Criminal Charges Against Speed Trap Tweeter

martinlp writes "A Twitter account named Pigspotter is making big news in South Africa. The traffic authorities in Johannesburg are taking legal action against Pigspotter, an individual who is tweeting up-to-the-minute information about speed traps in and around the city. He has recently stopped, stating that his Blackberry is going in for repairs, but it may be out of fear of getting prosecuted. The police claim he must be getting inside information and suspect that disgruntled traffic officers may be involved. There is also speculation that it is more than one individual that is tweeting."

Comments

But how precise is it?

[MichaelSmith]

Police here in Victoria, Australia actively encourage the publication of speed camera locations, which are not particularly precise. So radio stations can report that there is a speed camera on $HIGHWAY without saying exactly where it is and drivers slow down all along that route.

Now if you tell the public exactly where the speed camera is (1km past $CROSSROAD) then the camera could be moved by the time you get there, or you might get the location wrong, or forget by the time you get there. So giving out the precise location might not save the drivers from a ticket and again they just have to slow down and keep a look out.

What the police might not like is a distributed iphone or android app which broadcasts their location in real time and presents it on a map showing your location. You could have "Police Camera" button on the screen and press it after you go past. But the information is going to get stale fast and police could game the system with cheap decoy speed traps.

Re:But how precise is it?

[penguinchris]

I know I shouldn't feed an anonymous troll but that's bullshit. Speed traps as you seem to define them are reasonable - those are when police cars sit on the highway in plain sight and pull over people going unsafely fast or otherwise driving recklessly. The rest of us define speed traps as the ones where the police set up camp in a place where people are guaranteed to be speeding because either the speed limits are set too low or change without being marked changed (as in the parent's example) or for other reasons.

I got a speeding ticket a few years ago for going slightly faster than traffic flow (which was already about 10 over the limit)... because I was passing a line of trucks, and was at the bottom of a *huge* hill where everyone inadvertently speeds up - which is right where the police car was waiting. That's a speed trap, and the police set up in those areas to make money, plain and simple. If they were doing their job of keeping the road safe by pulling over people who are actually driving dangerously, no one would complain about them.

It's true that there are assholes who drive balls to the wall every fucking day, as you eloquently put it, and those people should be pulled over. One doesn't have to be that kind of driver to find major reasons to complain about speed traps, though.

Re:But how precise is it?

[Moryath]

When there's a freeway underpass the city over from mine where they sit on quota day (and it's pretty fucking obvious it's quota day, no time else do you have 10 pigs parked in the underpass breakdown lane waiting in one spot) trading turns on who gets to pull the next guy over on the radar-gun spotter's call until they have all made quota, in a zone where they pull a speed limit 45-25-45-25-45 trick?

The locals all know - unless they forget or are brand new teen drivers - to do no more than 30 through that entire zone, because if you get up to 45, there's no way you can hit the brakes and get down to 25 in that distance without locking your brakes and risking a skid.

It also helps that the locals all have "flood zone" stickers on their cars that serve the "spoken" purpose of allowing them to be in the area during voluntary-evacuation times, but also let the local corrupt pigs know EXACTLY who's from out-of-city for ticketing purposes. I've actually sat in traffic court and watched a city resident get his ticket dropped after a sidebar conversation with the judge about how it was a brand new car and his flood-zone ticket hadn't yet been issued to him.

So I say no, they're ALL corrupt. No "visibility bias" about it.

Re:But how precise is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

i remember every single time i've been pulled over. granted i've only been pulled over 5 times in 11 years though.

ticketed twice for speeding, once for no seatbelt. once on the interstate out of state, i was in the middle of a group of cars, we're all speeding a bit, but of course i'm the one pulled over because there's no way i'm going to show up to court out of state. $200 ticket for ~10 over. second speeding ticket, there was a spot on the way home from class where cops always sit to catch people speeding. just down the crest of this hill where the speed limit drops from 50 to 35 as you're going down. usually i was good about slowing down before i crested the hill, but one day i spaced for literally 5 seconds and blam, ticket for 20 over. only $60 though. the no seatbelt ticket, i literally pulled my car out of my driveway, drove less than a block and parked it. the cop pulls up behind me after i park and writes me a ticket for $25.

the two other times i was let go with verbal warnings. first time was reckless driving and no seatbelt, i was 16 and you can bet your ass i remember it. i was driving 75mph down mainstreet where the limit is 25. (lolstupidteenager) when he pulled me over, i pulled into a gas station parking lot and my friend went inside while i talked to the cop. he asked me what the hurry was and i actually told him that my friend was hypoglycemic and needed a candy bar. that guy could have easily fucked my shit up, but he just told me to cut it out. second time i was also 16 and was driving around at 4am without headlights on, the streets are illuminated bright enough and there were zero other cars on the road, so i didn't even notice. anyway, with graduated licensing i wasn't supposed to be driving past like midnight or 11pm, but i had forgotten that rule. the guy was a huge dick to me, basically calling me a liar to my face. his partner was more understanding and probably talked the other guy out of giving me a ticket. in the end they just told us to head straight home.

tl;dr: i remember every time i got pulled over.

Re:But how precise is it?

[betterunixthanunix]

Nobody is free to roam all streets, at least not in any major city. Nor are we free to speak to cops the same way we can speak to civilians. Nor are people with handicaps free to obtain drugs that can help them, for fear that the cops might arrest them.

Anyone who becomes a cop has suspect morals in my book, at least given the state of our laws and the way police departments operate.

Re:But how precise is it?

[commodore64_love]

"The police claim he must be getting inside information and suspect that disgruntled traffic officers may be involved."

Cops know the real score, but they want to keep their job just the same as you & I do. Example: I witnessed my boss taking a government-paid "business trip" but really a Vacation every single week - but I kept my mouth shut because I needed a job.

If you search around youtube you'll find a few videos from former cops discussing all the corruption they have witnessed, not just in speeding revenue generation but also in general, like entering homes without permission.

Free Speech?

[DamienRBlack]

Freedom of Speech, you either have it or you don't... Although, I suppose this particular case is a little sticky. Do you think that when people are actively trying to avoid law enforcement, their speech is still protected? I side with the idea that it should still be protected. If someone posts a list labeled "100 best places to drop dead bodies off where they'll never be found", I don't think they've done anything wrong. At least not by posting the list, their research methods may be in question.

I suppose if it turns out that the tweeter is in fact a cop then they have all the right to fire him as I'm sure it is a breech of contract. But otherwise he/she should have the right. Johannesburg just needs to find better methods and stop their internal leaks, don't take it out on the messenger. Of course, I don't know what the actual laws of Johannesburg are, I'm just considering what they should be.

Moving the camera ?

[thrill12]

I think you are overstating the ease with which a camera may be moved. A speed camera has to be aligned exactly (angle/height/equipment etc) to measure the correct and valid speed of a passing vehicle. You cannot simply move it within a few minutes lest your measurements are out of bounds and any ticket you write is invalid - for people that have the energy to fight it before court, that is. I know that is the situation here in The Netherlands at least.
Actually, announcing speed traps is sometimes done by the police themselves here, and transmitted using a system called "TMC" (traffic message channel). Additionally, radio channels ask people to report them and announce them on RDS.
But in the end, some speed traps are never announced or the announcement is never received: last week, there was a motor driver who died as a result of a car braking for a speed trap. This could stir up debate that police, like in for example Sweden, are forced to announce the speed trap before it actually occurs.

Do people still flash lights in the US?

[penguinchris]

When I was a kid I remember one of my parents telling me about people flashing their lights on the highway (I-90 thruway in NY) to warn of upcoming hidden police cars, I guess because I noticed someone doing it and asked why. Since that day, though, I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it again, and I've done a lot of highway driving (for my age anyway - driven across the US about five times, and lots of driving in between and at either end). I decided to do it once when I spotted a police car on the opposite side, but I think the people going the same way I was thought I was signaling them instead or indicating that I had a problem or something. Hard to tell since it doesn't seem to be a universal speed trap signal anymore.

Is it regional? Are there still places where this signal is common knowledge? I ask because the slashdot department line mentions this, and I haven't heard of it since I was a kid, as I said.

Re:Do people still flash lights in the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people in Australia tend to flash if/when they see a cop for several km either side...

Re:Keeping us Safe...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fairness to these cops - they are the metro police, as in traffic police, they are not "real" cops although you wouldn't be able to tell the difference by their arrogance. Which is why they had to go lay a charge of criminal injuria with the real cops.