Not long after hearing about England's newfangled auto-ticketing system comes word that San Franciscans could soon be facing something similar. If signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, "forward-facing digital video cameras would be installed on city buses," which would then be used to automatically ticket the owners of vehicles that are caught "blocking buses." The cameras would presumably be used to photograph vehicles that are in bus-only lanes, and interestingly enough, the proposed law also authorizes Municipal Transportation Agency "employees to access sensitive personal data" from the DMV for ticketing purposes.

The folks in England just can't catch a break. As if hovering surveillance drones, camcorder-wielding traffic wardens and helmet cam-equipped officers aren't enough to keep you on the straight and narrow, London's city of Westminster is apparently looking to "install networked security cameras that can recognize parking permits and the plates of offending vehicles." Essentially, the system would enable parking violators to be ticketed without an actual human witnessing the offense, and it's being dubbed "the most significant application to be deployed on the Westminster's WiFi network." Eventually, the council plans to roll out about 250 of these sure-to-be-hated cameras, and it should ruin enough people's days to "pay for itself in two to three years."

[Via CNET, image courtesy of BBC]

Why pay thousands for that temptation-quelling adaptive cruise control option, or dream about the forthcoming Siemens VDO electronic governor, when all you have to do is switch a few lanes while smashing the pedal to the metal? The Home Office has fessed up to a "massive flaw" in the costly (and abundant) SPECS speed monitoring / ticketing cameras, which allows drivers to avoid any legal repercussions by simply ending up in a different lane than the one they began in. The system takes the average speed between two points to calculate if a motorist has been speeding, and then snaps their photograph and sends them a very unwelcome ticket in the mail if they were; however, the cameras are only designed to analyze and penalize those who remain in the same lane throughout the speed-checking segment, opening up a very exploitable loophole. Government officials, along with the cameras' manufacturer (Speed Check Services), have resorted to begging with the public to not evade the presumably imminent £60 ($112) fine in order to maintain a "high level of safety" on the roadways, but it's not likely that pleading to deaf ears (and lead feet) will entice folks to willingly suffer a penalty this easy to avoid.

[Via FARK]

Parking meters have made huge strides in recent years, with some of them -- such as pay-by-cell systems -- providing increased convenience to change-starved consumers, while others -- like auto-resetting meters -- have made it harder to get away with modest infractions like picking up a previous parker's minutes. Now, what may be the ultimate in parking convenience, the "personal meter" is starting to catch on in more major cities. The small card readers have been around for several years, but have recently become more popular; last month, Buffalo expanded its pilot system from a service for handicapped drivers to a citywide program. Buffalo's system, like many others, relies on the Smart Park reader, from Israel's Ganis Systems. The card reader can hang from a car's rearview mirror, and can be programmed with a city's parking rules. When a driver parks, he inserts the card into the meter, sets it for his location, and the meter starts ticking away. Enforcement officers with handheld receivers spot-check cars, and issue tickets based on data they download via an IR link. The system definitely sounds convenient, and could eliminate all of those tickets for underestimating how long you're going to be parked. However, we can't help but think it could be improved by adding wireless communication with servers that can automatically track violations and issue tickets. This could be more efficient than the spot-check system, even if it would put Lovely Rita out of a job.