Safe Speed Forums

Personally I am not a fan of the damage action but these three apparantly appeared near Wetherel today



Is civil disobedience stretching as far as criminal damage an acceptable tactic?

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Just saw that, unfortunatley there was no camera gear in them according to the report. I bet the only thing the guy in the stolen tractor thing wasn't doing was speeding!

I love the smell of burning cameras in the morning.......its the smell of victory..

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Speed camera policy Kills

Take a look at www.speedcam.co.uk - hundreds of vandalised Gatsos on there

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Whilst not a fan of speed cameras, especially in their current mode of operation, I'm still not a supporter of those who vandalise speed cameras. It is still criminal damage.

Besides, by taking the camera out using fire or cutting the thing to pieces you're only drawing attention to the fact that it is now disarmed. If someone was to just 'tint the lens' a little they'd put it out of action temporarily and the scamera pratnerships (sic) wouldn't be any the wiser. If you make it too obvious that you've killed it, they'll only replace it with a new one.

Of course, I'm not condoning the 'tinting' of camera lenses either - simply mentioning there are less brutal ways to disarm a speed camera although it would still be illegal.

With a bit of luck sometime soon all the pratnerships will be dissolved and these devices that serve little or no purpose for safety will be removed officially and people won't have to take it upon themselves to 'help out' in this way.

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Kill a talivan, not your speed.

I can't make my mind up about this:

on the one hand £30M of public money has gone up in smoke and even more spent replacing them with CCTV body guards. You also get the anti cameras campaigner must be a speedophile MAD member tag

on the other, very few get replaced and the government does seem to get frightenned by direct action.

would I do it - I've thought about it many times but I'm too much of a coward.

I do flash talivans to come out of side roads or laybys and then blast the horn and force them to brake when they forget the highway code and see it as me giving way. But at best they stall and get annoyed, so it can't really be described as direct action. Still fun. Another time me and a total stranger took turns to block one in on a dual carriage way. Hopefully one day they'll make contact. Imagine the headline 'wreckless speed camera opperator causes pileup'

I don't think that it is strictly necessary to destroy them, but I will admit to having fantasies since I watched the american that stole a tank... just think - totally flattened!

In practice their must be loads of ways to temporarily disable them - some of the following I have been told about as happening (particularly around Staffordshire where on the Stone to Leek road once we counted 12 NEW cameras within 3 miles, others have come from my imagination. Being a law abiding citizen (or at least I was until the Police Sting operation that gave me a trip to court and some points) I have not tried any of these, and I am not recommending others try either, but it is nice to fantasise:

Push them round a bit until they point away from the road. I wouldn't have believed that the design would be so poor that they are not locked in place, but the number that I have seen that don't appear to be aligned implies that this might be true.

Buy a can of "spray mount" then spray the glue over the camera window. It will act as a soft focus filter, and prevent accurate recording of number plates. This can be supplimented with a handfull of fine dirt or replaced by spray paint. This is easily fixed as I am certain that the glass is a replacable item. If you are using paint feel free to spay logos or anti scamera messages over the remaining surfaces.

The radar is not easy to get around, although a steel plate welded over the plastic radar cover would do the job nicely, but might take a bit long to do and attract attention. I recommend using your Hi Vis jacket for this then only scamerati and police are likely to notice.

If it is night, then covering over the flash might work, but I doubt if it is effective during the day, and film is pretty flexible these days, so by pushing the scanning of the film they might still get readable numbers from street-light exposures. Not really a good method.

Buy a tube of superglue, and fill up the lock. Once set the secure box cannot be unlocked and the film collectors have to call out a maintenance crew. This also works with pillar linked to the under-road sensors that are now used by the Talivans in our area, and previously used by the Police in their sting against me. In fact anything that prevents the key getting into or turning in the lock is fairly effective.

Permanently disabling the under road sensor is slightly more involved, and depends on the surfaces, but basically all you have to do is cut the wires or the strips, and you only have to do two of the three strips. As the strip has to be close to the surface to detect the car, and tarmac is relatively soft, a good solid 1" chisel and heavy hammer should do the job. A blow torch will always soften the tarmac if it is a bit hard.

Alternatively get a solid 4x4 and a length of chain around the post and give it a good tug - while the post might be in about 1 cubic foot of concrete most land rovers, land crusers, trucks etc will not have any difficulties in pulling them out of the ground - also works for gatsos and all post mounted systems - chain as high as possible for maximum leverage. Pushing is also possible, but might damage the vehicle or leave traces of paint that can be traced back to the offence. If you have access to a JCB, then don't muck about ... but that is where this thread started.

I'm sure that other ideas are out there, and if I looked a number of web-sites dedicated to the subject.

Now how to disable talivans using laser...apart from the laser diffuser technology, and that only works for the car it is fitted to, everything else leaves you too exposed, although if they are using dedicated sites, then caltrops would cause some inconvenience - for best effect they need hollow spikes to ensure the air is let out, as these modern tyres can cope with simple nails.

If you are bold enough to approach, and can work out a good diversion then: sugar in the fuel tank, laxative in the flask of tea...

Oh this is so therapeutic!

Is this a conspiracy to commit criminal damage

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'Detritus, get yer stoney arse over ere'

No, just some harmless fantasy

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Can two unmarked police cars working together and deliberately driving in an agressive and intimidating manner with the objective of forcing drivers to drive faster through a virtualy invisible speed trap be defined as criminal behaviour? Both vehicles exceeded the speed limit: one by approx 30mph the other by 10mph and the first was tailgating so close that the headlights were below the boot line. But immediately past the speed trap they gave each other a thumbs up sign and both slowed back to 5mph below the limit...

At least my criminal behaviour is in my imagination....

The horror...

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'The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable person should be considered legal, regardless of the letter of statute'

Rioman, Herts

You have to think about it in terms of cost to the scammers.

On the one hand, a matt black spray can over the lens denies em revenue and prosecutions which may amount to a couple of grand a week.
On the other hand actually destroying the things removes the revenue stream entirely and puts a gaping 40k hole in their profits.
Anything that could make them run at a loss is obviously a good thing, cos once they cant meet their running costs, then where are they gonna get their cut from?
The spray can idea works, it just works slower than destruction, the choice is entirely yours...

As for whether or not you agree with criminal damage....well...they dont give a hoot about the law when it comes to getting the £60 out of you do they?So why should it prick anyones consciences to play by their rules?

Y'know? When you explain it in those terms DeltaF it all makes such sense.

Shame on me for not having set fire to a few. Bad citizen

I don't even like clumsiness and accidental damage so I find deliberate damage to things is even more offensive normally, but in the case of speed cameras and all such devices I will make an exception.

Well done Captain Gatso and associates. Go to it!!

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Cavity wall foam in a can. Otherwise known as "expanding foam"

OH, YES!!!

Niel,

You say you're a Police Officer - if that is correct then consider this...

We are policed in this country generally by consent. Even people who thieve from shops or burgle, those who beat other people up, etc, know that their actions are generally unpleasant and will be punished if they are caught...

To commit most criminal acts in this country you need 2 things. ACTUS REAS and MENS REA. (Wrongful act, wrongful mind).

Please, Niel... Please tell me why the full wight of the state should be brought against me with PROSECUTION (meaning the State's retribution) for having done something I can't remember doing????

You're a copper? If you caught me thieving or otherwise doing something very anti-social but were enforcing the law FAIRLY, I'd accept the punishment without questionning it.

The thing is, Niel, the law or the over zealous policing of it won't change until and unless enough of us protest about it. Who are the real criminals anyway????

Or put another way: I have been fined £60 for exceeding the posted speed limit (30 mph) by 6 miles an hour (ie 36 in a 30). The road in question was a dual carriageway and the camera was at the bottom of a hill. Who is taking the piss out of who, Niel?

I have no objection to nicking people obviously taking the piss but you can't tell me that YOUR mob aren't taking the piss out of me in disproportionately wanting this money off of me.

Read it in the paper. Get pissed up, lob a bottle at someone you don't know (maybe taking one of their eyes out) and it's a fifty quid fine IF you get caught. drive 6 mph over the limit DOWNHILL on a dual carriageway where there is no real threat or additional danger to anyone £60 fine.

I know it must hurt you, if you are a decent copper, when someone like me (who up until now {aged 42} has never had any 'business dealings' with the law) glibly says to you Was catching the thieves far too much for the police force - so much so that they have decided to join them?

The thing is, Niel, your boss's policies and the other fuckwits who get some sort of kick out of doing this are making your job impossible. No ifs, no buts, until and unless this over zealous FASCIST like enforcement of the speed limits is brought back into the real world, I will never help you (as the police force) again. Doing a door to door over a murder or serious rape case - I will get my licence out of the drawer, bring it over to the bloke at the door and say "See this? Those 3 points (or 6 or 9) have cost you my help"

Now this may well hack off the poor bastard who gets this in the ear. But unless we do go down the Russian line with salt mines and the like, you and your mates can't make me help you when it really matters. Telling you "no comment" or "not my problem mate" when you have a problem like the one outlined above is not illegal and it is a poor reflection on how your forces' policies are being felt by ordinary generally law abiding people out here.

So is criminal damage justified? in 99% of cases I would say no. But if enough of it going on (which I certainly won't indulge in personally but would certainly NOT SEE AT ALL) and it makes the prats in charge of this relent and lay off the power pissed trip they've been on filching money off of us at large, well, yes. It is justified.

A few 'cute' people are making your job very, very hard, Niel. And I genuinely feel sorry for you. But like I say, the £60 fine for doing something I can't even remember doing (certainly without malice or intent)... well, just enjoy spending it - because I won't help the law again until this law and its enforcement is reviewed.

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Although I used to consider myself to be a "reasonable man", the law just sees me as a criminal... My uncontrolled anti-social activities solely include the undeniable fact I usually drive my car at or just below the 85th percentile.

There are 100 drivers on this island...

1 driver drives outside the rules and gets his licence endorsed.

There are 99 "good" drivers who outnumber the bad one by 99 to 1.

Another driver drives outside the rules

Only 1 less on the "good" tally - but now the good outnumber the bad by 49 to 1

One more 'offender' brings the ratio down to just under 33 to 1 - still not that bad.

But then you look at this island. with 12 million automatic tickets having been issued over recent years this ratio is down to 3 to 1

Just who are the bad drivers anyway???


The punishment must be proportionate! Or are we all criminals? I suppose so because I've read somewhere that something like 13 billion speeding offences occur every day of the week. If this is true, then we should all be banned?

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Although I used to consider myself to be a "reasonable man", the law just sees me as a criminal... My uncontrolled anti-social activities solely include the undeniable fact I usually drive my car at or just below the 85th percentile.

I recon a "super soaker" with loaded with paint......you could even get a drive-by splating......

Alternativly you could go the whole hog and ues a paint ball gun...wicked

OK BIB.....only joking.......

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Speed camera policy Kills

I think Neil's records of posts here indicates which side of the speed camera he is on, and the sad smiley is because he cannot join in this thread as a serving officer when we are discussing an "unrelated" offence which would get him in trouble.

Never mind Neil, why not cut out a picture of a speed camera, stick it up on the garage door, and use it for target practice with the weapon of your choice !
They can't do you for that can they??
I use Two Jags Prescott for stress relief all the time, so I'll be in trouble if they can!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!