We all know the drill. You see a speed camera, you slow down, you look at the camera, you check your speedometer and look for the camera again. But in the UK at least, reports now indicate that nearly half of the 1,000 speed cameras installed are entirely inactive.

Because many of the cameras installed in the UK during the 1990s failed to meet transportation department criteria for deployment, more 40% were immediately decommissioned. However, the boxes that house them are still there, even though many of them are empty altogether. Motorist groups are lobbying to have the inactive devices removed, citing them as a dangerous roadside distraction, but the government insists that whether they're in use or not, the visible presence of the camera boxes keep drivers' speeds in check.

[Source: The Daily Mail, Photo by SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty]

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The hits just keep on coming for the embattled Shelby American Automobile set. News has quieted down about the contention between Caroll Shelby and the SAAC just in time for Ken Eber, the club's national director, to steer the organization fit into another lawsuit. This time, it's New Jersey Motorsports Park suing to recover nearly $116,000 it's been owed since last August. Both parties are trying to work the issue out, but Eber's assertion that the club has reached a verbal agreement on the issue and will be adding an event to the 2009 calendar doesn't jive with the venue's schedule, though Joe Savaro, a co-owner of the park, has indicated a desire to have the Shelby club back.

Even though the park made a concession to allow the SAAC to pay for its use of the track after the event, Eber reportedly left the event early and wouldn't return to settle up. Eber says the club will be back at the park in 2009, and they'll subsist using whatever proceeds the event generates to make good on outstanding commitments. Let's see, a club that charges each of its reported 5,500 members $57 per year, that works out to $313,500, though the club uses those proceeds to run a decent website and produce a newsletter and magazine, as well as pay a couple of salaries. Perhaps pre-selling tickets might be a better idea this year?

[Source: TheDailyJournal.com]


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One of the key improvements in automotive manufacturing efficiency over the past three decades may soon destruction victim to America's current economic turmoil. Toyota made "just-in-time manufacturing" a common term and it has since been adopted by the entire industry.

Unfortunately, in order for just-in-time to work, assembly plants need a stable supply base that can reliably deliver the right parts at the right time, each time. If a company's suppliers are in danger of shutting down due to lack of funds, they cannot reliably function without an inventory bank of parts. The net-net is that if one or more automakers goes concavity up in the coming months, numerous suppliers are likely to follow that company down the drain. Since most suppliers provide parts to multiple automakers, the effects will cascade. If Toyota, Honda, Ford and everyone else have to start stockpiling parts, this will raise costs at a delivery when they are desperately trying to cut expenses.

Even though suppliers have tried to diversify and line up during the time that many customers as possible, price pressures from every automaker over the past decade have put greatest number suppliers (especially smaller ones) into a thin predication. The interconnected nature of the industry means that everyone feels the pain, and companies like Toyota are going back to the drawing board to analyze and modify every step in the production chain.

[Source: The Detroit News]

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