Reminds me on an idea the California Porsche Club had a few years back, that they should all get vanity plates that were some combination of the characters "1" "0" "I" and "0" to greatly increase the chance of a typo on speeding tickets.

He should be arrested just for the paintjob on that car. Dick.

The police should just impound his vehicle and say they suspect it has been stolen and they need to search it for evidence.

That said, I fucking hate speeding and parking tickets too. They're nothing more than the police doing some part time work as the IRS.

Living in the DC area, they have cameras all over. They really do not work. Most people slow down to 5 under the limit in front of the cameras, then speed up to 15 over once clear. Usually only catch people who do not know the road they are on and therefore don't know the speed limit or that there are cameras. It is mostly a tax. I don't think the guy is that bad either. If the police were actually there, they could make him take off his mask, but because they just want the cameras to do it, they have to deal with mask. Hey, and maybe a relative or friend took the car for a ride.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3051/2670…

Jeremy Clarkson approves of Mr. VonTesmar.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3051/2670…

@6 How would searching the car help? The guy has said outright that he owns the masks. He just won't admit he's wearing them. So, unless a police officer ACTUALLY DOES HIS JOB and pulls this guy over while he's wearing one, there's not a whole lot they can do.

Of course, here in Seattle they don't give a shit about catching your face in the picture (as I learned when a friend ran a red light in my car). All they need is a picture of the license plate- which is why I've often considered stopping right before one, putting a sign over my license plate that says "FUCK YOU", and running the light intentionally.

@8, Jeremy Clarkson's show is entertaining, but he is one of the biggest assholes in the world. He doesn't believe in climate change, he doesn't believe in fuel efficiency, he doesn't believe in speed limits or car taxes at all. If he approves, I don't -- it's as simple as that.

The rest of you sound like smoke detectors with that whine.

"Bucktooth"... is that a racing club down in the SW or something? Or simply just an ironic logo for when he sports the giraffe mask?

Appears someone was listening to the Bob Rivers radio show this morning, BR had interviewed this dude today.

@11, Oh, don't get me started on the government conspiracy behind domestic smoke alarms! That's how the CIA monitors all U.S. inhabitants. Every smoke alarm has tiny video cameras and specialized mind reading electronics installed in them. I make a point of wearing my tin foil bennie and my monkey mask whenever I'm home because I know I'm under constant surveillance - that way they're never sure if it's me.

@14, uh, yeah.

The people freaking out over speed cameras and red light cameras never seem to have a good explanation for why these horrible, horrible things never seem to catch law-abiding citizens, only angry shitheads who drive too fast and run reds.

I support this man's efforts. Fuck cameras in intersections.

And, he's absolutely right. They can't prove it was him. In this country, we are entitled to due process, and part of that is you must be proven guilty. Do any of you speeding Nazis disagree with that principle?

The photograph is proof. If you disagree, tell it to the judge and see what he says, Godwin.

@15 - Have you ever driven a car that's registered in someone else's name? It's common, and how wouldn't that cause law-abiding citizens to be given speeding tickets?

@11, you're right, he is a bit of a libertarian, but more importantly, he's a satirist. I don't agree with most of his opinions on global warming and transport policy either, but he's got a brilliant way of portraying cars and the culture that surrounds them. I say Clarkson approves because Mr. VonTesmar lifted this idea straight out of Top Gear when he tested the Nissan GT-R in Japan. Clarkson wore a Bill Oddie mask while speeding through every speed camera between Osaka and Tokyo.

@10,
I'm not suggesting they do it in the hopes they'll actually find evidence, I'm suggesting they do it to get revenge. E.g., tell him they need to search it and then lock it up in a garage for a couple weeks or something.

It's the simple principle of inncocent until proven guilty. You cannot convict somebody of murder with this flimsy evidence. He deserves the same standard of legal protection.

@20 - Maybe the police should harass anyone suspected of a crime in which they don't have enough evidence to convict. Yeah, that would be awesome!

Yeah! Way to stick it to the man! When he plows through a red light and smears some bicyclist across the intersection, the judge will have to say "well, it was a gorilla who did it, and you can't charge a gorilla with vehicular manslaughter, so that's that" and then the government will realize how foolish traffic safety laws are!

@23: Thank God.

Too many people talk about driving like it's some god-given right. It's a privilege, people. Any time you get behind the wheel you can kill or main. Nothing else in our daily lives implies the same risk. You gotta earn the right, and keep it by not being a dick. Otherwise, start walking.

@21, way to conflate "murder" with "running a red light". A traffic infraction, while against the law, is not a criminal offense and doesn't bear the same standard of proof. A photograph, or a meter maid's notation on a parking ticket, is all the proof they need. A photograph is in fact MORE proof than a cop writing a ticket; maybe the cop made it up! Shocker!

Again: if you don't run red lights or speed (or park illegally) you don't get these tickets. "Someone else was driving my car", pshaw. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

VonTesmar should never be allowed to drive a car in Arizona again. Good luck with that, fool.

@22

Read second paragraph @6

Last year, students at Montgomery High School in southern Maryland reprinted copies of vehicle license plates belonging to people they didn’t like, attached them to their own cars and drove past the nearby speed cameras at high rates of speed. This resulted in $40 fines to innocent victims of their choice.

Wow. That guy has a lot of time on his hands. Or I hope he does.

Here's the problem with the "speeders deserve what they get, they're breaking the law" argument.

Go out and look at the freeway. The speed limit is 55 MPH, and most of the time you can find well over 90% of the people you see driving "breaking the law". Do we live in a nation of anarchists? No, people adjust their driving to a level of safety appropriate for the conditions. The speed limit is an arbitrary measure of what is "safe" and what is "unsafe", and is set conveniently low such that a police officer can always use the measured speed of the driver as prima facie evidence of unsafe driving, hence the speeding ticket, much easier to prosecute than a reckless driving ticket. Police officers do not go out and arrest everyone going 1 MPH over the posted sped, they go after the outliers. And everyone is OK with this system, because although they know that e.g. the 55 MPH speed limit on some particular stretch of road is an unjust law, they don't have to worry because they can all collectively agree to drive 65 MPH when it is sunny and dry, and they won't get a ticket, because cops are smart.

Speed cameras completely mess up this system. And I guarantee that if there were speed cameras absolutely everywhere (or, say, a speed recorder attached to every car), then there would be an enormous public outcry, and speed limits would be raised to compensate. What we have is something in between, where one set of rules applies in one place, and another set of rules in another. That's why it's unfair.

So this has basically become a public safety versus due process discussion. Any thoughts on which is more important- personal protection or public protection? I would have to say that while public protection might seem like the obvious answer, the principles on which this country was supposedly based might actually lean towards the former- ya know, personal freedom and all that.

@30 - I will add that I'm curious what everyone's opinion is when it comes to warrantless wiretaps, and things of that nature, because it's really the same public safety vs. due process argument. I'm guessing that most of the people on here who think that cameras at intersections are enough due process for speeders are vehemently opposed to the idea of the government listening to their phone conversations and reading their email.

Oh, for chrissakes, it has nothing to do with warrantless wiretaps. It's enforcing traffic laws. You drive on the streets, you have to obey the rules or you pay a fairly trivial fine. No one is being executed or sent to Gitmo.

Fact: "mah precious freedoms are bein' trampled heah" means "I want to drive fast on city streets and run red lights". Period. Your due process rights are not being abrogated; your due obligation to obey simple and non-onerous rules of the road is being enforced.

I have absolutely no doubt that all of these same arguments were used when the first traffic cops and meter maids showed up (in the 20s? 40s?).

You're just making excuses for your own desire to break the law.

I repeat: if you think this is a violation of due process, ask a judge. He'll tell you what he thinks of that idea.

@29, there aren't speed cameras or red light cameras on freeways. They're on city streets. And they work; in the places in Seattle where red light cameras have gone in, people fucking stop on the yellow.

The same argument is used in support of wiretaps. Law abiding citizens don't have anything to worry about. And, really, whether you're getting water-boarded or just fined is irrelevant.

A major difference between traffic cops and cameras is that traffic cops can be called as a witness, and must appear in court when called, or the case is automatically thrown out.

Parking tickets are a moot point because they are given to a driverless car, so the registered owner is always the responsible party. Moving violations, on the other hand, are given to the driver, not the car.

PS - Meter maids can also be called to court, and if they don't show up, then the parking ticket is thrown out.

Wiretaps do not affect traffic on public ways; the government has no business on the wires. Streets are different. There are no rules for wire conversations that must be followed; streets are different.

And you're still ignoring the legal difference between an infraction and a crime. Infractions are not subject to jury trial and cannot be punished by imprisonment. A photograph is plenty of evidence. Legally, the status of these cameras is not in question, and the only people who think otherwise are loons, scofflaws, and ambulance-chasers looking for a buck handling your bogus case. I know it's a big turn-on to pretend to be some kind of Martyr for Justice (Free Mumia!), but the law simply does not agree with you.

As somebody who used to drive on the asphalt meat-grinder that is Arizona's over congested transportation system, he's a douche bag. The citizens of Arizona overwhelmingly supported putting up the speed/red light cameras by voting for bond measures to pay for them. When referendums came up to get rid of the cameras they were voted down. Why? Because a lot of people were dying on Arizona streets and the punishment for that was a slap on the wrist. Reckless killers had a good chance of walking off with no jail time. After photo enforcement fatal accidents dropped by about 1/3. Douche bags who whine about photo enforcement are the same douche bags who run red lights, speed, and blow through stop signs. Obey the law, douche bags. You're not entitled to kill people because you want to get to Starbucks ahead of the am rush.

The only thing dumber is the biker meatheads who think patriots died in foxholes for their "right" to go without a helmet on public roads. Essential freedoms like the ballot box or free speech have nothing to do with indulging pure stupidity like speeding or not wearing a helmet or seatbelt. Mixing up indulging hooligans on the road with protecting vital civil rights is an insult to generations who have defended real liberty. And an insult to everyone's intelligence.

Maybe monkey boy can wear his mask in prison and pretend it's not really him giving the handjobs.

Normally I frown on prison-rape jokes, but that one is PURE GENIUS.

Speed kills, you assholes. It's not a matter of "liberty," it's a matter of doing things that are against the laws that also increase the rate of death on our bloody roads. Small increases in speed hugely increase the chance of fatalities in car-pedestrian crashes.

@29
People do not know what is "safe" and what is "not safe." You can do things that are insanely dangerous (texting while driving, for example) and for most people nothing ever happens. Thus they get the erroneous idea that it's safe to do so. Meanwhile everyone agrees that it's worse than driving shitfaced and causes incredibly fatal accidents all the time. You could replace "texting" with "speeding" and the result is the same.

People who design roads design them to be safer at speeds higher than the posted limit. Fact. It's also fact that they can manipulate the perceived danger of roads to increase overall safety. Roundabouts are a good example of this -- everyone thinks they're more dangerous than signalized intersections, so suddenly they're slowing down and paying more attention. As a result, an intersection that suffered huge numbers of collisions and fatalities will have none. Thus roundabouts are much safer despite their perceived danger.

Red light cameras also decrease fatalities in intersections, since the number of horrible t-bone accidents is decreased. The cost is a higher number of rear-end accidents (oh, your poor little car) and a higher number of assholes complaining about it on the internet.

Blah blah blah

fnarf and elenchos: thanks for the great posts.

It is nothing more than a revenue grab. The police have admitted the tickets are for only 10 to 15 mph over the limit. It has nothing to do with safety. I see it everyday here. It is like post #7. Everybody slows down for the cameras, and then speed back up once they have past, until they get to the next camera, then speed up. It's a joke.