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posted by n1 on Monday April 14 2014, @09:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the rules-are-made-to-be-broken dept.

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"

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Drew617 on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:08AM

    by Drew617 (1876) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @02:08AM (#31625)

    All good points, and I agree absolutely re: photo enforcement. I don't understand how that hasn't generated more outrage.

    Part of the reason that I appreciate the policeman's discretion is that it allows for some of my own. Where I drive, the limits often seem too low, though I'm not a highway engineer. Thing is, even if they were all raised, the speed limits and traffic rules would still be arbitrary to a degree. In dense areas especially - thinking of Boston because it's where I drive these days - safe speed (as determined by me) varies greatly depending on wildly fluctuating traffic conditions, weather, time of day, visibility, which stretch of a road I'm on when the DOT applied a single standard to the whole thing.

    As it is, the system lets make my own determinations (within a sane variance, say +25% at most) and be left alone for it. The system assumes we have some intelligence.

  • (Score: 1) by DrMag on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:30PM

    by DrMag (1860) on Tuesday April 15 2014, @12:30PM (#31758)

    Part of me wants to agree about policeman's discretion, but the side effects of such a thing existing cause far more problems than you might think. In Montana, for quite a while, we had a literal speed limit of "Reasonable and Prudent". It was wonderful. It got struck down. Why? Out-of-staters would contest their violations in court, despite there being nothing reasonable nor prudent about driving 95 mph at night during a snow storm. A law has no value if it can't be (or isn't) enforced clearly and specifically. So set a hard limit--you'll get the ticket if you're 25% over--but at that point, why not just set the speed limit to a more reasonable value, and then enforce it?

    Laws need to apply to everyone equally. I can't tell you how many times in the DC area I'm tailgated by a cop who then swings past me at a high speed; when I glance over to be sure there's enough clearance, I often see that they're chatting on their cell phone. When I look back at my dash, I'm usually going 5-10 mph over the speed limit already. How can anyone take a law seriously when 1) it's not enforced, and 2) the "enforcers" themselves have no regard for it?