Lawmaker burns traffic camera ticket, urges Tennesseans to ignore them.
“How can the millions of dollars in traffic camera citations that have been issued in the state of Tennessee be valid if the law was clearly broken to issue them in the first place? In my opinion, they aren’t,” Holt said.
KNOX News: NASHVILLE — State Rep. Andy Holt is urging Tennesseans to ignore traffic camera tickets and emphasizing his point by burning a citation in a video that apparently has received more than 325,000 Facebook views.
“What do you do if you get one? Throw it in the trash. Personally, I prefer to burn mine,” says Holt, R-Dresden, in a lengthy news release issued in conjunction with posting the video on his Facebook page Wednesday, which shows him using a cigarette lighter to set the ticket aflame.
But Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said in an email Thursday that Holt is not offering sound advice.
“No one likes to be caught violating traffic offenses, regardless of how they are caught, but they have a legal obligation to properly address it. Burning a citation or throwing it away is an emotional response that may feel good, but it does not make the violation and accountability go away,” Rausch said.
Holt, a longtime critic of traffic camera tickets who repeatedly has called for banning them outright in Tennessee, was joined by state Sen. Paul Bailey, R-Sparta, this year in sponsoring a bill, HB2510, that requires all citations resulting from a traffic camera video to include this notice: MORE
If TPTB want to make an example of you, you are really, really screwed. What I have decided to do if I ever get one of these revenuer tickets is simply to challenge it and drag the whole affair out as long as I can and cost the bastards as much as possible in the way of time wasted for cops and judges and clerks. They will only stop this crap if it stops making money for them.
It’s not about safety, it’s about the money.
My hubby got popped for one of these about 42 seconds after coming here to work. Reading him this now, he’s regretting paying the ticket, which came with the photo they snapped of him in the driver’s seat.
I had not had a ticket since 1976. An Ohio state patrolman pulled me over in my town a week before Christmas for not wearing my seat belt (another revenue maker, $110).
The patrolman said he pulled me over for my own safety. I said, “Safety? Where in the fuck were you when I was in Vietnam, Kindergarten?” “Now you are concerned about “my” safety?”
He stated, “You’re lucky, in a neighboring town it would cost you $125”.
I must be the safest and luckiest son-of a bitch I know.
Uncle Al, the tickets are outsourced.
I got a dozen of them while working in Iowa.
They were speed cameras, not red-light.
A company in New York tried to collect.
They got NOTHING!
Not sure about Tennessee but the Iowa tickets couldn’t count against my drivers license.
Georgia extended the yellow interval of stop lights by 1 second (a state law) and there were so few cases of red light running (and fewer rear end accidents at red lights) that the camera operators (who split the stolen “profits” with local governments) lost money and removed the red light cameras altogether. They had intentionally set the yellow interval too short in order to prevent people from being able to stop in time. A few localities were making $millions before this change in the law.
This was yet another case of corrupt governments stealing from citizens, and in this case, endangering their lives to do so.
Knox PD are pricks. And yes, revenue is their biggest concern. If law enforcement wants to issue me a ticket, then they should be out on the streets, performing their duties. Not letting some out of state entitiy do it for them, with Robocop. Knoxville is big brother city, realized.
Back in the 70s in Italy, if the locals didn’t like the location of a stop light, they went out at night and cut it down. The “officials” would put it back up, the locals would cut it down. Put it up, cut it down. Until the “officials” gave up and moved somewhere else to fuck with people.
If America adopted the Italy’s sense of propriety, we might have less of this shit.
See a camera – cut it down – or paint it that rubber-paint black.
(just wear an Obola mask when you do it)
izlamo delenda est …