Free Republic

Hauling a truckload of logs to a Southern Oregon mill last fall, Chris Hill noticed a sheriff's deputy behind him and flashed his lights to warn a UPS driver coming the other way. The deputy pulled over Hill on U.S. Highway 140 in White City and handed him a $260 ticket for improperly using his headlights, saying another deputy had seen the flashing lights from behind the UPS truck and alerted him to stop the log truck because of the signaling. Outraged, Hill decided to fight the ticket, and on Wednesday, a Jackson County Justice Court judge dismissed the citation,...

In 2004, UPS announced a new policy for its drivers: the right way to get to any destination was to avoid left-hand turns. Even if that means following this route that a UPS driver described to an incredulous press member: "We're gonna make a right turn onto 135th to Western. We'll make another right on Western down to 139th. Righ turn on 139th and go down to the end of the block and we'll make another right turn." When better tracking systems emerged in 2001, the package delivery service took a closer look at how trucks performed when delivering packages....

NBC Bay Area's Chase Cain reports on extra police patrols in Palo Alto and a new app that will keep you safer on the roads.

When 7-year-old Isaiah McLoughlin wanted cars and trucks on his Waterford street to stop speeding, he decided to take action. Isaiah grabbed a pen, wrote a letter to his local police department and he is getting results. “When I went for my bus cars and trucks are speeding. It makes feel unsafe,” Isaiah wrote. Then he asked police to call his grandmother to discuss the situation. So police did. They arranged a meeting around the busy 7-year-old’s schedule, took the complaint and arranged for speed patrols, starting today. Here is what Waterford Police posted on their Facebook page: ”Traffic complaint...

Mayor de Blasio’s SUV was caught on camera speeding through Queens and blowing through two stop signs Thursday — just two days after he announced a sweeping street-safety plan. The mayor — who was riding shotgun on the way back to City Hall from a pothole-filling photo op — was twice clocked going 15 mph over the speed limit by a WCBS/Channel 2 news crew. The two-car caravan also ran past two stop signs without even tapping the brakes and changed highway lanes without signaling, the CBS video shows. De Blasio’s wild ride came after his pledge to personally abide...

Red-light cameras are getting the heave-ho in this seaside city. Saying he was following through on a campaign promise, Commissioner William Julian made a motion Wednesday to get rid of the cameras as soon as legally possible.

As this is written, Atlanta is still in the throes of another winter weather situation. The TV is filled with images of major highways littered with abandoned vehicles. Many of their owners are stranded in make-shift shelters until warmer weather makes the roads passable again. The governor and other officials just concluded a news conference to explain how the mess unfolded and that they've learned much from this experience. One of the lessons they “learned” is that, once the potential severity of this event became obvious, dismissing public and private employees all at once to try to get home was...

Lansing woman shot at in road-rage incident on I-80/94 11 hours ago • Times Staff GARY | A Lansing woman was shot at in a road-rage incident Sunday on I-80/94, with one bullet hitting the back of her car, Indiana State Police said in a news release. The 33-year-old woman told police she was on 25th Avenue in Gary driving her Chrysler 300 slowly because of potholes. She said a car behind her was following too closely, so she braked to get the car to back off. The braking apparently angered the other driver. The woman said the driver got...

Lost Angeles is the worst traffic city in America. 'Carmaggedon' is no joke. Drivers in the worst traffic city wasted an average of 63.3 hours in traffic over the last year. Congrats to Los Angeles, although worst traffic city might not be the most coveted of titles.

Finally Bridgegate has its own Woodward and Bernstein and his name is Chris Hayes or Mr. Rachel Maddow. Is he all in? You bet, he’s all in.Do you want to see this man talk about New Jersey traffic for one hour? Are you an MSNBC viewer? Then of course you do. It’s either that or Al Sharpton talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan or Ed Schultz talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan or Melissa Harris Perry talking about how the Tea Party is just like the Klan.Bridgegate is a chance...

One unmentioned irony of the Chris Christie road-revenge scandal is that the powers-that-be finally found a traffic jam they didn't like. Now, don't get me wrong, having always lived in the NY metropolitan area and often having wanted to split a vein while in the midst of the NY/NJ road experience, I think that anyone who purposely exacerbates traffic problems should be confined to a small cell and forced to listen 24/7/365 to Nancy Pelosi's nails-on-blackboard speeches. But I have to tell you: it has always seemed that NY and NJ public officials have utter disregard - if not contempt...

You’ll have to forgive me. This is a difficult time for me. This week I have been forced to confront memories I’ve been trying to bury my whole life, but recent events have made that impossible. I…am a survivor of traffic jams. It’s not easy to talk about. Just the sight of brake lights causes flashbacks to the horror of sitting on a freeway not going anywhere. But for you, dear reader, I will be strong and push on. You probably know a victim of traffic jams yourself. You may well be one. Be silent no more! Thanks to the...

The next 24 hours will be crucial for Chris Christie, top Republicans say. The New Jersey governor, who was on top of the political world two months ago as he cruised to reelection over his Democratic challenger now finds his status as the potential front-runner of the 2016 GOP presidential field imperiled. The test comes with the release of e-mails and text messages that tie top members of his administration to the closure of two lanes leading to a crucial bridge in what appears to be political retaliation against a Democratic mayor who refused to endorse Christie’s reelection. Republican communications...

According to some estimates, there are more than 100 million traffic signals in the U.S., but whatever the number, how many of us would like Washington, in the name of public health and safety, to be in sole charge of their operation? Congress or a committee it authorizes would determine the position of traffic signals at intersections, the length of time the lights stay red, yellow and green, and what hours of the day they can be flashing red. While you ponder that, how many Americans would like Washington to be in charge of managing the delivery of food and...

BERKELEY, CA -- A truck driver was beaten within an inch of his life by California Highway Patrol for not signing a traffic ticket that he could not read. The driver, who broke no laws, was beaten so badly that he woke up in a trauma hospital. Olegs Kozacenko, a local resident originally from Russia, was pulled over and cited by police for allegedly driving too many hours in one day. Kozacenko refused to sign the ticket because he had not or could not read it. CHP Officers didn't take kindly to the driver's refusal to sign. Two officers, one...

CBS has a video report about the lucrative business of cats on the internet. According to Friskies, 15% of all internet traffic is connected to cats. And internet traffic means big money. Henri, the existential cat, has been viewed on You Tube 15 million times. He also has a line of products. Grumpy cat, the cat with an underbite, has her own manager. And Maru is the most viewed cat of all with 224 million+ hits on You Tube. John St. a digital ad agency in Toronto produced a video about "catvertsing," the owner claims they won three accounts even...

Whether it's their problems with "taxation without representation" or the flood of foreign diplomats weaving around town, drivers in the nation's capital are the most likely to get into a car accident, according to a new report from Allstate. The insurance company's annual study on safe drivers, now in its ninth year, looked at property-damage claims in 194 cities from January 2010 through December 2011 and compared them to the national average. In Washington, D.C., drivers were 109 percent more likely to get into a crash, while the D.C. suburbs of Alexandria and Arlington, Va. – along with Baltimore, Providence,...

Anywhere from several hundred to several thousand bicyclists are expected to ride through Palo Alto tonight, potentially causing significant traffic delays, police said. Organized as the "San Jose Bike Party," the cyclists are scheduled between 8 p.m. and midnight to pedal through Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Palo Alto before turning around at Stanford University, police said.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system, aka BART, has been shut down by a workers' strike that started at midnight. That means that the system's 400,000 daily riders have to find alternate ways to get to work. Naturally, a lot of them are driving. San Francisco already has some of the worst traffic in the country, and now things have gotten a lot worse. Here's what the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge looked like early this morning: [CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE PHOTO]

Left-lane hogs, beware. You could be charged double for failing to keep right under a bill passed Monday by the Assembly. Motorists who clog the left or center lanes instead of using them to pass another vehicle would see fines increase from between $50 and $200 now to between $100 and $300. The bill calls for $50 from each violation going toward signs reminding motorists who enter New Jersey about the state’s stay-right law. “On behalf of road rage, I move the bill,” said Assemblyman Gilbert “Whip” Wilson (D-Camden), a co-sponsor of the measure, which passed 69-7. Aside from drinking...