Excellent reporting. As far as the University Hospital comment, I don't think there is anything strange in that. Its an excellent trauma center and its where a lot of accidents go. I think he is lucky to have gone there rather than Trinitas.

'The most peculiar thing here is that Christie was clearly at fault by turning the wrong way onto a one-way street, but was not ticketed. The Star-Ledger asked the local police director whether Christie's position as U.S. Attorney -- and he did identify himself to the police officer -- was a factor in his not being cited. The police director's answer: "I don't think I want to make that kind of deduction, but I think the facts speak for themselves."'

Not that peculiar, I think.

I was in court on Wednesday to contest a moving violation in El Cerrito California.

Localities in California are hurting for money and are sending cops out in force to write tickets.

I was lucky--the cop who wrote me up didn't show, so the violation was dismissed--but I had to sit through two hours of other people's cases, and some were pretty outrageous.

In one, some obviously poor, Spanish-speaking guy was ticketed for not having a tarp over some (tied down) barrels of recycles in the back of his truck.

He may have made twenty dollars on the recycling. The ticket? Three hundred and some dollars; with driving school, close to four hundred. (In CA you have to do driving school or else your car insurance goes way up.)

The worst was a guy (again, Hispanic) who was actually ticketed for jaywalking. Ninety-five dollars. I have been an agressive jaywalker for decades. Never been cited once, but then I am white.

IMO both of these guys should have been given warnings only. And if they got to court, the judge should have let them off. He didn't.

That governments are balancing the budget this way is shocking. What makes it even worse is that we know from incidents like the one involving Christie that "VIPs" who could actually afford to pay these tickets never get ticketed in the first place, even when their infractions cause injury to others.

Grrrr.

Unfortunately, this sort of corruption is all-too common in American law enforcement. In many police departments, the unwritten S.O.P. is: cops don't ticket cops (or other law enforcement officials).