Finally, Sammy Hagar can drive in the State of Arizona worry-free (unless he’s wearing that yellow outfit again, he deserves to be pulled over for that).
In all seriousness, I’ve always suspected these cameras were more about making money than any “public safety” concern, and it really looks like the reason for abandonment in Arizona was civil disobedience over ticket payment by a large majority of Arizona’s speedsters. (Although apparently there is an incident of murder reported below.) Alex Spillius writes in the Telegraph:
Arizona has turned off every speed camera on its highways after complaints that they violated privacy and were designed to generate revenue rather than promote road safety.
A spokesman for Jan Brewer, the state’s Republican governor, said she “was uncomfortable with the intrusive nature of the system”, which was inherited from her Democratic predecessor. Opening in October 2008, the scheme was first in the United States to use speed cameras across a whole state. Amid objections of Big Brother-ism, numerous cameras were vandalised, while the operator of a van carrying a mobile camera was shot dead in a lay-by in April 2009.
The 76 cameras took 2.7 million photographs, but only 16 percent of drivers who received a speeding ticket paid up.
Read More: Telegraph
