7/31/2010
Maryland, Tennessee, Australia, Germany: Bogus Speed Camera Tickets IssuedSpeed cameras in Brentwood, Maryland; Bluff City, Tennessee; New South Wales, Australia; and Salzburg, Germany falsely accuse the innocent.
Seven-time Formula One racing champion Michael Schumacher, 41, told the Bild newspaper through a spokesman last week that the speed camera ticket he received for allegedly driving 120 km/h (75 MPH) in a 100 km/h (62 MPH) zone on the A8 Salzburg was bogus. The speed camera photograph clearly shows someone besides the Schumacher was behind the wheel of a rented Wiesmann sports car. Nonetheless, a court in Traunstein found the racing legend guilty for failure to appear and imposed a 140 euro (US $183) fine.
A car dealer in New South Wales, Australia has been hit with A$775 in speeding tickets for offenses committed by somebody else. Phil Taylor sold his personal automobile to an Irish contract worker, but the Roads and Traffic Authority refused to transfer the vehicle registration to the new buyer's home address in Ireland. As a result, Taylor has been stuck with all of the tickets that the new owner racked up before returning home to Ireland.
"If this guy had sped through the camera one more time I would have lost my license," Taylor told the Tweed Daily News.
A speed camera in Bluff City, Tennessee claimed that an octogenarian woman from Virginia blasted through the town on a motorcycle at midnight. Jean Robinson from Lexington, Virginia neither rides a motorcycle nor ever visits Bluff City, WSLS-TV reported. Nonetheless, despite claiming that "three people" review every citation, nobody at the police department or photo ticket company noticed that the ticket shows Robinson's vehicle ownership details -- she owns an automobile. The vehicle committing the alleged offense on the ticket is a motorcycle with a similar license plate number.
In Brentwood, Maryland every speed camera ticket issued between June 24 and July 13 will be refunded, according to a statement from Mount Rainier Police Chief Michael E. Scott. The city refused to clearly explain the reason for the error to inquiries made by the Washington Examiner. It appears that the private company that operates the program, Optotraffic, used the signature of an inactive police officer to approve the citations -- in violation of state law.