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Alex Mayyasi writes that a close look at the cars outside Silicon Valley's venture capital firms reveals that the cars share a mysterious detail: they nearly all have a custom license plate frame that reads, "Member. 11-99 Foundation" which is the charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 "Classic" level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000. Rumor has it, according to Mayyasi, that the license plate frames come with a lucrative return on investment. As one member of a Mercedes-Benz owners community wrote online back in 2002: "I have the ultimate speeding ticket solution. I paid $1800 for a lifetime membership into the 11-99 foundation. My only goal was to get the infamous 'get out of jail' free license plate frame."
The 11-99 Foundation has sold license plate frames for most of its 32 year existence, and drivers have been aware of the potential benefits since at least the late 1990s. But attention to the issue in 2006-2008 led the foundation to stop giving out the frames. An article in the LA Times asked "Can Drivers Buy CHP Leniency?" and began by describing a young man zipping around traffic including a police cruiser and telling the Times that he believed his 11-99 frames kept him from receiving a ticket. But the decision was almost irrelevant to another thriving market: the production and sale of fake 11-99 license plate frames. But wait the CHP 11-99 Foundation also gives out membership cards to big donors. "Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you," says one cop, "no love will be shown."
[Editor's Note: I would also like to draw attention to a transport story that came out today.]
The BBC reports:
A rail union has claimed a hedge fund manager was able to "buy silence" after he repaid £42,550 in unpaid fares to Southeastern - but remained anonymous and avoided court action.
On Twitter, blogger Martin Shovel wrote: "Biggest rail fare dodger in history avoids prosecution because he's rich enough to pay back what he owed #OneLaw"
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:48AM
Actually, lately I'm seeing more of the same stuff here first.
And I don't really care if stories get duplicated here and there... it's the comments that are interesting, and they're certainly not the same from one site to the other, even with a lot of the same people commenting.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Tuesday April 15 2014, @05:42PM
Good point about the commenting not being the same.
I have noticed the comments 'over there' have markedly dropped in 'quality'. It's more like reddit or 4chan, with all the wingnuts in charge.
I gave up on /. because of this.
So, to be honest about it, I could not care less about the same articles being submitted here, but I do wish SN would institute a rule that submitted article links go to the source, and not be used to increase blog views.
Aside from the shady nature of that practice, I truly despise clicking on a submitted link only to find that I have to search the blog for links to the source, and hoping the source links actually exist on the blog(sometimes they do not).
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 15 2014, @11:46PM
Not like we don't have wingnuts here (if only due to the user overlap) but the overall tone is different. And there seems to be more outright babble over yonder.
Good thought on the article links. I too become annoyed when it's just some damned blog pulling hits. Granted sometimes a blog is THE source, but if the blog is discussing something with links of its own... okay, give us the original links and a synopsis of the blog, if need be. But don't TRICK us into going there. (Assuming we're some n00bs that still RTFA :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.