Just read this story and thought it was funny.  It is NOT actually what you may consider a Polish joke and we don’t endorse jokes which promote racial or ethnic stereotypes.  We really don’t.  If anything, this is a government/DMV joke. Those we fully endorse and embrace on every level…

The most notorious speeder in Ireland is apparently a man named “Prawo Jazdy”.  He accumulated more than 50 traffic offenses and none of them have been paid or handled properly.

Mr. Jazdy has finally been identified and the mystery surrounding his failure to appear on these traffic tickets has been solved.   ”Prawo Jazdy” is actually the Polish phrase for driving licence and not the first and last names on the licence.  Thus, police in Ireland have routinely been pulling over motorists with Polish driver licenses and mistakingly issuing a ticket in the name Prawo Jazdy.  It’s not uncommon for an individual to be driving in Ireland with a Polish license–About 200,000 Polish people flocked to Ireland during the boom years of the country’s economy earlier this decade.

At least the Irish police who issued the tickets in the wrong name tried.  In New York, we routinely see officers tack an “unlicensed driver” charge on to car stops of individuals with out-of-country driver licenses and let the courts sort it out later.

We can’t help if you are installing a 42 inch plasma into the back of the car (not recommended) or even spending money on fancy Yosemite Sam mud flaps.  However, we can offer a few easy tips with respect to minimizing the cost of car ownership and your driving privilege in 2010 and beyond.  In no particular order…

6.  Compare insurance rates. There are many ways to do this quickly online.  Have your current policy handy (so you make sure you are comparing apples to apples), have your registration in hand and take a couple of minutes for this very worthwhile exercise.  Most comparison sites will give you multiple quotes from different companies and will get them to you instantly.  The savings can be significant.

7.  Review the terms of your current insurance policy. There may be significant savings right under your nose if you just take a look.  For example, perhaps you bought your policy ten years ago when your personal financial situation dictated a deductible of $500 and now you are more comfortable raising it to $1000.  This is an example of overinsurance–paying for an additional $500 in protection that is no longer needed. A small change like that can greatly reduce your annual premium.  Call your agent, review each of the terms, inquire about what it means and what the state requirements are, and see if you are potentially overinsured in any areas.  You might also discover you are underinsured in certain areas.   Increasing your coverage may not save you money on your premiums but of course being properly insured can be a big money saver down the road should you need it.

8.  Keep a camera in your glove compartment. Buy a disposable and throw it in your car.  Preferably something with a flash in the event you need it at night.  If you are in an accident, this can protect you as you take pictures of the scene.  It can protect you if you get a parking or traffic ticket you feel wasn’t deserved.  It’s one of those low risk (it doesn’t cost much at all), high reward (you’ll be VERY happy if you need it and it’s there) propositions.  Note not to rely completely on a cell phone camera (generally useless in the dark) or an old digital you no longer use (may not be charged/batteries will be dead when you need it).

9.  Make sure you are on top of your basic vehicle maintenance. Nothing crazy is necessary–just know the basics.  Consult your manual to see what is recommended.  Generally the following need to be regularly checked:

• Brakes and brake fluid
• Belts (fan, alternator and A/C)
• Tires and tire pressure
• Engine fluids (oil, transmission, coolant)
• Lights
• Wipers

10.  If you get a parking ticket or traffic ticket, don’t ignore it or simply pay it without doing a little research.  As a traffic ticket attorney, I had to include that one.  With parking tickets, you may be eligible to get a reduction on the fine simply for asking.  Look into that before paying if you aren’t inclined to fight the whole thing.  With moving violations, the financial stakes are much greater.  Points, higher fines and surcharges and insurance can amount to a significant expense from one single car stop.  Traffic tickets can even lead to suspended licenses, more severe misdemeanor charges, issues with your employment, etc.  If you get a traffic ticket, do some simple research.  You’ll want to know how long you have to respond and what the potential ramifications are.  Then, you can make a decision to fight or pay.  Most attorneys can easily walk you through the assessment of your situation and save you a lot of research time with a simple consultation.

We’re dividing our top ten driving related resolutions for 2010 into two categories.—Safety and Financial.

First we’ll look at five simple things drivers can do to make their driving experiences that much more safe in the new year.

1. Inspect and adjust your car before driving. Of course we are always in a rush, but a couple of minutes (if that) before driving away can make a big difference.

Inspect

-Seatbelts all work properly.

-Signal lamps and brake lamps all illuminate and function properly.

-No illuminated warning lights on your dash indicating engine or other issues.

-Loose items in the car can become projectiles in a collision. Secure everything possible in compartments, in the trunk, with cargo nets, etc.

Adjust

-Position your seat. Easy access to the pedals, comfort while steering and safety in the event of an air bag deployment are the primary goals. The general rule has your seat positioned so your wrist is at the top of the steering wheel with your arm fully extended.

-Adjust the mirrors. The entire back window should be visible in your rear view mirror. Side view mirrors should be positioned for maximum visibility of approaching vehicles and for minimizing any blind spots.

-Position the head restraint high and close to your head. This can make a big difference in preventing neck injuries in case of a rear-end collision.

2. Wear your seatbelt. By now, the message should be loud and clear from all the available statistics and national campaigns promoting seatbelt use. Nevertheless, way too many people still don’t wear one. We know this to be the case –we see no seatbelt tickets every day. Just wear it.

3. Make sure children are as safe as possible in your car. Too many drivers are either unaware or the safest measures or consciously choose to ignore them. Again, we know this by the number of child seatbelt tickets we see every day. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration describes the four steps for kids.

-Rear facing child safety seats. Kids under one year old or under 20 pounds should be in a rear facing car seat in the back seat of the vehicle.

-Forward facing child safety seats. When children outgrow their rear-facing seats (at a minimum age 1 and at least 20 pounds) they should ride in forward-facing child safety seats, in the back seat, until they reach the upper weight or height limit of the particular seat (usually around age 4 and 40 pounds).

-Booster seats. Once children outgrow their forward-facing seats (usually around age 4 and 40 pounds), they should ride in booster seats, in the back seat, until the vehicle seat belts fit properly. Seat belts fit properly when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt fits across the chest (usually at age 8 or when they are 4’9” tall).

-Standard seat belts in the back seat. When children outgrow their booster seats, (usually at age 8 or when they are 4’9” tall) they can use the adult seat belt in the back seat, if it fits properly (lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt fits across the chest). Buckled in the back will always be safer than buckled in the passenger seat so keep the child in the back as long as possible.

4. Avoid distracted driving. We all know about driving under the “influence” of alcohol, but what about the “influence” of cell phones, GPS, ipods, etc? There are way too many gadgets available to us these days and the “mobile” revolution, from a technology perspective, is just getting started. Add to this a wave of hybrid or electric vehicles soon to come with new gauges to read and dials to monitor. Driving was challenging enough when the only “distraction” was other cars on the road. We must all commit to focusing only on the potentially very dangerous task at hand—driving a vehicle.

5. Take a defensive driving course. No matter how long you’ve been driving, it’s good to review. When/how to pass vehicles, avoiding blind spots, don’t trust anyone or simply proceed on green lights without looking, tips for bad weather driving, not getting yourself boxed in on a highway… You may know it all but for a couple of hours of your time it’s at very least worth a review.

Coming soon. Part 2—Financial Tips.

Two of the professions historically linked with car crashes have been doctors (to help the injured) and lawyers (to help the injured collect).

Turns out these professions are actually linked with car accidents in a more direct fashion. Doctors and lawyers are at the top of a report recently released by Quality Planning Corp. setting forth how frequently people in various occupations are involved in accidents. Doctors ranked first and lawyers second.

Architects were third. Real Estate Brokers were fourth.

Students were far and away the category most likely to be involved in accidents but are considered separate from the other categories because they are not a “profession”.

Quality Planning Corp. is a California company in the business of compiling information for insurance companies and will occasionally issue reports related to their findings.

While the reports are based on fact, we can only theorize with respect to why certain professions or groups rank higher than others.

With students, it’s easy to see the connection. A lack of experience seems to be the most logical prevailing factor.

With doctors and lawyers and the other high ranking professions, the connection isn’t as clear. One theory is that professions with long hours and higher stress are more likely to be at the top of the list.

For every 1,000 students, there are about 152 accidents and 87 speeding tickets per year, the report showed. That compares with 109 accidents and 44 speeding tickets for doctors and 106 accidents and 37 speeding tickets for lawyers.

The remaining professions on the top 10 list of those most likely to be involved in a crash, starting with number five, are enlisted military personnel, social workers, manual laborers, analysts, engineers and consultants.

The safest on the list were farmers.  Open spaces, less urban areas and slow moving farm vehicles perhaps?

The next safest were firefighters, with 67 annual accidents per 1,000, and pilots, with 75.  Note they also ranked 29th and 33rd (out of 40), respectively, in the number of speeding tickets they received.  This makes sense–these are people whose very job is all about safety.

The next three safest–all tied–were homemakers, politicians and members of the clergy.

The top ten list on insure.com can be found here and the orginal article by Ken Valenti of the Journal News reporting the findings can be found here.

Nearly 1,700 high school students on Long Island recently pledged not to text and drive. It was part of a nationwide awareness campaign about the dangers of texting and distracted driving.

After hearing a presentation that texting while driving is like driving with your eyes closed, 875 students at Bethpage High School and 824 at Babylon High School took part in the Allstate Insurance Company’s 28-city campaign to “X the TXT” launched during the holiday season, one of the deadliest times for teen drivers.

Texting is one of the most dangerous distractions facing teen drivers. It’s dangerous enough when experienced drivers get distracted by texting, let alone a driver with just a few months experience.

It’s now against the law in New York to text while drive. Federal statistics show distracted driving was to blame for nearly 6,000 deaths and 500,000 injuries in 2008, though it is unclear how many were the result of texting in particular.

Bottom line is with smartphones, satellite radios and a dashboard that is sure to get more complicated as hybrids and other energy efficient vehicles become prevalent, drivers need to concentrate their attention more than ever before. Teaching this lesson to those new to driving is a good place to start.

The NYC City Council approved a bill on Monday (11/16/09) that would provide a five-minute grace period to drivers who are late to feed a muni-meter or move their cars on street-cleaning days.  The five-minute period would apply to muni-meters, which control parking spaces and issue a receipt stating the time of expiration, and alternate-side parking rules, which require drivers to move their cars at a certain time for street cleaning. It would not apply to coin-operated meters, because there’s no mechanism available to tell when they expired.

Mayor Bloomberg vowed to veto the legislation..

Those for the legislation claim:

• Drivers are tired of being hassled, especially in a tough economy.  About 280,000 tickets were issued in fiscal 2008 for alternate-side parking violations within five minutes of the required time, which corresponds to about one-quarter of all parking tickets issued in the city that year.
• It’s good PR.  This city IS on your side…

Those against the measure and on Bloomberg’s side claim:

• The bill will lead to chaos on the streets.  Judgment and grace aren’t things that can be legislated/codified.  Deadlines are codified and that is that.
• The bill creates a perception that parking illegally is punishable only when a violation is blatant or to an extent excessive.  This potentially leads to more curbside arguments.

The Mayor says a grace period would only breed confusion in a system that is already ripe for confrontation. He questioned whose watch is going to be used to make all these judgment points.

I think the Mayor hit the nail on the head with his question about “whose watch”.  It proves that this entire issue is nonsense.  Parking Agents have been using their own judgment all along.  Muni-meter receipt is good until 8pm?  What stops an Agent from issuing a ticket at 7:59pm because they consider their watch a little slow?  Or because the Agent had a bad day or doesn’t like a bumper sticker on the car?  On the other hand, what leads an Agent to not issue a ticket in the same situation at 8:03pm?  In both cases the Agent simply gets to look at his watch and make a discretionary call.  His watch may be fast or slow.  He may be sympathetic and patient or the complete opposite.

Now this entire scenario will unfold surrounding 8:05 instead of 8:00 on the nose and it’s somehow supposed to make a difference?

The point is it’s been a “judgment” call all along, legislation or no legislation.

In any case, expect the legislation to pass.  The Council approved it by 47 to 2, a vote well in excess of the two-thirds support needed to override any veto Mayor Bloomberg is planning.

Also expect this to not make a difference in your life.  Cut it too close–whether it’s a time based violation or distance from a fire hydrant or crosswalk–and you increase the chances you’ll get a ticket.  Avoid parking tickets by parking smart and giving yourself buffers of both time and space, not by relying on some imaginary grace period that legislators are about to pass so they can look good in the eyes of their constituency.

Submitted by Scott Feifer

Between 2006 and 2008, 553 tickets were issued for speeding at 100 mph or higher in Orange County, Sullivan County and Ulster County.

Almost half of those were issued on State Route 17.

In comparison, police issued 160 tickets to drivers of 100 mph or more on the Thruway, and 82 such tickets on I-84.

As a traffic ticket attorney (and an occasional user of Route 17) I’m tempted to be cynical about the reasons for the higher number of extreme speeding tickets on Route 17 in comparison to other roadways.  Route 17 is one of the most heavily patrolled roadways I’ve seen.  You can’t drive 5 miles without seeing either a car stop in progress or an officer waiting on the side of the road ready to initiate a car stop at any moment.  The attorney advertisements on the billboards along Route 17 are a testament to the excessive number of traffic tickets issued along the roadway. Moreover, some of the most difficult courts we’ve dealt with have been in Orange and Sullivan County which could suggest, if we are being cynical about it, an overall system that is too harsh on drivers.

However, no matter how you look at it, or what the reason for the big numbers on Route 17 is, there is absolutely no excuse for driving at speeds in excess of 100 mph.  It puts yourself and anyone else on the road in extreme danger.  There are formulas involved when designing expressways.  Engineers make sure there is enough time and space between exit signs and ramps for drivers to react safely. Curves are designed to be handled at specific speeds.  Extreme speeding severly impacts a motorist’s field of vision and reduces reaction time.  The probability of a crash increases dramatically.

If you think you have some legal justification for driving that speed, it’s unlikely you do.  It would be an extremely rare situation where the law allowed for an ordinary vehicle and untrained emergency driver to proceed at that speed instead of stopping and calling 911.

While Route 17 may be considered by some to be one giant speed trap, I hope everyone driving over 100 mph is indeed “trapped” sooner than later.  It’s just not safe.

Submitted by Scott Feifer.

According to the 2009 Urban Mobility Report, we spend 4.2 billion hours sitting in traffic each year.

That’s a lot of hours.  In case you are curious, that adds up to the total number of hours in the entire lifetime of approximately 6,244 men.  Over 6,000 entire lifetimes in a single year wasted sitting there just trying to get somewhere else.

Makes all the teleportation experimentation seem well worth while even with the occasional fly/human DNA mix up.

Men’s Health magazine took a short break from letting us know 7 ways for better sex and how to get your abs ripped in 28 seconds to ask men their thoughts on traffic congestion.  Some of the more interesting questions and results:

• 53% consider traffic a major stressor in their life
• 26% spend more than 1.5 hrs/day commuting
• 71% said commuting with their significant other would NOT improve their relationship
• 76% blame other drivers, not roadway design, for the congestion
• 70% say they don’t ever get impatient and try to jump ahead in long lines of traffic (not surprising then that 68% consider those who do to be “thoughtless, selfish jerks”)
• 52% consider distracted drivers the greatest threat on the road.  Only 25% answered drivers under the influence.
• 60% said they would commute 3x as far for the chance to triple their salary

What can we do as a society, on the road, to ease the congestion?

• Obey “ramp meters”.  You know those red lights as you enter the highway that seem to be useless?  You ask yourself why should I stop if it’s all clear?  If everyone actually obeyed them, thus spacing traffic a little better, those 20 seconds or so could end up saving 5 or 10 minutes overall.
• Stay in the center lane as much as possible and only switch lanes when necessary.  This reduces accidents (and subsequent delays) as well as allows slower traffic to go right and faster traffic to move left.
• Don’t tailgate.  More tailgating means more/quicker use of brake lights.  One person slightly touches their brakes and then there is a “shock-wave” that can extend way down the roadway and cause others to brake.  In the long run, this does nothing but slow the overall flow of traffic even though an individual who tailgates may “feel” like he is getting somewhere as quickly as possible.

I read a short article this morning on the Tampa Tribune website. It posed the question of whether “there is some sort of technique to getting out of traffic citations.”

It caught my eye because it hit on a point I’ve been trying to make for years. Everyone wants to know if “I can say this or do this or use this defense or if officers are like this or that”… These questions are with respect to both before and after a ticket is issued.

People want black/white solutions to their problems, but such solutions rarely exist. My answers are almost always “maybe, it depends, could be, etc.”… One officer pulls you over and is in a good mood and gives you a warning, another pulls you over 2 minutes after getting into a fight with his wife on the phone. One judge buys your story about why you were talking on a cell phone while another judge’s aunt was just hit by a driver who was talking on the phone two days prior to your hearing.

Bottom line is, when a person has the power to use discretion–as officers who pull you over do–it is impossible to set rules to how that discretion will be exercised. Different people see things differently. Thus, there never will be one “technique” that works all the time.

Related to this are all the “one size fits all” BS beating traffic ticket books and “secrets” and websites out there. The thought that there are universal solutions that don’t take into account different personalities, different jurisdictions within a state and even different laws and evidence as you go from state to state is absolutely ridiculous. Within NY alone there are 2 “types” of courts that are so different from each other it’s obvious universal solutions or tricks just don’t exist.

All this doesn’t mean how you are treated or whether you are successful before or after you are issued a ticket is completely random or out of your hands. Courtesy on the road increases your chances of getting a warning and and smart strategy based on the applicable local rules and procedures in court will increase your chances of success. However, don’t waste too much time searching for some “magic bullet”. It’s unlikely you’ll find it.

The original article written by Jessica Balanza can be found here: Do you have a foolproof way of avoiding speeding tickets?

Finland assesses speeding fines based partially on how fast you were charged with driving and partially on your income.

An heir to a northern European meatpacking empire was recently charged with doing 50mph in a 25mph zone. In New York, this would be a six point speed and all fines and surcharges–including the point-based DRP–would total approximately $500 or so. In Finland, he fine amount took into consideration the motorist’s $11.5 million income that year and was set at $200,000.

A number of Scandinavian countries, including Denmark and Norway, also levy fines according to income, according to a survey of the world’s highest speeding fines by AOL Autos.