8/31/2015
Maryland, New York, Canada: Speed Cameras DefacedMan takes a stand against speed cameras in New York while photo radar is attacked in Canada and Maryland.
A motorist in Suffolk County, New York is taking a stand against automated enforcement. On Tuesday, Stephen Ruth was arrested for making a YouTube video demonstrating how easy it is to disable a red light camera with a simple painter's extension rod (view video). It took only a few seconds for Ruth to point the camera away from traffic, preventing it from issuing citations.
"Listen people, I hate to say it like this, but if they don't take them down, we will tear them down," Ruth wrote on his Facebook page yesterday. "It's still America."
Ruth's arraignment on criminal tampering charges, a Class B misdemeanor, is set for October 27 at the Suffolk County First District Court at 9am. Although the charge carries the potential for ninety days in jail, low-level misdemeanors are generally punished by a fine. In this case, up to $500.
In Edmonton, Canada, a man threw a baseball-sized rock at a mobile speed camera van on August 1, denting the rear driver's side panel. The incident took place at 12:40pm on the Whitemud freeway, but police waited until last week to report the incident to the public after failing to identify the person responsible.
In Montgomery County, Maryland, swastikas were spraypainted on a pair of speed cameras on Route 108 on Wednesday. Since 2007, Montgomery County cameras have generated $157,592,254 in revenue.