Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/30/3064.asp

2/28/2010

Arizona, Tennessee, UK: Speed Cameras Catch Fire, Crash
Speed cameras burn in UK and Tennessee while an Arizona photo radar van mysteriously crashes.

A speed camera van in Mount Carmel, Tennessee burst into flames at around 3am on February 21, burning down a barn near which it had been parked. Officials did not immediately blame vigilantes for the incident, instead suggesting the van, owned by Australia's Redflex Traffic Systems, may have caught fire on its own.

"There's a lot of wiring in that vehicle, and there's a chance it wasn't arson," Mount Carmel Police Chief Jeff Jackson told the Kingsport Times-News.

There is no question that vigilantes were behind ten attacks on speed cameras in Dorset, England in the past year. Automated ticketing machines in Ferndown, Bear Cross, Longham, Verwood and Three Legged Cross have all been burned, the Bournemouth Echo reported.

Even a fake speed camera has felt the wrath of vigilantes. Former police officer Bill Angus, 64, constructed a faux automated ticketing machine and mounted it outside his home in Sunderland, England. Angus was upset last week when his false device was smashed with a hammer.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the group CameraFraud.com spotted the mangled wreckage of a freeway speed camera van being de-striped in the Redflex parking lot on Friday. The Australian company has issued no statement on the cause of the van's destruction, but the anti-photo organization offered the suggestion that perhaps another of the company's employees has been driving under the influence of alcohol. Roderick Ruffin was charged with DUI in 2008 while behind the wheel of a Redflex van.