Great news, Arizona Speed cameras turned off

Arizona turns off speed cameras

Arizona has turned off every speed camera on its highways after complaints that they violated privacy and were designed to generate revenue rather than promote road safety.

A spokesman for Jan Brewer, the state's Republican governor, said she "was uncomfortable with the intrusive nature of the system", which was inherited from her Democratic predecessor.

Opening in October 2008, the scheme was first in the United States to use speed cameras across a whole state. Amid objections of Big Brother-ism, numerous cameras were vandalised, while the operator of a van carrying a mobile camera was shot dead in a lay-by in April 2009

The 76 cameras took 2.7 million photographs, but only 16 per cent of drivers who received a speeding ticket paid up.

The scheme generated $76 million (£50 million) for a state which has struggled to balance its budget, while the Department of Public safety reported a 19 per cent drop in fatal collisions on highways. But campaigners argued that safety could be improved by more police patrols.

Speed cameras introduced by the authorities in several Arizonan cities are unaffected by the decision.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7895310/Arizona-turns-off-speed-cameras.html

Amusing civil disobedience in Arizona to protest speed trap cameras being used as a revenue generator by taxing speeding

37 speeding tickets are in contention due to being unable to identify the driver, of the Dave's '05 Subaru, because the driver always wears a monkey mask when getting photographed by the speed trap cameras. Dave lets several people use his car, has masks standing by in the car for anyone driving it, and whoever the monkey mask driver is, they just go with the flow of traffic. $6,700 dollars worth of fines are waiting for police to cite the driver, who isn't identifiable due to the mask. I love it.

He is fighting every one by claiming the costumes make it impossible for authorities to prove he was behind the wheel.

"You've got to identify the driver, and if you can't, it's not a valid ticket," said Dave VonTesmar, a 47-year-old.

The tickets must be prosecuted in a limited amount of time by the judicial system, or the become invalid according to: http://motoring.asiaone.com/Motoring/Drivers/Story/A1Story20090914-167856.html

The chairman of the Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar, said he finds it interesting that the agency had conducted surveillance on Dave VonTesmar. He said: "They're out staking out a guy with a monkey mask? If they had pulled him over, they could have pulled the mask off. It just proves photo radar is not about safety, it's about money."

There are 78 cameras in Arizona targetting speeders, and Dave's car has been photo-ticketed 90 times.

I wonder if the cops will just tail Dave's car until it speeds, require the driver to remove the mask while they identify the driver, and give the driver a ticket the old fashion way, or will the cops empathize since cops are the most frequent speeders on the road? I'd love to work for the camera company that sends the photos to the Arizona Dept of Public Safety, and count how many cop cars are photographed speeding through the same speed trap cameras.

Some info collected from http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/09/08/20090908dpsmonkey0908.html