A SPEED CAMERA in the Sydney suburb of Mosman has been torched by vandals overnight, the fifth since early June.
Police believe the city-bound fixed speed camera, ranked as one of the highest earning speed cameras in 2006 with a $1 million take that year, was deliberately set alight at around 2:00am this morning.
A fixed camera in Forestville suffered a similar fate two weeks ago, and a camera outside Narrabeen Lakes Primary School was burned in early July.
At the beginning of June, two cameras in the same suburb, outside Narrabeen North Public School and Narrabeen Lakes Public School, were also torched.
The most recent attack, on the Spit Hill camera in Mosman, is understood to have caused massive smoke damage, putting the camera out of action.
The repair and replacement costs for each of the five cameras damaged is estimated to be between $15,000 to $35,000.
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Yippee! The people fight back AT LAST!
hehehehehehehehe
oh, and don’t fix it, it’s fine now as it is!!!
Fight back against what exactly BJ, tyranny, injustice?
No…
Pics or it didn’t happen!
ANd so the NSW govt will say they have to use unmarked hidden and disguised cameras to protect etc etc..
roll on
ohhh poor government is going to miss out on all that ‘income’.
You only have to look at the locations of the cameras. Road safety - bull. Its 100 % revenue raising.
If road safety was a real issue we would have more police on the road. They use cameras to replace police as its cheaper to have a $35000 camera than employ someone and supply them a car as well. Its all about dollars and has nothing to do with road safety. Most speed cameras are placed on hills so as to maximize the trap and are always close to a change of speed zone again to maximize the trap to make the most money.
I don’t condone damage but you have to look at this as to who is the biggest criminal. The state for setting traps for money or the people for removing the trap for fairness of road use.
A speeding motorist booked by a cop will most likely modify his behaviour immediately because he knows he has been booked. A speeding motorist booked by a camera will not get the infringement notice for at least a month, therefore being oblivious of being booked, he will continue to speed and may kill a number of people. It is obvious that those cameras are nothing more than revenue-raisers, but what rankles me is that the govenment knows it, but blatantly lies when it says that they are there for safety reasons. Go to http://www.carr.org.au to find out how to avoid getting booked by these iniquitous automated highway robbers, but all I can say to those people who are torching the camers - more power to you and I hope you destroy the lot. This is not vandalism, this is people power revolting against a government that is extorting money from them on the basis of the false pretext of increasing safety, when it is obvious that those cameras are nothing of the sort. Burn them all, folks, we’re all cheering you.
I hear expanding foam works wonders inside camera boxes too… LOL.
…hey i have an idea: if enough of them get ruined and speed cameras become revenue negative, maybe they will remove them all! just a thought.
Further to my previous comments, what I would really like to see is some action that would dry up the revenue from these cameras completely, yet be done in a way that the government couldn’t stop. It would be terrific if an organisation could be formed that could recruit volunteers such as retirees or unemployed, who would take shifts standing about 100 metres on the approaches to those cameras, holding large signs with flashing lights stating - CAMERA AHEAD - CHECK YOU SPEED - LIMIT 60. It would be like flashing school zone warnings. Even better, if cars could be parked on the approaches to those cameras, flashing signs could be mounted on them and be operating all day and night. There is nothing illegal about somebody warning motorists to stick to the speed limit and the government wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if it tried to prosecute anybody for doing that, because it would merely expose to the public that the government was indeed using those cameras as revenue-raisers. How could the police charge somebody for telling the motoring world to drive at the speed limit or under? If the income from those highway robbers could be legally dried up, then the government would have no recourse but to remove them, as operating them would be futile. In the meantime, motorists can take action to stop being booked by those cameras by using GPS with camera POI - go to http://www.carr.org.au to find out how to do this for less outlay than the first fine you get by being booked by these cameras. But more power to those worthy citizens who are striking back by burning those cameras - I don’t think there will be one motorist who would complain.
OTOH if every single motorist booked by one of these automated greedy crooks took the matter to court, it would undoubtedly clog up the system for years. This hopefully would restart the whole debate re: speed v safety & the terminally & hopelessly brainwashed might just see the light. Am I being hopelessly over optimistic?
In response to Roy, I was booked many years ago by a police speed gun set up on the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway and I dragged the cops to Hornsby court and beat the speeding charge. I have a background in electronics and I proved to the magistrate that the speed gun could have been inaccurate in about 9 different ways. I put the police radar expert on the stand and grilled him to the point where he had to admit that my defence was correct. You have to have the balls to fight unfair charges.
But one of my other sore points is school zones and I would go to court and fight any booking in a school zone that did not have flashing indicators or similar to show that the zone was active at the time. It’s fair enough for the government and the RTA to expect motorists to know which day of the week it is and even the time of day - but it is NOT FAIR to expect motorists to know which school happens to be operating on any particular day without indication. Public and private schools operate on different days and a motorist approaching a school zone sign without flashing lights has no way of knowing whether that school is operating or not. Therefore it is grossly unfair for the authorities to expect motorists to be clairvoyant.
I suggest that any motorist booked in a school zone that does not indicate whether the school is operating, should fight the matter in court. There’s a very easy defence and I have outlined in on the http://www.carr.org.au website. If every motorist booked in such unindicated school zones fought the booking and I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t beat them, then this stupid and most unfair penalty would have to be removed.
The government itself has admitted that it cannot expect motorists to know if school zones are operating or not without flashing indicators and it has allocated $40 million to install these at every school zone. Therefore if the government has admitted this by its action and allocation of money, then it is obvious that motorists should not be booked in school zones that may be active, but not indicated as such by flashing lights.
Fight the bastards all the way - drag them to court and wipe the floor with them. I’m fed up with iniquitous laws that impose fines on people for not being clairvoyants and I personally will contest every such fine that I’m hit with. I’ve already received a personal apology from a former police commissioner for the unlawful booking I once received by threatening to sue the pants off the NSW Police and I’ll do it again if I have to.
Folks, fight injustice all the way or they will take you to the cleaners.
well done ziggy, i did the same a few years ago, fought a speeding ticket for weeks.. all charges / fines were dropped, officer was reprimanded for failing to adhere to police protocol.
im suprised the fixed camera going northbound and southbound out of brisbane haven’t been destroyed..
All i can do after reading this is
Wardski & Ziggy,
Your efforts & persistence are most commendable. Unfortunately what does the average Joe Soap battler do? He has neither the time nor the money to spend countless days in court, on the pain of getting sacked for being away from work too long. A fairly common scenario in these difficult times. Assuming he wins his case, is he/she entitled to any form of costs reimbursement?
Destroy the cameras, and then instead of using the money to repair roads, all they do is use it to fix the cameras and install more?
Matt, using the money to repair roads? You’re joking surely! Since when has one cent of speeding fine revenue ever been spent on roads?
Emotive word, “speeding”, and put to full use by those who profit from it. “Exceeding the speed limit” is what it really is, but to call it “speeding” is more likely to get on side those who might otherwise recognise the tyranny that reaps such rich rewards.
I believe that destroying speed cameras is a good thing. please realise if you do that some cameras have sensors and indeed have back up cameras monitoring them., so it would be wise to wear something that dosent show your good side ; 0 )