(here comes a rant) Moneymaking Speedtraps in Tennessee and Texas, everday guys win the fight against tyranny

If your route to work or NASCAR racing events at the Bristol Motor Speedway goes through Highway 11-E in Bluff City, beware that the local politicians have MADE a speed trap in Bluff City to generate revenue, they didn't take advantage of an existing change of speed limits, they changed 1 mile of roads speed.

YES, MONEYMAKING by effing with highway speeds and creating a speedtrap with cameras just to get your $90.

The 55 mph highway is 2 lanes in both directions, and for a mile, has been effed with to install a 45mph camera zone to screw drivers out of their money so the politicians don't have to stop giving themselves their own pay raises.

A guy who is running for State Rep, Lee White, stood on the roadside with a picket sign to alert drivers of the speedtrap, and gain free publicity for being a nice guy. Fair enough, thank you Lee! http://www2.tricities.com/news/2010/mar/22/lee_white_takes_advantage_of_race_traffic_pickets_-ar-235812/

What really brought this speedtrap to the world's attention was a cool guy that was hit with a ticket, and wasn't putting up with this BS. He looked into the ripoff, and learned that the Bluff City police department were not only assholes for letting this speedtrap happen without protesting it (speedtraps aren't law enforcement) but they also were too stupid to keep their OWN WEBSITE. So the ticketed guy I mentioned, Brian McCrary bought the Police website domain name, and now it protests the speedtrap!

That is, the Police Department website, is now a protest against THEIR OWN SPEEDTRAP! http://www.bluffcitypd.com/

read all about it http://www2.tricities.com/news/2010/jun/07/anti-speed_camera_activist_nabs_bluff_city_pds_exp-ar-233757/

I learned about it at http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/08/man-busted-by-traffic-camera-gets-unique-revenge-on-police-depar/

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Now, in Lakeway Texas, Lance Mitchell, co-founder of the website http://speedtrapahead.org/wordpress/ is fed up with the traps in his town and decided to fight against them by taking to the streets and warning other motorists about nearby speed traps.

If he's out on the road and spots a police officer in a speed trap, Mitchell will backtrack to a spot ahead of the trap, then don a bright orange "Speed Trap Ahead" t-shirt in order to alert other motorists of the waiting radar.

While the Austin American-Statesman ( http://www.statesman.com/news/local/in-lakeway-a-crusade-against-speed-traps-1146294.html?viewAsSinglePage=true excerpt below) notes that it's illegal to warn others of an enforcement action, it is illegal to warn others of an enforcement action, it's not illegal to warn people about the traffic code . In fact, Mitchell believes he is doing the same work as the officers initiating the speed traps but also saving everyone money in the process. People slow down when they see him thus avoiding a ticket and a raise in insurance premiums.

He pissed off the cops running the speedtrap, and they lost their porofessionalism, if they ever had it, and they made it a vendetta to ticket him. The Lakeway Police Department fined him, jailed him and eventually the two went to court. Mitchell won and then turned around and sued the town and a few of its police officers to court and the judge reamed them. Yeah Judge!

Some TEXAS towns have gone so far over the top on speedtraps to raise money for their budget (and give themselves payraises) that the state of Texas passed a law capping the revenue small municipalities may receive from speeding tickets at 30 percent of their total budgets.

here is an excerpt from the Austin American Statesman, the really meaty part that highlights the cop James Debrow (25 year vet of the state police) getting his personal vendetta that started in Apr 2008 going against Mitchell a year later in 2009

Early on April 22, 2009, Mitchell spotted a Lakeway police cruiser set up inside a school zone with a radar gun. He set up his warning station up-road, pointing enthusiastically at his speedtrapahead.org logo shirt whenever a driver passed.

a black police cruiser soon arrives. Mitchell asks if he is being detained.

"We're doing an investigation here," Debrow says. "We'll let you know."

A bit later, Debrow consults with a code enforcement officer who shows up. Another officer takes photos of Mitchell and his truck.

A few minutes later the group approaches Mitchell; an officer asks for his ID.

When he hands over a card with his name, address and birth date, Debrow demands his driver's license. As Mitchell begins to explain how, technically, that is not legally required as he was not driving, Debrow abruptly orders Mitchell handcuffed and placed under arrest.

During the 13 hours he was detained, Mitchell eventually was informed he was being charged with violating Lakeway's sign ordinance by displaying a sign on his shirt and a decal on his truck.

City officials are unaware of police handcuffing and arresting anyone else for sign violations.

Still, the city doggedly pursued its sign violation charges against Mitchell.

"There was more than just a T-shirt," pointed out city prosecutor Scott Taliaferro. "There was also a truck involved."

Lakeway police even tacked on two additional charges against Mitchell: engaging in construction operations that produced noise disturbances. The charges seemed to baffle even the prosecution, and they were dismissed before the trial.

In testimony, the Lakeway officer who wrote the tickets, Hector Almaguer, insisted he was simply following orders from Debrow, who'd instructed him to call if he ever saw Mitchell exposing a speed trap. He also said Debrow told him the local judge had issued a standing order to have Mitchell arrested.

"I about jumped three inches out of my chair when I heard that," the municipal judge, Kevin Madison, recalled. "That is absolutely not true."

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

The definitive hick town speed trap, Boulogne Florida, popluation 50,

The 4 lane highway was a 55 zone, but the people of Boulogne posted a 45 zone, and cashed on. They won the lottery.

The speed trap was so effective, 60 %of the city income was from fines and forfeitures.

Of the 1008 arrests in 1961, 999 were for speeding. Accordingly 88% of the budget went to policing the zone, all 1.3 miles long and 2000 feet wide.

Greed was their downfall of course, so many complaints, etc caused the state road dept and a senator to get involved. They lost about 10 million dollars due to bad will, and people going out of the way to avoid the now nationally known, nasty little town that was a parasite on the highway and drivers just passing through. The few businesses and citizens left had their charter revoked 8 years after getting it, and 2 years after the senator took a side against them.

From a late 1960's Road and Track article by Richard Poe

Utah tests 80mph limit on particular stretches of I-15

It's a success, and that means nothing changed, most everyone was already speeding, and not having accidents, and they are still going about the same speed without accidents.

Ergo, we're going to drive the way we drive regardless of posted speed limits, duh. Put more cops on the road and watch us slow down though.

For the full article: http://www.nextautos.com/utah%E2%80%99s-experimental-speed-limit-increase-deemed-successful

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

0 to 60 in 2.2 seconds. In a 1986 Trans Am, top speed, 252 mph... that's 3 less than the record for a production vehicle, McClarens old record

http://www.pollymotorsport.no/index.php?mapping=2 Via Hemmings Muscle Machines, Muscleaneous, pg 12 April 2009 issue