One of the more disturbing things to come out of Britain in recent years is the CCTV culture, where “the Man” is forever watching *everything*. We have much the same in the US, though being far larger and more inertia-laden than Britain, we’re nowhere near as filled with cameras. However, cameras have made a lot of inroads into watching traffic. Robots are regularly used to watch cars and issue traffic tickets. That’s one of those things that, on the one hand, is hard to argue against (“if youre not speeding or running lights, what have you to worry about?”), and on the other hand is a clear sign of creeping Big Brotherism.
There are several ways to fight this, from courts to politics to vandalism. Turns out some juvie delinquents have come up with another way:
As a prank, students from local high schools have been taking advantage of the county’s Speed Camera Program in order to exact revenge on people who they believe have wronged them in the past, including other students and even teachers.
Students from Richard Montgomery High School dubbed the prank the Speed Camera “Pimping” game, according to a parent of a student enrolled at one of the high schools.
Originating from Wootton High School, the parent said, students duplicate the license plates by printing plate numbers on glossy photo paper, using fonts from certain websites that “mimic” those on Maryland license plates. They tape the duplicate plate over the existing plate on the back of their car and purposefully speed through a speed camera, the parent said. The victim then receives a citation in the mail days later.
Students are even obtaining vehicles from their friends that are similar or identical to the make and model of the car owned by the targeted victim, according to the parent.
Obviously this is criminal and petty evil. But it is also a way to invalidate the trafficams: it wouldn’t take a whole lot of this to make regular schmoes get up in arms and demand that tickets be issued on the spot and in person, not via the infallible HAL 9000 Highway Control System.
