Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/69/6996.asp

11/30/2020

France, Germany: Speed Cameras Foiled
Attacks against automated ticketing machines were on the rise last week in France and Germany.

Vigilantes in Veaugues, France, set a fire at the base of a pole-mounted "turret" speed camera on Saturday. The blaze was extinguished before damaging the camera hardware. In Saint-Chamond, green paint applied to the lenses of the speed camera on the A47 prevented the device from issuing tickets. Also on Saturday, the freshly repaired speed camera on the RN165 in Theix-Noyalo was heavily damaged by a tire-fueled fire. The device had first been installed toward the end of 2018, but within days the Yellow Vest protest movement knocked it out of service. A similar fate befell the automated ticketing machine on the A16 in Coudekerque-Branche, which was blinded by white paint on November 22, just days after it had been put back into service. On Wednesday, the speed camera on the RD53 in Velizy-Villacoublay found itself blinded with pink spraypaint, while the photo radar device on the RN184 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye had been cut down and had its power connections severed the day before. The turret speed camera on the RD2377 in Saint-Bonnet-de-Four was also found lying on the ground, cut down on Wednesday by unknown vigilantes.

On Guadeloupe, an archipelago in the Caribbean, vigilantes on Saturday cut down and burned the speed camera in Bas du Fort. The day before, the recently installed turret speed camera in Baie-Mahault was also toppled and torched.

Vigilantes in Bocholt, Germany, disabled a speed camera on November 23. According to Nordrhein-Wesfalen Polizei, red paint was used to blind the device that had been issuing automated traffic tickets on Dinxperloer Strasse. The newspaper Das Tagesspiegel reported that vigilante action against speed cameras is on the rise in Berlin with the capital city more than doubling its expenditure on speed camera repair. So far in 2020, seventeen attacks have been reported compared to just four in 2015.