NOT IN MY TOWN

     Now, I'm not sure this is even legal, but leave it to New Jersey to find a way to scam more money from it's fellow statesmen. The sad part is I used to drive through this town all the time when I lived in Teaneck. Curious yet? 

     So, beginning next week, driving through Leonia, New Jersey could cost up to $200 as the jurisdiction tries to prohibit drivers from using apps like Waze and Google Maps to help drivers get around traffic. Um, hello! That's what GPS systems do. They try to get you around traffic. 

     For you non-NJ people, Leonia, a small suburb, sits just west of New York City and near the entrance to the George Washington Bridge leading into Manhattan and the Bronx. Because of the effect of GPS apps rerouting commuters through the town, it adopted an ordinance in November that effectively bans non-residents from driving through the town. How can you do that? What if I had family in that town and I used to live there, but changed my driver's license address because I live somewhere else now. So, now this prevents me from visiting my family? Wait! This might be brilliant! 

     The prohibition of the town's roads is from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. on weekdays. In order to access the roads, the driver must prove that they are residents of the street, needing access to their home or can demonstrate or document a need to access a residence on the street or parts of streets as described. According to NJ.com, this law has drawn anger from neighboring town and drivers. It also attracted questions to its legality. 

     Jeanne LoCicero, deputy legal director of the ACLU-NJ (American Civil Liberties Union) says, "This plan gives enormous power to police officers. People who are traveling safely down the street should not be subject to law enforcement. It's intrusive. It's hard to imagine that Leonia could enforce this in a way that didn't discriminate."

     Town leaders said something has to be done to calm traffic in the area. Police Chief Thomas Rowe said, "We have a lot of vehicles that leave the highway to the bridge and use Leonia as a bypass or to cut through up to Fort Lee. This is a public safety issue." Rowe continued to blame the influx of traffic-avoiding apps, which has caused traffic within town to snarl. Seriously? Blame the people who built the roads way back when. Why should people trying to avoid traffic be penalized? I bet if Police Chief Rowe was late for an appointment in the City, he wouldn't want to be sitting in traffic and would try to find a quicker way. GPS app or not, it's only natural to find a quicker way to avoid traffic. No one....and I repeat....No one likes to sit in traffic!

     Leonia is currently working with app developers like Waze to try and help enforce the new statute. If you ask me, this is one of the silliest things I've ever heard, and those who voted this in back in November, I can't wait until they're stuck in traffic and are looking for a quicker way out.  

GPS - DON'T TRUST IT!

     I can't be the only one who doesn't trust the GPS, but this has to be one of the dumbest stories I've heard in a long time. I mean, it's no secret that your Garmin or your phone GPS system has taken you off the beaten path. Sometimes, we choose not to even listen to the digital map system especially if we already know where we're going. 

     Well, a Chicago woman was killed after her husband followed their car's GPS navigation system off a partially demolished bridge that had been closed since 2009. Zohra Hussain, 51, died after their Nissan Sentra fell more than 37 feet off the old bridge and burst into flames. She was unable to escape, according to the Lake County coroner's office. Hussain's husband, Iftikhar Hussain, 64, survived the fall and managed to escape the couple's car. According to one news source, the husband was hospitalized in stable condition in nearby Gary, Indiana. 

     Authorities are trying to understand what prompted the couple to drive onto the bridge past barricades and warnings, though officials believe the couple was likely on the way to visit family and that they were unfamiliar with the area. I mean I guess that makes sense, but how in the world do you pass through barricades and "Do Not Enter" signs? Unless, they just didn't speak English.

     "The Cline Avenue Bridge is marked with numerous barricades including orange barrels and cones, large wood signs stating ROAD CLOSED with orange striped markings. There are concrete barricaded across the road to further indicate that the road is closed," said a spokesperson from the Lake County Sheriff's Department. 

     According to another news source, the concrete barrier that blocked off the bridge had been moved, but the source was unclear as to whether the barrier was moved before or after the fatal crash. The bridge had been closed for decades and in 2010, the Indiana Department of Transportation had condemned the structure. I can't believe that none of these authorities even put suicide into the picture. Maybe the couple wasn't happy, They knew this structure was there and decided to end it all. That's the way I'm seeing it. I'm just having trouble believing that this couple listened to a GPS right off a bridge that was condemned for over a decade. If you ask me, it was intentional. No one can be that stupid. Then again, it was Indiana...

     

WHERE DOES IT END? ANOTHER TEACHER BUSTED!!

Okay, I hate to say that I've written this story before, but...I've written this story before! I really wanted to write about the pot dealer in Brooklyn who is apparently donating half his proceeds to victims of Hurricane Sandy, but this story is so much sexier!

So, it turns out; a teacher from Florida was recently arrested on felony charges after she was caught with her pants down, literally, having sex with, you guessed it, a 16-year-old foreign exchange student in a parking lot. 38-year-old, Amie Neely was taken into custody after her husband tracked her down using the GPS locater app on her phone and found her getting it on with the teenager in a nearby parking lot. 

Neighbors also reported the incident to the police after the teen showed up at a nearby home later that day and said he'd been kicked out of the Neely house 'because he had sex with Amie.' According to the student, he and Neely slept together several times after initially exchanging many sexual text messages. He also admitted to having sex with Neely many times in her bedroom when her husband wasn't home. The student went on to say that the morning Neely's husband found them, he and Neely had driven to a parking lot near her home where he'd gotten in the backseat and put on a condom before she joined him in the back of the car. Her husband followed them using an app that pinpointed her exact location through her phone and discovered them in the act around 10 a.m. on Saturday. 

Neely denies having multiple sexual encounters with the student. She also told police that the boy had repeatedly pressured her to have sex with him and that due to her 'midlife crisis issues' she thought he would stop asking if she slept with him once. WHAT? So, this lady is blaming it on a midlife crisis? She still had sex with a 16-year-old boy! What an idiot! Stop making excuses and just confess to it! It's still hot when a teacher bangs a student! Oops! Did I just say that out loud?

   Anyway, a rep for the Community Christian Academy in Stuart, Florida, where Neely was a teacher prior to the incident says that she is no longer employed by the school. Parents at the school expressed surprise at the news, but also offered sympathy for Neely's situation. Why? One parent said, "She's a human being, and we all are vulnerable at different times in our life, and that's sad because low self-esteem, you never know what goes on in people's homes." What the hell is in the water down in Florida? Did that quote make any sense to anyone reading this? Regardless, Neely was reportedly released from jail on $15,000 bail. 

I just want to say that these stories about teachers having sex with students don't seem to be slowing down. This one happens to be a teacher with a live-in foreign exchange student. I have to ask the question that I always ask when these stories come up, "Where the hell were these teachers when I was in school?" This would have made high school more fun than it was!

COURT JESTERED!!!!

 

Since it's a slow news day, and I could care less about the Occupy Wall Street evictees and Penn State's drama; today, I'm choosing to gripe about a problem that I had just this morning! You see, a few weeks ago, my girlfriend got a traffic ticket for wrongfully making a left turn onto a local street. She was on her way to a new office within her company, which was closer to our house, but she was unfamiliar with the street signs on the main road and accidentally made the left, where there were actually 'no left turn' signs posted. Unfortunately, instead of paying attention to the street signs, she chose to pay attention to her GPS, and as we all know, steered her the wrong way and she got pulled over by an extremely nice police officer (sarcasm), who gave her the moving violation, which would include 3-points on her license. The points didn't sit well with my girlfriend, so she decided that she wanted to fight the ticket, to maybe lessen the charge and erase the points.

Growing up in North Jersey, I had plenty of traffic tickets and a plethora of points, which I worked back down to zero, I might add, but my point is that it's not secret that if you go to your appointed court date, you speak to the prosecutor, he works out a deal, gets you a lesser charge with no points, and you walk out just paying a hefty fine with no points on your license. Well, let's make our way to South Jersey, where my girlfriend's offense took place, and let's take a look at the summons above. Take a look at the "notice to appear" court date, which says "11-16-11, 8:30 AM". Mind you, I've been through this many times myself, and you just show up at the court, sit with the rest of the cattle, and wait for them to call your name. No phone calls! Nothing!

Well, today is 11-16-11, and at 8:30 AM, we walked into the Municipal Building only to find out that there was no judge there, nor was there court today. WHAT?????? Did anyone else see the "Notice to Appear" court date above??? Why would the nice cop (sarcasm) set a court date that he knew the judge wouldn't be at? It didn't make sense! The clerk told us that if we were pleading guilty, we had to call 7 days in advance to set a court date. WHAT????? Does anyone else see the "Notice to Appear" court date above??? That is the court date! You don't call 7 days in advance to schedule a court date when the court date is on the front of the ticket. She claimed that was only the date to pay the ticket by, and at this point, I'm pissed now, so I politely pushed my girlfriend to the side, and asked the lady, then why does it say 'court date' instead of 'pay the ticket' by this day? She said, "I'm sorry, those are the rules!" It took a lot to bite my tongue because I didn't want my girlfriends court date to go sour when it actually does come, so we left the municipal building, but what a crock of shit!

What is the reason of the phone call 7 days in advance to set a court date? So, that the judge gets notified that he actually has to work? And if the date that is inserted where it says "Notice to Appear" court date is the date the ticket is to be paid, then it should say so. I have to tell you, my experience living in South Jersey hasn't been a good one yet between this and their Unemployment Office, it seems nobody wants to work, yet I'm the one unemployed! Everything seems ass-backwards down here and so lackadaisical. We're really starting to second think our move down here! If it weren't for our lovely home and the peace and quiet around us, I think we would've been out of here already! Wake the "F" up, South Jersey!