Posted: 11/26/2007 6:35:13 PM EDT
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Tennessee: Gunfire Blasts Red Light Camera Knoxville, Tennessee police accuse a man of blasting a red light camera with a .30-06 rifle. Camera gunshotA red light camera in Knoxville, Tennessee was riddled with bullets early yesterday. The ticketing device, located at the intersection near Broadway Street and Interstate 640, was struck by three bullets at around 2am, leaving the camera's lens shattered and incapable of ticketing. WATE-TV reports that police found Clifford E. Clark III, 47, in a minivan near the scene of the incident with a Ruger M77 Mark II .30-06 rifle. Clark was arrested and accused of felony vandalism for damaging the automated ticketing machine operated by Redflex, the Australian company that Knoxville hired to run the program. Red light cameras are typically encased in "bullet resistant" housings that cannot stop a high-powered rifle round. The plating used on the red light camera increases the possibility of ricochet damage from small arms fire to nearby homes and businesses. Source: Man arrested in connection with red light camera shooting (WATE-TV (TN), 11/25/2007) www.thenewspaper.com/news/20/2088.asp |
This is terrible. Destruction of public property. Creating an unsafe driving condition! What a shame. I am so upset. Good thing those things couldn't be taken out with a silenced .22 long rifle from the wooded area behind the intersection in the middle of the night when traffic is at a minimum and there being nothing in the background that could be hurt. That would just be double bad and I would slap the perp with a wet noodle. 
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Hmm.. Then again maybe his actions will save someone's life. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people jam on the brakes and nearly cause collisions, or stomp the gas (and nearly cause a collision) in an effort to get through the signal before it can snap their photo. It happened to me the other day - someone ahead of me stalled going into the intersection so I had to wait on them. When he got going again I realized the light was in the process of changing and that it was one of those intersections with the camera. I gunned it and almost ran over that car trying to get through the intersection before it could get me. 
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It's certainly possible that it would ruin the CCD. Optics and such can be very sensitive. Anti-satellite technology uses the same concept... laser damaging an enemy satellite's optics. And it would be very subtle. |
The same company does all the cities in DFW, as far as i can tell. If you "ran" the red light and got a notice in the mail, you can be pretty sure you did go through after the light turned red. The notice has 3 photographs on it, 2 show your car proceeding through the intersection against the light and the 3rd shows your plate. At this point you think, "I'm gonna fight this one"......then you watch the several second video that shows the light change and then 1 second later you enter the intersection and run the light. My wife got caught in Garland, I got caught in Dallas and a few others in the dept have been caught in Dallas and other cities. All of us were determined to fight the ticket until we saw the videos of ourselves. mm |
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Stop at the damn light and you won't have trouble. Now one can argue about signal timing, flashing red at night, etc, but at basic level running a redlight is plain unsafe, and mostly to the other person. Speed cameras are a different story. BTW the Brits have legions of speed cameras and have some countermeasures. |
In general, I believe you, however, there have been studies upon studies that show that simply lengthening the time before the cross traffic light turns green does a much more effective job of preventing death and injuries. Then again, there would be no revenue associated with it. I saw this in Team and suggested a .50BMG from further away.
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Damnnnn!!! those are some pretty pissed off Brits going after those cameras! To think they willingly gave up their guns, and now are forced to right "The Man" with 'tyres soaked with petrol' BIGGER_HAMMER 
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I used to live in Baltimore and when they installed the red light cameras they shortened the yellow to less than legal. I believe 2.5 seconds of yellow was required. If the reason for installing cameras was for safety as they claim they should also install count down timers. the first one I saw was in Cambodia about 4 years ago and it seems to work and they don't have cameras. |
Unfortunately I think our British brothers didn't give up their firearms, much like we won't give up ours. I'm thinking it's more of a "turn them in, or else". Just that they did it twice.
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they tried it on myth busters if you want to beat it you got to be going 160 miles an hour |