Several years ago when I started this website, (now called a blog), my intention was to put on a few of my old Undergroundtownhall television shows that originally aired on Cox Cable 15 in Cheshire.  This really was how UTH started out–as a cable show. There was no website for approximately one year.

My first guest was Bill Kunde. This was a groundbreaking event in this town when the show aired in late 2002. Believe me, I had to go through hell and high water just to air that show. I ran into all sorts of “roadblocks.”

I always will be indebted to Bill for having the courage to come onto this new idea of a show–why was it “new” because we talked about every issue in this town, including the Police Department.

A lot has changed since that December day in 2002. (Actually, because of the delays, the show did not air until January 2003).

We have another blog in town, Tim White listens. Tim for those of you not familiar with Cheshire, is a Town Council member. His blog is very influential and is  a good addition to the blogging community.

Well, I did several of these UTH shows for cable. The last being in 2005 where my spouse and I did “Dangerous Intersections and the Community Pool” all in one show. I am attempting to locate that disk to upload it to my site. Things got moved around in my home when my spouse decided to re-organize my son’s room two years ago when he moved away to college. My son had transferred all of the shows to DVD. I hope I can locate the Dangerous Intersections show sometime this weekend. I have all of the master tapes, but as you will see from the “How to Fight a Traffic Ticket” that I am now running under “WORDTUBE” in the middle of the right hand column, these videos started to degrade and are poor quality.

My son Ross who was 15 at the time, did all of the camera work and editing. We had absolutely NO MONEY. I rented a camera from Rent A Center to do the shows. My son edited all of these shows on a Dell Inspiron 1100 which isn’t even made anymore and was the lowest end laptop at $350 several years ago that you could purchase.

He actually made all of the edits on Windows Movie Maker. I will be honest, I delayed putting this video on because IT IS VERY VERY POOR QUALITY. This video was seen by thousands of people and copied at least that many times over–hence the degraded quality. I am sorry for this-but I wanted to get the point of this show across to you.

If you get a traffic ticket, as the guest in this show did, and do your homework, you will prevail. The guest, Mr. John Magnesi of Wallingford, received a ticket ON RADAR, in Sturbridge Massachusetts approximately four years ago. He received the ticket  for traveling unreasonably fast–SOME POLICE DEPARTMENTS FAVORITE  TICKET PASTIME!!!

Well, he fought this ticket for a year. He went from Wallingford to Sturbridge, measuring the signs on the road, checking the State and Federal rules on signage.

And, bottom line, he ended up getting the ticket dismissed. The State of Massachusetts made Sturbridge TAKE DOWN ALL OF THE SIGNS ON THE STREET-ALL OF THEM–THREE MILES OF THEM. THEY ALSO REIMBURSED HIM THE COST OF THE TICKET WHICH WAS WELL OVER $100!! WHY?? THE SPEED LIMIT SIGN WAS AN INCH TOO SHORT!! ILLEGAL.!!

You will see the impact that “inch too short” sign had on visibility. Then, to make matters worse for Sturbridge, they put up the replacement speed limit signs to Alabama specifications and had to TAKE THEM ALL DOWN ONE MORE TIME!!

GOOD!!

THERE ARE RULES AND REGULATIONS REGARDING TRAFFIC SIGNS–THEY HAVE TO BE A CERTAIN WIDTH, HEIGHT, CERTAIN INCHES FROM THE ROAD, THEY HAVE TO BE REGISTERED ON FILE WITH THE STATE TRAFFIC COMMISSION. THEY MUST NOT BE DEFACED OR BENT–OR THE SIGNS ARE ILLEGAL!!

GET IT PEOPLE!! Don’t go to court after you receive a ticket especially if it was on radar and try saying the radar was faulty or some nonsense. IT DOESN’T WORK!! THEY HEAR THIS ALL THE TIME.

Watch this video and LEARN HOW TO DO IT RIGHT!! Again, I am SORRY FOR THE QUALITY. But it is the content that counts. You will have to turn up the volume, as I stated above, we had no microphones or anything. We were on a bare budget and that was an understatement. But my son really enjoyed doing these shows and he learned a lot about how a municipality works and what happens when you talk about unpopular subjects.

Law enforcement expects us to obey the rules and regulations, well the public expects the SAME FROM YOU!!

See you soon.