South Africa: Speed Camera Garden gnome Irks Police (5.1.2008)
A website documenting South Africa's covert speed camera traps draws
angry words from local police.
South
African police officials are up in arms about a website that ridicules
the secretive use of speed cameras throughout the country. The site,
speedtraps.co.za, offers a forum for users to discuss speed trap
locations in each region of the country, similar to the National
Motorists Association's
Speed Trap Exchange in the US. Speedtrap.co.za's gallery also offers
photographs of camouflaged speed cameras, shirtless speed trap operators
and -- most offensively for the police -- a garden gnome placed atop a
speed camera in Pietermaritzburg, a town in KwaZulu-Natal.
"We cannot entertain motorists who treat the traffic cameras as a joke,"
Durban metro police Senior Superintendent Thozamile Tyala told the
Johannesburg Star newspaper. "We won't stand for people making fun of
the speed cameras. This is not the first time the website has made fun
of them."
Despite the righteous indignation, South African officials have been
involved in a number of far more serious speed camera-related scandals.
In 2006, Cape Town police
went on a "booze cruise" funded by the company that was seeking to
defend its contract to issue speed camera tickets. Over the course of
three years, Labat had been caught
illegally issuing more than 81,000 photo citations, placing its
revenue sharing deals with police in jeopardy. Courts have thrown out
bogus tickets issued in
Tshwane,
Cape Town and
elsewhere. A motorist videotaped a provincial traffic chief in the
Free State town of Parys on New Year's Day in 2006
operating a speed camera trap while intoxicated.
Source:
Cops not amused by speed-trap website (Johannesburg Star (South
Africa), 1/5/2008)
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