Vehicles

Recently Philadelphia Gas Works, along with neighboring utilities, Philadelphia Electric Company, UGI Corporation, and Delmarva Power, sponsored a two-day Natural Gas Vehicle Symposium to highlight the benefits of natural gas as a vehicular fuel. The symposium was designed primarily for fleet owners and operators who will be required to add cleaner operating vehicles to their fleets under the terms of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Together with the world-wide focus on environmental matters, it is timely to review what PGW is doing to help to develop a market for clean burning natural gas vehicles.

A Doylestown Borough resident woke up Sunday to the noise of escaping air. Looking out his window onto North West Street, he saw someone running from the direction of his Volkswagen Golf - on which three tires had just been slashed. After a closer look at the car, the man saw the word pope scratched into the hood. Six other vehicles were similarly vandalized Sunday. The switchboard at the borough police station lit up as five reports came in about 3:30 a.m. Only one other car had pope scratched into it. The remaining two reports came in later that day. Only one vehicle owner gave police a damage estimate.

The Pemberton Borough Council voted unanimously Monday night to table an proposed ordinance that would prohibit abandoned vehicles from being stored on public or private property. At the suggestion of Councilman William Emmons, the council decided that the proposed law was too vague and that there may be special cases in which the abandoned vehicles would not detract from the character of the rural community. "We need to make the ordinance clear so there's no misunderstanding," said Mayor F. Lyman Simpkins.

WILKES-BARRE - Police said two young males were found hiding in a coal truck after they allegedly looted dozens of vehicles in northeastern Pennsylvania. Police said Josh Kolinoski, 19, and a 16-year-old were riding their bicycles and wearing ski masks when they entered at least 50 vehicles in four boroughs early Monday, the Citizens Voice reported. The pair dumped the bikes and fled on foot, leaving footprints that led to a coal truck where they were hiding, police said. Police said Kolinoski, wanted on a warrant, was jailed at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.

Philadelphia police are investigating a theft operation that primarily involves cargo vans being stolen from the city and recovered in Bucks County, authorities said Monday. Thieves are stealing Ford Econoline and Chevrolet Express contractor vehicles for construction-related equipment inside the vans, police said. The Major Crimes Auto Squad has recovered many of the vehicles in Bristol Township. Tools that were stolen from the vehicles, some with names or initials on them, have also been recovered.

In an effort to prevent old cars from becoming eyesores, the Hi-Nella Borough Council has approved restrictions on the length of time residents may store dismantled vehicles on their property. The ordinance, approved unanimously by the six-member council Tuesday, prohibits residents from storing an unregistered or partly dismantled vehicle anywhere on their property for more than three days. Outside parking of more than three such vehicles for more than seven days is banned. The ordinance, which was introduced Dec. 16, also makes it illegal to store such vehicles within 30 feet of municipal streets or county roads.

When a new 1988 Ford Bronco was discovered in a shopping center parking lot last week, the people who run Sheehy Ford thought it might be a good idea to take inventory to see if any other cars belonging to them were missing. In so doing, the dealership made another, far more remarkable discovery. Fourteen new and used vehicles, estimated to be worth at least $182,000, had been stolen from the lot of the dealership, at Roosevelt Boulevard north of Welsh Road. "Until (the inventory)

About two dozen passenger vehicles were damaged this morning by vandals who slashed tires, doused cars with a corrosive chemical and dumped sugar in gas tanks in the Overbrook section, police said. Capt. Melvin Singleton, commander of the 19th Police District, said tires were slashed on 17 cars and the paint on seven other passengers vehicles had been stripped away by an acid-like substance. Some cars also had sugar in the gas tanks, he said. A Fire Department Hazmat Unit was called to the scene to scrape off some of the corrosive chemical for testing.

Two people were hurt and seven vehicles damaged yesterday in two accidents on a Delaware County bridge that were caused by icy roads and that backed up morning rush-hour traffic on Interstate 95 for about five miles, police said. Tinicum Township police said the accidents happened about 7:10 a.m. in the four northbound lanes of I-95 when a van driven by Bobby Andrews, 28, of the 2400 block of Bowers Street, Wilmington, spun out of control on the ice- slickened Bartram Avenue overpass.

Crews on Sunday cleared stranded vehicles from a nine-mile stretch of Interstate 80 in Northwestern Pennsylvania a day after whiteout conditions led to chain-reaction crashes involving 50 or more vehicles. Three people killed in the crashes were identified as Michael Maluk, 70, of Greenville, Mercer County, and a married couple, Robert and Rita Duffy, of the Pittsburgh suburb of West View, Venango County Deputy Coroner Chris Hile said. - AP

The vehicle identification numbers of a 1951 Rolls-Royce, a 2012 Jaguar, and eight Ferraris are among the 30,000 that appear on an official New Jersey website to warn consumers about vehicles damaged by the monster storm that hit the coast last fall. But after checking the online list ( njconsumeraffairs.gov/floodedcars/ ), consumers should not be complacent. The site provides the VINs of fewer than half the 72,000 vehicles in the state reported damaged by Hurricane Sandy. "There could be a dealer out there who's unscrupulous, or a person out there who might clean a car up and try to sell it," said Mike Horan, spokesman for the state Motor Vehicle Commission, which helped build the website.

  THE IDEA of a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax is being discussed - and tested in states like Oregon and Iowa. It would be an alternative to the federal gas tax, which is under review by Congress and could lead to a new system for funding highway construction and repairs when the measure comes up for reauthorization in 2014. One feature of the VMT tax is that it would require some way to measure travel, creating the possibility that the government will use advanced technology to track movements of every car and truck.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission will install charging stations for electric vehicles at four of its 17 service plazas this year, the commission said Tuesday. Eventually, all of the service plazas will be equipped with charging stations. The first stations, to be installed by summer, will be at the King of Prussia plaza in Montgomery County, the Bowmansville plaza in Lancaster County, the New Stanton plaza in Westmoreland County, and the Oakmont plaza in Allegheny County.

Radnor Township police are looking into two separate reports this week of suspicious vehicles sighted outside St. Katharine of Siena School in Wayne. In one instance reported Thursday to police, a 10-year-old girl student said that about 10 a.m. Monday, she saw a man in a white van, possibly a Ford Econoline, parked on Midland Avenue adjacent to the playground, said Lt. Andy Block. The driver, whom she described as a white male in his 20s with light-brown, spiky hair and wearing black square sunglasses, was taking pictures of the children in the playground on what appeared to be a smartphone.

A WINDSHIELD wiper arm wasn't all they left behind. At least two people were in a vehicle that struck an off-duty police officer in Kensington about 2 a.m. Wednesday before speeding off as Michael Brady, 28, lay bleeding with a head wound, police said. Brady, stationed at the 3rd District in South Philly, had left a neighborhood bar and was walking on Cumberland Street near Cedar to a nearby home. While crossing the street, a dark-colored, four-door sedan believed to be a Lincoln MKS hit Brady.

A 59-year-old Mullica Hill man died Saturday evening in a single-vehicle accident in East Greenwich Township after he was thrown from an SUV driven by a drunk driver, police said. On Monday, police identified the victim as Santos Perez, who was employed by and lived at a local farm. Police identified the driver of the Ford Explorer that rolled over several times off East Wolfert Station Road in Mickleton as 34-year-old Rufino Lopez-Cruz, also of Mullica Hill. Two other passengers were unhurt.

A 17-year-old Willingboro High School student was fatally struck in a strip mall parking lot late Friday, police said today. De'Jour Benson was transported to Cooper University Hospital after he was hit by a vehicle shortly before 11:30 p.m. in the East Ridge Plaza parking lot on the 600 block of Beverly-Rancocas Road, Willingboro police said. Benson later died at the hospital. The circumstances of the incident were not clear. The accident remains under investigation by the Willingboro police and Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.

Philadelphia police are investigating a theft operation that primarily involves cargo vans being stolen from the city and recovered in Bucks County, authorities said Monday. Thieves are stealing Ford Econoline and Chevrolet Express contractor vehicles for construction-related equipment inside the vans, police said. The Major Crimes Auto Squad has recovered many of the vehicles in Bristol Township. Tools that were stolen from the vehicles, some with names or initials on them, have also been recovered.

Two New Jersey state troopers lost their jobs Monday for escorting a caravan of sports cars that roared down the Garden State Parkway last year at 100 m.p.h. Nadir Nassry and Joseph Ventrella also appeared in court in New Brunswick to face charges that they tampered with records - specifically, that they used electrical tape to alter their license plate numbers to cover up their involvement. Nassry, a sergeant first-class who had been a trooper for 26 years, pleaded guilty to falsifying or tampering with records.

LAS VEGAS - Kenneth Cherry Jr. was an aspiring rapper who moved from the Bay Area to Las Vegas to pursue his career. His music videos online show him cruising the Strip in his Maserati. Michael Boldon was a family man and taxi driver who hailed from Michigan and loved fast cars. The two men's lives - along with that of an unidentified passenger in Boldon's cab - ended in gunfire, a fiery crash, and an explosion before dawn Thursday on the neon-lit Strip. As investigators Friday tried to find the gunman in a black Range Rover SUV who triggered the chain of events, families and friends tried to grasp the finality of it all. "Right now my heart is breaking," said Cherry's great aunt, Patricia Sims, of Oakland, Calif.