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Using Speed Cameras To Send Tickets To Your Enemies

Posted by kdawson on from the ticket-me-elmo dept.

High school students in Maryland are using speed cameras to get back at their perceived enemies, and even teachers. The students duplicate the victim's license plate on glossy paper using a laser printer, tape it over their own plate, then speed past a newly installed speed camera. The victim gets a $40 ticket in the mail days later, without any humans ever having been involved in the ticketing process. A blog dedicated to driving and politics adds that a similar, if darker, practice has taken hold in England, where bad guys cruise the streets looking for a car similar to their own. They then duplicate its plates in a more durable form, and thereafter drive around with little fear of trouble from the police.

31 of 898 comments (clear)

  1. without any humans ever having been involved by similar_name · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've often thought if I got one of these tickets I would take it to court and ask for the right to see my accuser.

    1. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Emnar · · Score: 5, Informative

      The legislators have thought of that. It's an infraction, rather than a misdemeanor, so it's an administrative fine -- it goes on your driving record, but not your criminal record.

      Because it's a criminal charge, you aren't given the right to face your accuser.

      It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.

    2. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's a perversion of justice for the profit of the state, but right now the judges let it pass constitutional muster.

      That's just because nobody bothered to do the the same trick with the correct government or state official plates.

    3. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by similar_name · · Score: 5, Informative

      Since the cameras are generally owned by companies and not the local authorities, I think they only thing they can do is put it on your credit report.
      Where I am, they recently took down some red light cameras because they were not generating enough revenue for the company and the city didn't want to pay for them. It has nothing to do with law and everything to do with profit.

    4. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      So, I have to wonder: how many times a week do you have to hit one of these things with a paintball before they're not cost-effective to maintain?

      One way to put a stop to any for-profit effort is to make it unprofitable.

    5. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Lehk228 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      if you fill your own paintballs and fill them with glue instead of paint so the entire front glass has to be replaced it will work faster.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    6. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by spottedkangaroo · · Score: 5, Funny

      sounds like a dare

      --
      Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
    7. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Pichu0102 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      sounds like a dare

      I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to piss off someone who has the ability to ruin your life, or, if they're really corrupt, make you disappear.

    8. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by jdcope · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What should we think of a government that tries to find new ways to make our highways safe.

      However, red light cameras do not make it safer. In most places, red light cameras INCREASE the occurrence of rear-end accidents because people are afraid they might get a ticket and stop short. And in my area, those tickets are nearly $200. On top of that, the camera companies get a cut in the profits from the tickets. So there is an incentive to ticket people. And it has been proven in certain cities that the governments are shortening the yellow-light times to catch people off guard. So even people who are not trying to "run" the light get caught in it. And speed cameras on on-ramps are just friggin stupid. There are enough people out there who dont know how to merge into freeway traffic. THEY are the ones who cause congestion.

    9. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    10. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by wickerprints · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Tell that to the US citizens who were served National Security Letters under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act. Oh wait, you can't, because those people are legally prohibited from disclosure, so there's no way to identify who they are.

      The problem, of course, is not the validity of your statement. It's absolutely correct. But as we can clearly see, there really isn't such a thing as a truly free society, only those that call themselves "free."

    11. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by PReDiToR · · Score: 5, Informative

      Replying here because it should be up at the top. Sorry.

      In the UK we have cameras that face towards you, taking a picture of the driver that will be used as evidence if you say "I wasn't driving".

      Take advantage of this while you can.

      --

      Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
    12. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Informative

      I haven't seen a city in California whose times aren't already unsafely short. You can't tell me that a two second yellow is EVER safe, yet I've seen them that short in Sunnyvale, and many, many intersections at only three. And I've seen three seconds with zero all-red seconds for lights that allow left turns across five lanes of traffic. If you enter at the speed limit as it turns yellow, you will be in the intersection for at least two seconds while the light is green in the other direction. I can count at least a dozen lights between Fair Oaks and Sunnyvale roads alone that are dangerous, and those aren't even the intersections with cameras....

      The other dirty thing they do to try to anger drivers and make them run red lights is to time the lights so you hit every second light red reproducibly. Again, the two major roads through Sunnyvale are timed in this way for the vast majority of the day. Not only does it increase the rate of road rage significantly, it encourages people to exceed the speed limit to beat the lights, encourages people to run the lights when they change to red right in front of them, and likely wastes millions of gallons of gasoline every year in California alone, all so they can raise a little more red light revenue at a few intersections....

      IMHO, we need a California-wide ballot measure to demand citizen oversight committees be in charge of all traffic light management. That's the only way the abuse will stop. And red light cameras are abuse. Every study of red light cameras has shown that increasing the length of yellow lights to a minimum of seven seconds has the same benefits in terms of sideswipe accident reduction without the increased rate of rear end collisions, without wasting tons of fuel, without causing road rage, etc. Unfortunately, the people in power are not about to admit that they were wrong, so the only way to fix the problem is to wrest control away form them through a referendum.

      At least speed cameras are illegal in California. We got one right, anyway. It's a good thing, too. There's a radar sign on Highway 17 that routinely overestimates the speed of oncoming traffic by up to 15 MPH. If such a device were handing out speeding tickets, I'd have a thousand of them, all while going the speed limit, all with a confused look on my face staring at the completely incorrect speed on the sign....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    13. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by diamondmagic · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.google.com/search?q=red+light+camera+accident+statistics
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera

      You're welcome.

      --
      Wonder what the public key field is for?
    14. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Genda · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you live in that much fear of government officials, then you have bigger problems than speed cameras. In a free society, the fear, if any, goes the other way.

      Hell, It's not like some sick government Fsck could have you kidnapped right of the street and have you taken to a middle-eastern country to be tortured, in spite of the fact you were perfectly innocent...

      I'm sorry, excuse me for just a moment... Oh, really?... Hmmmm...

      Never mind.

    15. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The best way is to make the intersection designs controlled by insurance companies. It is in their best interest not to ever pay out, so the interesections that they can reduce accidents in will be made as safe as possible.

    16. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by RealEditer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Someone here in Texas is suing a couple of red-light camera operators, saying that they don't have private investigator licenses and thus don't have legal right to gather information for prosecutions. So far he's gotten one judge to agree.

    17. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Trailwalker · · Score: 5, Funny

      Consider someone you know who has social problems variously including anger management issues, alcoholism, drug abuse and/or severe financial mismanagement: in short, someone who repeatedly makes very poor life-choices.

      Obama will replace him in a few weeks.

    18. Re:without any humans ever having been involved by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unless of course I missed the part where people don't get to vote, must work at a state owned business and are not allowed to make most of the important decisions in their day to day life.

      I see you accept the US government official definition of "free country", with the cold war era anti-red addendum and everything. Voting is meaningless if only a small range of "mainstream" candidates have a chance. Free enterprise only matters when the market isn't rigged.

      Ask yourself this: Is China a free country? What *practical* freedoms do Americans have that someone in China does not? There are some examples, and those are important, but there are less than you might think.

      It's specious to say that we're less free because the federal government got those rights rather than the state government. One can still leave the nation if one chooses and if enough people become unhappy with the nation, they can still secede, I'm not sure where in the constitution the right to secede was.

      You touch upon the counter argument to your first sentence in your second. How many people does it take to make a policy change in a US state? At the federal level? Even organizations the size of the NRA and the Sierra club manage to accomplish surprisingly little at the federal level. Moving a policy from the states to the federal government results in a very practical decrease in the democratic control of that policy.

      This is just one of those whack job libertarian ideas that because I can't Jay walk or use drugs that suddenly I'm some sort of a slave.

      There's nothing "whack job" about libertarian ideas. Like any ideas, it's reasonable to disagree with them once you clearly understand them (and, necessarily, their historical and philosophical background), but simply dismissing them as crazy marks you as willfully ignorant. And there's nothing worse than being willfully ignorant (and proudly admitting to it).

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  2. Unless they are caught... by matt4077 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...when they usually pay through the nose or get jailtime for counterfeiting an official document (which a license plate is).

    It's interesting though that penalties are apparently tied to the car in the us, not the driver. I still remember the police showing up regularly at the door showing me a (usually bad) picture of my father and asking if I knew the person. Thank god^M^M^M the constitution for family privilege.

    --
    Fleur de Sel
  3. yeah great idea. by CaptainPatent · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, so you personally commit fraud and forgery to get your "enemy" a $40 speeding ticket?

    sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.

    I hope those kids like jail time!

    --
    Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
    1. Re:yeah great idea. by otter42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow, so you personally commit fraud and forgery to get your "enemy" a $40 speeding ticket?

      sounds like a great idea until the first time a cop is on scene to pull you over.

      I hope those kids like jail time!

      You're serious??? You would give kids jail time for an administrative prank? For $40? That's sick. Just plain sick. With these kinds of opinions, no wonder we have these kinds of laws.

      America would be a better place if we stopped trying to 0wn people in real life, instead of just video games and movies. There is such a thing as partial victories and conditional surrenders.

      --
      www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
    2. Re:yeah great idea. by otter42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Never. It's always a prank. If you want to argue that after getting caught ten times and clearly refusing to mend your ways that you should face some stiffer penalties, I couldn't agree more. That doesn't change that putting someone in jail for an administrative prank is wrong. And the knee jerk reaction to *want* that is perverted.

      Here's a solution: why not take away their driver's license? That would have the same effect on stopping the abuse, while ratcheting up the pressure (getting caught driving with a suspended license is far more serious) all without the slightest risk of permanently scars.

      --
      www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
  4. If someone actually wanted to make a statement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...they could create a website listing the make, model and licenses of cars belonging to police and other public officials; with convenient license plate templates or maybe a PDF license plate generator. Don't host it the US or UK though.

    But that would be wrong.

  5. Re:Predictable. by Original+Replica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And teh best way for us to not tolerate it, is to exploit it to laughable extremes. Have everyone copy the license plate of Governor Martin O'Malley and let him get multiple speeding tickets in different parts of his state at the same time, the law will change much faster that way as compared to waiting for the legislature to actually give a shit about bad law.

    --
    We are all just people.
  6. Re:Another interesting tidbit by NecroPuppy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, yes... But to be fair, nobody wants to look like Jeremy Clarkson, not even Jeremy Clarkson.

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    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
  7. Re:Predictable. by Kaboom13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, it will just be used as an excuse to make the governor and other politicians exempt from the law.

  8. Re:Glossy Paper and Printers by justinlee37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you look at your license plate every morning? Would you notice if the letters and numbers suddenly changed?

  9. the real problem is the speed limits themselves by rta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real problem, imho, is that speed limits are artificially low. In the US anyway, the only reason to follow the speed limit is to avoid fines. The numbers are unnecessarily conservative for most driving.

    In fact, i can drive past a cop at the speed limit in the rain and not get a ticket though clearly I have a much lower margin of safety going 65 in the rain than I do going 65 on dry pavement.

    Similarly, one is allowed to go the same speed at night as during the day even though visibility is definitely impaired.

    (Yes, I know the limit is set as an upper limit and that cops can ticket you for going an unsafe speed for the conditions, etc, etc. but in practice it doesn't happen for up to moderate levels of inclement levels. And in fog or a downpour or blizzard, well most people slow down well below the speed limit anyway.)

    I do like the "advised speed" that's attached to signs signaling curves ahead. That actually provides useful information about the road rather than info about the revenue generation and/or paranoia of the local residents.

  10. Re:Predictable. by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, it will just be used as an excuse to make the governor and other politicians exempt from the law.

    Then target their golfing buddies and their largest campaign donors.

    --
    -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  11. Henry Mencken disagrees by bledri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think anyone's really stupid enough to ...

    Henry Mencken disagrees:
    "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." -- Henry Mencken

    I know, he was talking about profit, but I think the sentiment applies more broadly.

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