Extreme Way To Avoid A Speedng Ticket?

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October 3, 2009

An Arizona motorist has come up with a novel way to allow him to try and speed with impunity.  Dave Vontesmar drives nearly 30 miles a day from his home in north Phoenix to his job at Phoenix Sky Harbor Intl. Airport and passes through various speeding camera areas.

He was issued over 90 camera speeding tickets but failed to answer any of them.  Upon close inspection, the photos all show the driver of his Subaru vehicle wearing a monkey mask or giraffe mask.

Mr. Vontesmar disputes these tickets on the grounds that they do not prove that he was actually the driver of the speeding car, and the Arizona Department of Public Safety is going bananas.  They even arrange for police offices to conduct surveillance of him in am attempt to prove that he is the masked man.

Arizona installed stationary and mobile cameras on state highways one year ago, and through Sept. 4th has issued more than 497,000 tickets. Of those, about 132,000 recipients had paid the fine of $165 plus a 10 percent penalty, netting the state more than $23 million. Arizona is the first to deploy such technology on highways statewide.

New York does not yet have such cameras but does have multiple red light cameras monitoring various intersections in New York City and Nassau County.  Don’t try to emulate Mr. Vontesmar to avoid these red light camera tickets, however.  These tickets are tantamount to parking tickets and, therefore, the owner is responsible without proof that he or she was driving (and regardless of what type of mask the operated is wearing).

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