CBS 2 investigative reporter Pam Zekman had a report on red light cameras Monday night.

Honestly, Zekman piece is pretty vacuous, with little new information. It’s essentially interviews with drivers who dislike the red light cameras and some revenue numbers from the city and other town’s top performing RLC intersections.

Perhaps the highlight of the piece was her short interview with Prof. Rajiv Shah who’s research (first reported here) which seems to show that RLC in Chicago doesn’t seem to have any effect on reducing crashes.

Read CBS 2′s full story, “2 Investigators: The Red-Light Cameras That Generate The Most Tickets.”

National gas prices are busting records all over the country.

According to fuel price tracking website, GasBuddy.com, the national average for unleaded gasoline is $3.53 per gallon, 37 cents a gallon higher than last year.

But AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report paints a slightly bleaker picture with unleaded coming in at $3.56 per gallon, or 40 cents a gallon more expensive than last February.

There are lots of reasons being given, including tensions in Iran forcing the middle east nation to cut the flow of oil, dropping international supply, alleged increase demand for oil and gas around the globe as well as creeping inflation.

The fear is, if gas prices are this high so early in the year, what will happen when fuel prices hit their normal peak in late spring or early summer?

The curious thing is that, as we posted last week, locally Chicago’s gas prices are disproportionally low. In fact, while everywhere else, gas station signs nationally went up 5 cents a gallon, locally the price dropped 3 cents.

Sure, the local price at the pump is still 20 cents higher than last year according to ChicagoGasPrices.com, but typically Chicago’s gas prices usually rank as one of the highest in the nation.

But that’s not the case right now. In fact, local fuel prices are just 9 cents higher than the national average–a historical anomaly to be sure.

DeHaan told WLS TV that gas prices in the Midwest are lower than normal due to a mild oversupply of gas and the fact that refineries are trying to clear out current inventory before they have to switch to refining the federally mandated and more expensive summer blend that local drivers are forced to purchase.

But the worst is yet to come according to GasBuddy.com’s Patrick DeHaan.

“It’s going to be lousy,” says DeHaan. “In our forecast I essentially predict gas prices in Chicago could be at $4.50 to $4.95 per gallon. I wouldn’t be surprised to see record prices.”

Last year, Chicago set the record average local price of $4.52 per gallon.

“I do believe Chicago will be very close to the top as far as average gas prices come May,” says DeHaan.

The Expired Meter took a stroll through McCormick Place last week to check out what was new and interesting at this year’s show.

Of course, all the latest, greatest, coolest looking cars for next year and beyond were on full display and we have the photos to prove it.

Electric vehicles were still getting a big push like last year, but there were a few more manufacturers and models for drivers to check out.

While none of the more obscure EV manufacturers were there like Tesla and Fisker, all the big boys had their models. The Nissan Leaf was there, as well as some EV concepts from Toyota like the RAV4.

Before checking out the Chevy Volt, we acquainted ourselves with the closest fire exits and did a quick review of where the fire extinguishers were located. Luckily, none of the Volts caught fire–at least while we were there.

Perhaps the biggest news in electric car technology was Smart Car’s announcement that their EV will be available this fall and it will have a battery with a 100 mile range on a full charge.

The ultra small, ultra cute Smart Car is using some cutting edge technology according to two of the Smart Car show staff on hand which will give it the largest battery range of any electric car on the market.

After being wowed at the Smart Car booth, we headed over to some extremely sleek looking sports cars.

The McClaren MP4-12C was a model we had never heard of, but it looked fast and beautiful. But the fact we had not ever heard of McClaren before was probably because it was a little out of our price range. . Unfortunately, $229,000 is about $229,000 out of our price range. The McClaren’s top speed is 205 mph which is about how fast we left that display for the next.

The next car over was not much better. This was the Astin Martin Rapide which is slightly more affordable at only $208,000.

A few steps away, finally an affordable sports car. The Maserati Gran Turisimo 4.7S was an extremely good  value at $134,000. We nearly broke out my check book, but wanted to run it by the wife.

On the way out,

Lots of beautiful concept cars were on hand, as well as the hosts from WGN TV’s Chicago’s Best show, who were checking out the Cadillac 300.

Check out all our photos from the show to give you a taste of what you may have missed if you didn’t make it out to the show.

If you drive and park often on metered Chicago streets, those damn white with green parking meter receipts will infest your car if you’re not careful.

But now, instead of sticking your expired meter receipts into the trash, Chicago Magazine wants you to send your old parking meter receipts to them.

What the hell for you ask?

Art!

The magazine has commissioned local artist Jon Belino who will somehow, transform the sticky back thermal paper receipts which document the millions of dollars Chicago drivers spend to park into a sculpture to be featured in the May issue of the mag.

Mail your parking meter receipts to:

Chicago magazine
Attn: Elizabeth Riley
435 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 1100
Chicago, IL 60611

The deadline is February 27th, so get moving. If you don’t have stamps, the editors want you to send photos of all your meter receipts to be featured in an upcoming photo gallery. Email them to: feedback@chicagomag.com.

That’s why, as a candidate for Kane County Board, he’s holding a press conference Thursday at 2 PM at the intersection of Randall Road and Williamsburg Drive in Geneva–the location of a red light camera intersection.

The intersection is geographically relevant to the primary race Lauzen is in as Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns supported the town’s red light camera program.

Geneva has two red-light cameras on Randall Road, at the intersections of Williamsburg Drive and at Fargo Boulevard.

Interesting enough, Burns seems to be responding to the anti-RLC emotion in the race and is now publicly supporting newly introduced state legislation to restrict automatic enforcement cameras according to Batavia Patch.

State Senator Dan Duffy, an ardent foe of red light cameras and Peter Breen, founder of BanTheCams.com will both be there to endorse Lauzen in the race.

The ordinance for Chicago’s potential speed camera bill did not get introduced at Wednesday’s city council meeting.

Considering how fast Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel shepherded the speed camera through the Illinois General Assembly this fall, it is somewhat of a shock the ordinance didn’t pop up the first City Council meeting after Illinois Governor Quinn signed the bill into law.

But the council members already a pretty full plate, signing the debt recovery ordinance that would allow the city to recover past due parking tickets, red light camera tickets and other municipal debt by attaching the state tax refunds of people and businesses who have outstanding debts.

The ordinance passed 41-8 according to the Chicago Tribune.

However, despite not even being on the agenda, the speed camera bill was the center of attention.

That’s because there seems to be some dissension in the ranks of the city council on the speed camera bill.

5th ward alderman Leslie Hairston joined the ranks of other no votes on the current ordinance according to ABC 7 News, who feels speed camera enforcement is just another way for the city to reach into citizen’s wallets for revenue.

Hairston joins a small, but seemingly growing list of aldermen who have publicly expressed opposition to speed cameras including Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), Ald. John Arena (45th) and Ald. Joe Moore (49th).

But Transportation Committee Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) is also pushing for changes to key elements to the ordinance. He wants to shorten the hours of enforcement to better coincide with actual school hours proposing enforcement ending at 4 PM around school zones but allowing later enforcement around parks according to WLS AM.

Yet Mayor Emanuel seems unbending in his determination to keep the hours of enforcement the same, at least according to WLS AM.

Beale also is concerned about the fine structure, questioning the size of the fees and discussing the possibility of graduating the cost of the fines according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Because ordinances by law, must be introduced before a full city council meeting before they are sent to a committee for review, the speed camera ordinance will probably be introduced at next month’s City Council meeting.

It’s not like there are people are dying in the world or that we’re well into an election year or there are major tensions currently in the Middle East.

But the media’s preoccupation with this damn city sticker design controversy seems to be defying logic.

Not only was it a big deal locally, but it’s gone national as well. MSNBC and Time magazine covered it as well as other media far and wide.

Now CNN’s Anderson Cooper weighs in on the subject with highly critical rhetoric aimed at City Clerk Susana Mendoza. Of course, always the reliable outpost of objective journalism, CNN’s report conveniently left out the mountain of evidence connecting the design and the artist to actual gang activity.

Finally, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has gotten hold of the issue and with the help of Trib political cartoon artist Scott Santis designed their own version of what they think this year’s city sticker should look like.

Check out their artwork and Kass’s column today, “This sticker is worth a thousand words.”

Believe it or don’t.

According to a report from CBS 2 News, while gasoline prices in the rest of the nation are rising, the price at the pump is falling locally.

While nationally gas has gone up nearly 13 cents a gallon, around Chicago average prices have dropped 9 cents from the month before according to Chicago Gas Prices.com.

Normally, Chicago gas prices are among the highest in the country and are usually significantly higher than the national average. But right now, there’s only a 14 cent difference in the two prices when normally it ranges from a 30 – 70 cent per gallon price differential.

But Chicago drivers should not get over confident. Fuel experts like Gas Buddy’s Patrick DeHaan believes Chicago will be boasting record prices by May.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see record prices,” says DeHaan. “We’ll see prices well into the $4 range. The biggest increases we’ll see in April and May.”

Adding insult to injury, DeHaan believes Chicago may be one of the most expensive cities in the nation to buy fuel by Memorial Day.

“I do believe Chicago will be very close to the top as far as average gas prices come May,” says DeHaan.

In related news, American motorists have seen significant price increases the past three years. CNS News reports the price of gasoline has risen from $1.79 per gallon when President Barack Obama was sworn in, in January of 2009 to an average $3.28 per gallon now–a 83% increase.

Here’s CBS 2′s full report, “Chicago Bucks National Trend, Sees Dip In Gas Prices.”

Ultimately, it was taxes that undid Al Capone.
Now it may be tax filings that separate drivers with unpaid Chicago parking tickets from their Illinois state tax refund.

So don’t be surprised if your refund check from the State of Illinois is a little less than you originally expected if the City of Chicago gets its way.

Up until now, the City of Chicago had only a few ways to collect money from unpaid parking tickets and red light camera tickets. For larger ticket debts, lawsuits have been commonly employed. Collection agencies are also an avenue for the city. Of course, there’s always the dreaded bright yellow Denver boot.

But back in December, the Local Debt Recovery Program became law in Illinois. The program allows municipalities to have the Illinois State Comptroller withhold state tax refunds from people who owe cities for unpaid parking tickets, red light camera tickets, water bills and the like and hand it over to them to pay off outstanding debt.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Budget Committee today approved the ordinance so it will go before the full City Council tomorrow.

The law allows for Chicago to collect this type of outstanding debt back to 2005. According to Department of Finance spokesperson Holly Stutz, Chicago is owed close to $80 million dollars in these type of unpaid debts from over 100,000 individuals or businesses.

Although the City Comptroller’s office estimates they may only be able to recover $8-$20 million using this collection tool.

“The problem is that its hard to tell how much of our files match with the state’s,” explains Stutz.

In addition, the city may only be able to collect a portion of what someone owes. For example, if an individual owes the city $1000 for parking tickets but is only expecting a $100 tax refund, the city would only be able to collect that $100.

While the new law will obviously impact Chicago drivers, perhaps it is drivers residing outside the city that may feel the law the most. Motorists with unpaid tickets on vehicles registered outside the city who don’t come to the city very often, have essentially been moving targets for city boot vans. Now, even though boot vans couldn’t reach them before, now the tax man can.

While the program only became law on December 16th, the city is trying to move fast enough to take advantage of this upcoming tax season. However, Stutz did not know for sure, even if the ordinance passed in the City Council tomorrow, if the city would be able to move ahead by April 15th.

It is also unknown if debtors would be informed in advance of the funds transfer or if there is a way for someone to contest or protest what they believe to their funds should not have been collected on behalf of the city.

Whatever the case, if the ordinance passes, Chicago will now have a new and powerful tool in their struggle to collect unpaid parking tickets, red light tickets and other unpaid debts.

Of course, this site had its signature comprehensive coverage of the story.

But there’s been a decent number of articles and stories on the subject that our diligent and hardworking editors want to bring to our loyal reader’s attention.

Trib FOIA Stuff

First up is the Chicago Tribune’s self-aggrandizing Freedom of Information story. For months, the Trib has been trying to get its hands on documents related to the speed camera law and reporting every chance they could about the denial of their FOIA requests. They wanted to know what went into the decision making process for spearheading the speed camera law.

Not surprisingly, the newspaper was skeptical about the basis for the city’s safety claims to rationalize speed camera enforcement.

But after months of fighting for the release of these documents, the city finally released some heavily redacted documents making them virtually unintelligible.

Reporters with the paper then interviewed Mayor Emanuel for about an hour, which was contentious throughout, but grew even more heated when the topic of speed camera enforcement came up.

Hilariously, the Mayor tries to cite safety studies that prove speed cameras are effective, but can produce no study to back up his assertions.

Here are some interesting excerpts over at Grid Chicago.

Some Good Coverage Over At Grid Chicago

Transportation blog, Grid Chicago has been doing some good work covering the speed camera issue as well.

Website proprietor Steve Vance, spent one very long night compiling a very comprehensive overview of the subject.

Here’s Vance’s enviously good piece, “What speed camera legislation means for Chicago.”

A Different Approach to Improving Driving Safety

Next up, we have some coverage from WBEZ radio. In this audio clip, two station news reporters give the lowdown on the bill.

But it is the second half of the segment that is the most interesting. Really interesting.

Eight Forty-Eight host Steve Edwards interviews Wired Magazine’s Thomas Goetz, who authored a piece on dynamic speed displays.

Essentially, the concept is having a radar gun hooked up to a large digital readout above a speed limit sign. When a car passes, the digital readout, which is labeled “Your Speed” flashes the speed the car is going.

The idea was conceived in Garden Grove, CA when the city was having problems convincing drivers to obey the speed limit and stop running over pedestrians, bike riders and the like.

Guess what?

Because the concept informed drivers in real time about their speed, drivers began to slow down and comply with the law.

However, unlike the Chicago speed camera concept, dynamic speed displays do not generate revenue.

Goetz theorizes this idea will work better at convincing drivers to follow the speed limit than speed cameras. That’s because dynamic speed displays give the driver feedback info immediately as opposed to speed cameras which will inform misbehaving drivers several weeks after the fact.

Here’s WBEZ’s full coverage, “Speed cameras come to Chicago school zones, but do they work?”

And make sure you read Wired Magazine’s, “Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops.”

Will Speed Cameras Spread Outside Chicago?

Chicago was the first city to harness the revenue generating power of red light cameras back in 2003. Once other greedy municipalities saw the tens of millions of dollars the Windy City was taking in, it was only a matter of time before Illinois state law changed to let dozens of other cities to jump into the red light camera game.

Now that Gov. Quinn gave Mayor Emanuel the chance to start up another money generating monster, many drivers and reporters outside Chicago are asking when the speed cameras coming to torment their towns.

Here are two stories that are heavy on the paranoia.

Illinois Statehouse News

Lake County News Sun

News Of The Weird

Finally, the weirdest story about the speed cameras is the nutty theory that the Mayor wants to use speed cameras to help fund the acquisition of park land for the Chicago Park District.

Here’s the piece from NBC 5′s Ward Room blog, “Build A Park, Install A Speed Camera.”

This is even too much for my tin foil hatted head.