Speed cameras are an intrusion of a fascistic surveillance state on the motoring public, but perhaps even worse than that, they don’t make roads any safer. They’re just a money grab. But when one heroic British motorist decided he’d had enough with The Man, hooked up a laser jammer and gave those cameras the finger, he was rewarded with eight months in jail for his public service.
The sniveling ninnies over at the North Yorkshire police even seemed proud of their actions, crowing that Timothy Hill, a dignified man of 67 years, was “perverting the course of justice” and thus was some sort of criminal:
The so-called North Yorkshire “police” went on to say in a press release that:
today he was jailed for eight months at Teesside Crown Court and banned from driving for a year for perverting the course of justice.
Hill drove past North Yorkshire Police’s mobile safety camera vans on the A19 near Easingwold, Thirsk and Crathorne on three occasions in December.
On all three occasions, he was photographed gesturing at the camera with his middle finger. Police also detected a laser jammer on his white Range Rover.
Here in the United States (God’s Country), giving the cops a piece of your beautiful mind isn’t considered a crime, and technically it’s not in the United Kingdom, either. The issue apparently revolves around the jammer, as it screws up the entire money-grubbing purpose of the money-grubbing cameras.
But apparently the one-fingered salute didn’t help:
Traffic Constable Andrew Forth, who led the investigation for North Yorkshire Police, said afterward: “If you want to attract our attention, repeatedly gesturing at police camera vans with your middle finger while you’re driving a distinctive car fitted with a laser jammer is an excellent way to do it.
Free Timothy Hill, a Hero, who knows that speed cameras don’t work.