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E-Paying Speeding Tickets
lemonBoy writes "It looks like now I'll be able to pay off that speeding ticket in Texas...If you've ever been to Texas then you know about all the little burgs and villas...Paying that ticket in Hondo will be easier now that some municipalities are moving to the web for helping people pay fines." So here's the deal: Just setup cron to check & pay your fines (from a cellphone equipped PC in your trunk). Then you can speed at will (until you
get to many points on your license, but we'll have to worry about that later).
Yuppie, another way to spend your cash ! I tell you a secret , you are not a human, you are a customer ! ( first ? )
may have to keep a log of just how much you have spent, otherwise your cron job may have you broke by the time you get out of Texas.
i need to install some sort of mechanical slide that i can make go down over my license upon the pressing of a button on my dash ... or, better yet, whenever my radar detector goes off on the highway. Tickets suck. Cops suck. I'll continue going 130 on the way to work every morning no matter what.
You'd be better off setting up cron to automatically appeal each ticket. Then you can drive faster longer!
So our local traffic police are going to be the next profitable Internet company, huh? I can't wait untill they go public and I am able to buy stock! Watch out, eBay ... here come ePig! Colin
Sure does help with that 40 mile commute from
Austin on I-35 every day.
--dane
Habitual Violator Offenses and Consequences [TRC 521.294(h)]
An Administrative Hearing will be scheduled for any Texas driver licensee upon receipt of the following combination of traffic violations by the Department of Public Safety.
Four (4) convictions for moving traffic violations within a twelve (12) month period.
Seven (7) convictions for moving traffic violations within a twenty-four (24) month period.
The Administrative Hearing is held in the county of residence of the subject. A representative for the Department (usually a Driver License Examiner) will attend and present the case to the Justice of the Peace or Municipal Court Judge. The decision will then be rendered to dismiss the case, place the driver on probation for up to twenty-four (24) months, or suspend the driving privilege for up to twelve (12) months. Should the driving privilege be suspended, it will remain suspended indefinitely after the sentenced term until a $50.00 reinstatement fee is paid to the Department
Sure does help with that 40 mile commute from
Austin on I-35 every day. Just don't do it too
much (see below).
--dane
Habitual Violator Offenses and Consequences [TRC 521.294(h)]
An Administrative Hearing will be scheduled for any Texas driver licensee upon receipt of the following combination of traffic violations by the Department of Public Safety.
Four (4) convictions for moving traffic violations within a twelve (12) month period.
Seven (7) convictions for moving traffic violations within a twenty-four (24) month period.
The Administrative Hearing is held in the county of residence of the subject. A representative for the Department (usually a Driver License Examiner) will attend and present the case to the Justice of the Peace or Municipal Court Judge. The decision will then be rendered to dismiss the case, place the driver on probation for up to twenty-four (24) months, or suspend the driving privilege for up to twelve (12) months. Should the driving privilege be suspended, it will remain suspended indefinitely after the sentenced term until a $50.00 reinstatement fee is paid to the Department
Sure it will be nice to easily pay our tickets but just think how much easier it will be for these small towns to set up a business of stopping and fining interstate travelers. I don't know about you, but when I travel interstate 40, I'm NEVER going the posted 65-75mph. Just imagine, Officer hardass will now be able you smile pleasently as soon as you start to whine about living in CA, or even NY for that matter. "Here's our web address son, you can now pay online! ...thank you for your business!" No thanks..I'd rather the judges court room be filled with pissed of people who had to travel great distance to pay thier ticket.
Duhhhh... What's wrong with just sending a cheque and signing on the 'guilty' line?
Oh geeze. These people are nothing but a paid lobby of the GM corporation. THEY ARE A FRONT, not a grassroots organization. Fuck them.
There's no point system in Texas.
speeding on the Internet Superhighway ? [ I never understood this obsession with speed in the US. In '96 I managed to do 40 mph on my bike, but that was in Montana, and there was no speed limit there (at least not a numerical one ] Cheers, Toon Moene.
$400 for the best radar detector out there.. Twice as much as other radar detectors, but hell, its the only one that works. (It has a detector in the front & back of the machine, so it can tell you if the cop is in front of you or behind, based on the distance from each radar (if that makes sense, i cant really explain)). A.C.
Now THEREs an idea. If you're content with pleading guilty, just transfer funds to the state. But if you want to argue, log onto IRC for "court." Eliminates the need for stenographers! A.C.
"I hold you in contemp of #Court!"
:)
Andy
"I hold you in contempt of #Court!"
:)
Andy (who cannot type yet)
I heard they make bra's for cars that are made of RAM (Radar Absorbant Material) like they use on stealth planes. Couple this with a nice coat of laser-reflective "wax" and you should be on your way. Of course you could use a radar jammer instead of the bra and it'd probably be cheaper.
Go to the NMA's site and learn how to stick it to the man!
This type of system has already been implemented by a company in Canada (http://www.sri.bc.ca/solution.htm). They also provide kiosks as well.
--
why not just make driving illegal, and then hook little meters up to our cars, which radio the state dept of transportation to garnishee our paychecks to pay the fines automatically.
This whole unreasonably low speed limit/fine/selective enforcement/illegal search and seizure/ thing is complete bullshit, and now they want to streamline the process of sucking our money?
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Just hack into the Texas system and erase your tickets and while you are in there give yourself diplomatic immunity so future tickets roll off your back like water off a duck.
Save the children; quit overparenting!
and it's the Valentine 1. I would rather give Mike Valentine 500 bucks once than pay out the nose to the damned "law" enforcement psychos in texas forever. (gotta drive through some hick trailer park town that shall remain nameless ..cough.. white settlement ..cough.. on my way to work each day. they must make millions off of us poor suckers by making up tickets and paying off judges.)
/dev
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
When you drive through Hondo (little town in South Texas for you non-Texans), there is a sign that says:
"THIS IS GOD'S TOWN. PLEASE DON'T DRIVE LIKE HELL THROUGH IT."
man, I miss TX.
-Stuck on the LA Freeways
I'm not impressed.. you've been able to do this for a years now here in Massachusetts! http://www.state.ma.us/rmv/express/ I've done it before, and I must say, it's far more convenient than trying to find a stamp (though I suppose you can buy them online now too..)
Drink! OHBC >O+
A lot of high-traffic toll roads, bridges in big cities in particular, have automatic electronic metering. You attach this box to the undercarrage of your car and when you drive over the sensors, you get counted and billed monthly. Beats tokens, cards, and the lines, but yes, there are already auto auto billing systems *smirk* in place.
My personal opinion though is that paying a ticket shouldn't be effortless. That's the "enforcement" part of law enforcement. The continuation of electronic automatic ticket billing would be to say "well why even bother to have police pull the car over? Why not just read the electronic tag at 85Mph and immediately take the appropriate amount of money from the guy's bank account?"
~GoRK
...just give the state electronic access to your bank account. That way they can merely do a funds transfer without bothering you.
Seriously, IMHO, dealing with traffic offenses should be as big a pain in the ass as the government can possibly make it. Perhaps then people will treat driving as the privilege that it is and not a right.
In Illinois, there is a fairly big to-do about cities that ticket people, take the money, and don't report the offenses to the state so that the points never go against your license. That's great. You could get hit, and possibly killed, by some jerk who was speeding and should never have even been on the road as, if his offenses had been reported properly, they'd be off the road since their license would have been revoked. If it becomes so easy to ticket people and they can pay for the picket right then and there, using their cellphone, while the officer waits, what's to stop these cities from ticketing you silly stuff like going 0.1 MPH over the limit or stopping 2 inches beyond the stop sign? The city makes additional money (``Hizzoner wants to make our city a better place to live and we think that's best accomplished by getting some mahogony conference room furniture...'') and they'll claim that they're just making the streets safer.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The thing is, the fine for obscuring your plate is at least 3 times as much as the speeding ticket.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotected sex.
Bite the hand.
I'd like a guilty/not-guilty radio button at least. NG selection triggers an e-mail for virtual or live court appearance. Alternately, you should be able to elect to send evidence and arguments by smarmy power-point presentation or simply give the judge an URL and password for defense materials.
There's one for developers given the profitability of specialized prison control systems and the like.
E-just Municipal Commerce System
Why doesn't Fry's have a web page? We should make one for them!
http://www.bombcar.com It's where it is at.
Fellowship 9/11
I've heard (but not verified) that there's a law here in TX to stop small towns turning this into a business. Once they reach a certain amount of revenue, the money goes to the state.
For the larger towns, around D/FW, they get about 5% of the their revenue from municipal courts. This includes speeding tickets, code violations such as having your lawn too long, etc.
Did anyone else notice that ecourtinc is running IIS on NT? (I used netcraft to check) Perhaps some script-kiddies can program their car to automatically crash this site every time they drive fast through a small town in TX :-)
Gee, if only they'd open-sourced the code to this site, it might have had something to redeem it. Maybe we can band together and build a Moreau-esqe response to them, I propose "python-pig".
We've pretty much reached the stage where this is no longer news; the internet is as mainstream as it's possible to get now, and ecommerce is just seen as another option, albeit a handy one.
I'm still getting used to this; I occasionally find myself surprised to see the internet mentioned on the tv news.
You tell all the poor rural people that they can't drive...how are they gonna get to work? How do they buy food? America has been built arround the automobile and it is an essential part of our society. I'll keep driving 'till they pry the wheel out of my cold, dead fingers.
Blar.
The whole situation is stupid. I LIKE the idea of putting automatic meters in your speedometer that automatically give you a violation when you break the speed limit.
For once maybe people will see how completely ludicrous the system is. I mean, the speed limit in CA is 65mph, and yet 99% of all traffic is over that. Cop rolls down on to the freeway. He picks off cars at random. Or maybe not. Maybe he chooses arbitrarily. Maybe he chooses you because of the color of your car. Or the color of your skin. The point is, he can pull over ANYBODY because nobody is driving fucking 65mph. Its the stupidest thing ever.
Enforce the stupid laws you make, and maybe we won't have so many stupid laws.
Sigh.
Why would you even bother with cops and the internet when you can have an electronic tag and automatic bank deductions? This is already in place for a Toll-Road project in Melbourne Australia and Singapore CBD carzone control. It's only a matter of time before someone else uses them for speed gates and then for parking meters.
Despite a certain segment of the population's outcry of fascist control and outright paranoia of an overbearing brother, no matter how government is perceived, there is the very real issue of public transportation management. The no-limits on personal mobility and the pork-barrelling of highway construction has basically created cogestion effects which has led to road-rage, discrimination against alternative transportation (bikes, etc), and the usual hourly traffic stress. Given the increase in population and prosperity, can you imagine the problems if every person in India and China had the american average of 2.5 cars? After watching the driving habits of 3rd world countries, I'd be either scared out of my mind or investing in insurance companies.
This is going to be one example of how the information age will change society. If you know the position (GPS) and connectivity (IP address) of every single car, imagine how traffic flows can be managed. Someone has to pay for the roads and ongoing maintenance and an electronic user-pays scheme seems to make sense on economic grounds. With some luck, this will eliminate one layer of road/petrol taxes or at least make it more transparent although some people may debate the merits of substituting inefficient government for efficient private fine collection. Just make sure that the gas companies don't own the petrol stations AND the tollroads otherwise you might as well redefine the word monopoly and extortion.
LL
Next they'll have a "Virtual Judge" that will automatically deny your request to have the ticket reduced/dismissed, ala The Simpons when homer calls the traffic cop about the boot on his vehicle, in the Simpsons goto New York episode.
In the end..... it all comes back to old simpsons re-runs.
The Marketing of Convienience is the issue here and the internet provides it as no other medium has before. People can now sit in semi-vegetative states and do most of what they used to leave home ( or at least put an envelope in the mail box) for. As technologies (thie internet and its' evolutionar dirivitives) enable us to interact in increasingly more facile manners, albeit significantly less personal ones, most people are apt to opt for the easiest method to extracate themselves from unpleasent interludes such as 'minor' trafic violations as long as the cost does not constitute a significant burden and are therefore more likely to pay the fine FASTER (and certainly not fight the citation, vlaid or not(yes there are a whole bunch of 'erroneous' citations issued;-), even if it just means going 'downtown' or into town to do so, if given an easy way to do so. The real issue for these jurisdictions is to balance the fine structure of minor violations relative to the 'convienience factor' in the payment/litigation structure in order to maximixe the number of direct payments of fines and to minimize the court time for the judge who would much rather be on the back nine by 4:00 anyway... That is to keep the fine in the 'not too punitive range' in order to increase the likelyhood of payment without an apearence in court. A short note about Texas Having been a licensed vee-hickil operator of El Estado de Tejas Grandioso for nearly 30 years and having been issued my fair share of citations and warnings(yeah if they stopped you for no reason and you call them on it POLITELY the will usually give you a warning unless you have out of state plates) for violating the traffic laws in various jurisdictions and I assure you that the judicial districts and law enforcement agencies in this state will be the first to adapt any method (new tech old tech or no tech(cudgels et al.)) to increase the efficiency of collections( read personal income)... yeeeeeeeeeeee haaaaaaaaahh Texas the most progressive of sociological backwaters....
morturii
the easier they make it for them to take your money, the less you'll fuss about them taking it. but no matter what.... they take... and take...and take....
I'll have the fries, please....
Don't come to the Netherlands.. they're switching to lasers
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
We've got:
E-Paying Speeding Tickets
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Wearable PCs
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None of those crappy, high-reply, get my blood pressure up, troll topics that we've had lately like....well you know the ones.
Good job SlashDot!
I've been complaining about the quality of the articles here so much lately I thought I should post a positive comment when things are good.
Speed, pay, repeat as necessary.
--'puter Geezer
I wish this could have helped me for my speeding ticket. I got caught speeding in some little Wisconsin town 200 miles from where I live. Unfortunately, a court appearance was mandatory. Do you think they could let me say "guilty" to the judge on irc?