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The vandalised speed camera
Speed camera vandal strikes again
James Ferguson17/ 5/2005
A VANDAL with a grudge against speed cameras has struck again in their costly one-man war.
Officers are determined to catch what is believed to be a single motorist seeking revenge after being convicted by evidence from the speed traps.
The latest target was a camera in Featherstall Road, which has been repeatedly vandalised over the past six months.
The camera was installed because of nine crashes in which two people were seriously injured, one of them a child, in the last three years.
In the attack at the weekend, silver paint was sprayed across the lens so it can no longer take pictures, and the word 'dummy' scrawled on the casing. It also appeared to have been peppered with an air rifle.
The cameras are owned and operated by Drivesafe, which spends '250,000 on installing and maintaining them every year.
Spokesman Claire Wightman said: 'The police are made aware of every act of vandalism on every speed camera. They warn that criminal damage, especially when it endangers the lives of innocent members of the public, is punishable by imprisonment.'
The Advertiser revealed last month how the camera, and one in Manchester Road, are being systematically vandalised ' apparently by the same person.
As soon as engineers repair the speed traps, the mystery attacker strikes again. Each time the same method of attack is used, spraying silver paint across the lens so it cannot catch drivers breaking the 30mph limit.
Anyone photographed driving too fast is hit with a fine of at least '60 and has three points on their license. More points and a bigger fine is imposed if the limit is broken by more than 25mph.
Each camera costs '20,000 and each one in Greater Manchester caught an average of 207 speeding drivers last year.
Most recent 2 of 48 user comments
19/07/2005 at 16:29
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Should the government now step in to force energy companies to cut their prices?
I go to new areas all the time where speed limits change without warning.
Show me, and I'm talking to the 'Don't speed and you won't get done' brigade, any driver that doesn't have a lapse in concentration, and I'll show you a liar.
Speed camera's are about money making.
Today a guy was jailed for mass fraud pretending to be an MI5 agent and warning people that the IRA were after them and pursuading them to part with tens of thousands of pounds.
The other week, some goon beats up an old lady then drives off in her car, drugged up to the eyeballs, kills someone, and gets off with it. WHere was the speed camera then ???
These things are a cancer on society.
And that moronic chief constable of North Wales constabulary, who has been campaigning for speed cameras for years, now turns round and says that there should be less.
Just goes to show how dim the 'Speed Camera' supporters are
Funny how they go quiet when they get caught which they, inevitably will.
6/09/2005 at 22:05
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