Posted on 01/10/2010 7:03:30 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
January 11, 2010
Arizona speed cameras may be flash in pan as $90m fines are ignored
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles
An attempt to introduce British-style speed cameras on the other side of the Atlantic has ended in a public revolt, with motorists binning speeding tickets worth $90 million (£60 million). The scheme in Arizona is now on the verge of bankruptcy and might be scrapped.
Its demise would mark an ignoble end to the first statewide effort to bring speed camera enforcement to the US, where many, including judges and elected officials, regard the devices as an unconstitutional taxcollection method.
“I see all the cameras in Arizona completely coming down,” said Shawn Dow, who is leading the public revolt via his chairmanship of Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar. “The citizens of Arizona took away the cash cow of Arizona by refusing to pay.” He is now trying to gain support for a ballot measure banning the cameras in November’s elections.
Although about 700,000 tickets have been issued since Arizona’s 76-camera plan was rolled out last year, a mere $37 million of the $127 million in fines and surcharges has been collected. That is because Arizonans have realised that they can simply ignore tickets sent to them in the post, and the authorities cannot prove that they have received them. Unless the tickets are served in person — something Arizona cannot afford to do — they become void after three months.
Motorists have shown their opposition to the machines in other ways, too — such as placing large cardboard boxes over them, decorating them with sticky notes, attacking them with pickaxes and, in one case, setting off the cameras while standing in front wearing a monkey mask.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Find a group that is trying to have them removed.The mayor just wants an easy out.Find who contributed to his campaign and start a blog about it.We have the same deal here and are trying to recall councilmen in our county for raising property taxes.Arrogant asses the lot of them.
Couldn’t agree more more. I always wondered why the summons weren’t sent registered despite the extra cost.
Pick ax is more rewarding. The clash of steel rending...
I’ve always thought a good tire necklacing would be a good solution for many of these cameras.
They aren’t very prevalent around here.
Well, 20 years prior but this area has a special rural situation. The fact that the courthouse fails to know it tells me they are not that well connected. They also don’t go by property taxes. They use your DL.
I'm tolerant of neither one and do not travel into areas to spend money where such are located. A few of the Big Brother Is Always Right Gestapo's have installed them in a few Tennessee towns. If I absolutely must go by a speed camera say in a 25 MPH Zone I drop down to about 5 MPH. I've noticed others doing likewise. Mostly I just go another route. Now the Gestapo's are starting to cry because revenue is falling. Oh Boo Hoo whats and authoritarian money grabbing government to do?
Some of us target them as well....
Spray paint them, and when they put them high up on poles, you take the “loppers” out of the shed, and trim the wires.....not that I have done this.
I get a pound of ad flyers twice a week. I do my best to separate them from the real mail, but it's not unimaginable to dump a letter or two into the recycle bin along with all that paper waste.
Also people move, and mail gets misdelivered sometimes. I guess it's possible to convict and jail someone for ignoring summons, but the evidence should be fairly convincing - such as failing to respond to several summons while still paying your regular bills. Such selectivity would be hard to explain.
It all depends on the judge’s mood. Most likely they just fine or warn people but I did read on the local boards that a few were sent to jail recently after a bunch of summons were ignored. They had to set an example.
Ever try to fix a camera that's been pickaxed with a rag and some paint thinner? :-)
They started these things in Arizona approx. ten years ago. They just did them in the individual cities instead of all over like now. The only one my husband got was at a curve where the speed limit changed suddenly. He says if he had known the way they work at that time he would have fought it, since at the time there was no warning of the camera and it they have a failure rate or ten mph at any given time.
I saw a large touring bus flashed about seven times while waiting to turn, because he had not been able to get the bis turned before the light turned completely red.
Another intersection, the red light camera would go off seemingly when no one had triggered it. Observation showed what was happening. Every time the left hand turns were made in the opposite direction a car would always overturn and end up just over the corner of the trigger line for the other side.
*Sniff* I’m SOOO proud of them...
How many of us would take these critters out?
Time was, if your front wheels were in the intersection while the light was still yellow, you were legal and could take as long as necessary to get through.
Of course, that doesn't produce enough revenue for the government leeches.
Unfortunately, I’ve seen situations where someone else did something illegal, before the light turned yellow, which caused a driver to get stuck in the intersection to avoid hitting them.
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