The AP tired to pre-empt our local interest story this morning with the more sensational news that “several hundred” Hezbollah members were injured or killed when their hand-held devices spontaneously exploded in Beirut overnight. It is a big deal on the tech issues we have been following, since it represents the product of targeting data and techniques harvested by the IDF in the big tunnel attack deep underground over the weekend. It is part of a new kind of warfare used in Gaza in some spectacular strikes at the Hamas forces that attacked Israel.

Which is what brings us to the matter of Earl Darryl Curtis, 58, of District Heights, MD. He is not, to our knowledge, affiliated with either of the two Iranian proxy groups, but was known to be driving a black Land Rover like the one imaged in the slide above. Earl told police he s stopped at a crosswalk in the District once he realized the light was red. He insisted that the young girl had walked into his auto, damaging it, not the other way around.

You can see how tech is all wrapped around everything, near and far these days.

The Land Rover- we’re unsure of actual ownership- has 94 unpaid tickets worth $19,770 from D.C. traffic cameras. Six for speeding and four for running red lights since July. It’s not clear who was driving each time of offense; since the cameras are permitted to capture only the license plate. Or that is what the authorities claim.

D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles records indicate the Land Rover is among 2,100 vehicles cited with 40 or more unpaid tickets, on more than 8,000 moving violations. If they drove past your home at the rate of one per second, that would be a parade lasting three and a half minutes, so you can see this is not an insignificant problem. We also got one of the traffic-cam tickets a few years ago after they were installed by the front gate at what used to be Bolling AFB , at the ramp where acceleration is normally permitted. Even encouraged.

We paid and have not been back.

New legislation is supposed to take effect next month to make it easier to pursue drivers in violation, since 17 pedestrians have been killed and 244 injured in traffic incidents this year after the city set a target goal of zero deaths.

So you can see a couple of the challenges about living in the city. We are driving a lot less and not quite as fast and checking the mail regularly to see if the Panzer has been out driving around without careful supervision. Apparently, accidents can happen.

If you need some reading recommendations while you are waiting for something to happen, we have some!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra

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