Wait, it's worse than that… The Bath Chronicle reports that Ilya Galic drove into the spa town and parked in a pay-as-you-go parking lot. He fed a ticket machine £1.20 ($2.38) for his one-hour stay. The meter only registered £1, missing 20 pence (about 40 cents). Galic complained to the parking attendant, who told him the machines often “went wrong,” and promised to sort out the matter. Just to be sure, Galic phoned the parking office, who told him someone would look it. Last month, Galic received a letter demanding a £353.74 ($701) parking penalty payment. A bailiff turned up at Galic’s house to claim one of the family’s vehicles as payment for the debt. When Galic asked the bailiff to leave, he called the police. Four policemen arrived at his Newbridge home. The bailiff eventually “settled” for £410.99 ($815.52), around six weeks worth of Galic’s pension income (which covered assorted additional fees). A council spokeswoman was unmoved. The authority hadn’t received any complaints in writing, so that’s that. 

[Source : The Truth About Cars]

Hyundai Chairman and CEO Chung Mong-koo was convicted in Korean court for embezzling some $100m in company funds. Thanks to Korea's corporate crime-friendly legal system, Chung didn't spend day one (day woo?) in prison. While Hyundai's profits soared under Chung's leadership, indignant shareholders are baying for blood. Moral outrage? Nah. Hyundai's stock growth slowed to six percent last year in the wake of the scandal, well below the Korean benchmark index of 32 percent in the same period. Chung and his son Eui-son (who heads Kia Motors, so add nepotism to the score card) hoped to deflect public criticism by donating over $1b in stock to the public. Only they haven't done it yet. Most of the funds Chung removed from Hyundai's corporate coffers were spent on a slush fund to bribe public officials, which at least partially explains Chung's continuing freedom. It may also explain why many institutional investors appear to be standing behind Chung. Meanwhile, a minority group of shareholders is preparing a lawsuit claiming damages stemming from embezzlement and other mismanagement. This is so not a good thing.

[Source : The Truth About Automobiles]

Perhaps TTAC needs a new category, say "Stupid Car Tricks," where along with Jonny Lieberman's "Man Drives Stolen Automobile to a Police Station," we could add this: A Korean tourist was robbed at the Days Inn hotel on International Drive in Orlando early Monday morning- because the perps needed money to fill their SUV's gas tank. And according to WFTV, they might have gotten away with it, but they… wait for it… ran out of gas less than a quarter-mile from the crime scene. Police said two men and two women were caught in their "getaway car." Oh and while the police were on their trail, the suspects tried to toss everything they'd stolen out of the window, including the gun they used during the holdup (for superior mpg?). With rising gas prices, perhaps the Prius will become the automobile of choice for criminals seeking that perfect getaway vehicle.

[Source : The Truth About Automobiles]

Everyone knows that when you travel to state, China, and someone offers you an amazing deal on a Swiss watch, you might not be getting the genuine article. Purchase a discount Ferrari in Italy though, and you can safely assume you are getting the real deal, right? Wrong. The International Herald Tribune reports that Italy's financial police (?) have broken a ring of Ferrari counterfeiters who had built 14 fake 360 Modenas using, get this, "mostly Pontiacs as their base, but also Mercedes and Toyota." While visions of the notorious "Fiero-rrari" body kits are probably racing through your head, these fakes actually were fairly well done (if equally targeted at the chest-rug sporting crowd). Authorities say that seven of the faux-rraris were sold to people who knew the automobiles were fake, and simply wanted to impress the neighbors. Said neighbors were sadly unavailable for comment as to the full glory of a late-model Ferrari with the exhaust note of 20-year old Pontiac V6.

[Source : The Truth About Automobiles]

Leave it to the Brits to take traffic surveillance to the next level. Worried that drivers may be getting away with violating the vehicle share lane (carpool lane to us Yanks), Leeds is testing a new camera system that actually detects the blood and water content of human skin to determine how many occupants are in the vehicle. BBC reports the system, developed by researchers at Loughborough University, uses two wavelengths of infrared (IR) light and special algorithms to distinguish faces and count heads. If it finds more than one, it lets the car pass. If it detects only one occupant, it takes a pic of the license plate and records date, time and speed. Developers say it's accurate 90 percent of the time– and isn't fooled by huge dogs, dummies or cosmetics. They didn't state if the system could be disabled by transmitting an IR signal back at it or if heat reflections from different color automobiles would affect its accuracy. Or what happens when there's a small child in a carrier in the back seat that might not be in the camera's line of vision. There seems to be several questions they need to address before they begin using the system to prosecute solo drivers. But where there's dosh, there's development.

[Source : The Truth About Cars]