Saturday, July 11, 2009

Drivers Use Technology to Fight Snooping by Greedy Government

The Washington Examiner has an encouraging story about how citizens are using high-tech to thwart the speed cameras used by greedy politicians to generate more tax revenue. The bureaucrats assert the cameras are about saving lives, but allow a personal observation to illustrate the gross dishonesty of the government. I have been nailed twice by speed cameras in DC, once on an interstate highway where the speed limit mysteriously dropped to 45 miles-per-hour, and the other time on a major artery with three lanes each direction that inexplicably had a 25 miles-per-hour limit. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyhow), these speed traps had nothing to do with promoting safety and everything to do with steering more cash to the political class:
Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras. That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices... Lanier said the technology is a "cowardly tactic" and "people who overly rely on those and break the law anyway are going to get caught" in one way or another. The greater D.C. area has 290 red-light and speed cameras -- comprising nearly 10 percent of all traffic cameras in the U.S., according to estimates by a camera-tracking database called the POI Factory. ...Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008.

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