem has nothing to do with traffic safety and everything to do with robbing the public.
I say keep the blasted cameras to catch the real light runners, not to make a mint by ticketing the drivers making harmless right turns with caution.
To save lives at intersections simply program the lights so the amber is timed to cause a pause of traffic from both directions.


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