oddly enough

oddly enough

Police chief cancels hundreds of tickets

HAMILTON, Ohio

Motorists are off the hook for more than 900 speeding tickets automatically issued by a mobile police-camera in southwest Ohio.

The camera had been stationed in a park in Hamilton on April 2 at the same time a youth soccer tournament, the Mid-American Soccer Classic, was taking place.

Police Chief Neil Ferdelman tells The JournalNews of Hamilton that he canceled the tickets because of the tournament, which he says drew many out-of-towners who were unaware the camera was in use.

The tournament’s director says there would have been consequences for next year’s event if Hamilton had decided to pursue the tickets.

At $95 each, the 900 tickets would have totaled more than $86,000. The chief says 70 of the tickets were mailed. Those motorists have been sent letters telling them: never mind.

Czech president to be sent thousands of pens

PRAGUe

Some say the pen is mightier than the sword. If true, Czech President Vaclav Klaus soon will be a very mighty man.

More than 5,000 Czechs have signed up to a Facebook campaign to mail pens to the president after a video of him sheepishly pocketing a pen he took an obvious liking to during an official signing ceremony last week in Chile became widely popular on the Internet.

Klaus says it’s customary for leaders to keep pens after signing accords. But the manner in which he sized up the pen — encrusted with semiprecious Chilean stones — and then sneakily slipped it into his pocket while he sat at a desk alongside Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has seen him ridiculed by some of his countrymen.

Man advised he owes $147 on 1992 citation

VANDERGRIFT, Pa.

A statewide computer upgrade at district justice offices is turning up past-due fines on traffic tickets — including $146.50 owed by a western Pennsylvania man who had forgotten all about his 1992 speeding ticket.

Forty-three-year-old Matthew Petika, of Kiski Township, tells the Valley News Dispatch of Tarentum that he couldn’t figure out why he got a constable’s letter on Monday threatening him with jail time.

A little digging determined that he paid all but $25 of his speeding ticket fine in Monroeville, which is in Allegheny County — the last in the state to be added to the statewide Unified Judicial System’s computer network.

As part of that process, district judges were asked to “clean up” outstanding cases — and Petika’s unpaid ticket, which now includes court and constable fees, has ballooned nearly six-fold. Petika says he’ll pay it.

Associated Press