The latest in the French people giving the middle finger to government revenue collection, taking out speed cameras. I can just see the government's response now, cameras watching cameras...

https://www.grandtournation.co...h644slQmTGcmghs7Pkjw


60% Of Cameras In France Destroyed by Yellow Vests

GTN Staff January 11, 2019 Car News

As their fight against rising fuel prices draws on, the Yellow Vest protestors are moving to larger and stronger ways of showing their anger at the french government. Only days ago, it’s been reported that 60% of the speed camera network in France has been sabotaged, vandalised, and destroyed.

It was only last year France decided to tackle speeding and dangerous drivers with an onslaught of new cameras and anti-speeding devices after those who were being injured and killed by bad driving increased drastically.

Over 3,200 cameras have been “neutralised, attacked, or destroyed” by members of the Yellow Vests claims Interior Minister, Christophe Castaner. The increased price of fuel and therefore commuting angered the protestors further after tight speed sanctions had been placed on a lot of major roads across France. In a lot of areas, the speed limit was reduced from 90km/h to 80km/h, which is around 50mph.

According to the Yellow Vests, they believe that the cameras have only been put in place to increase fines, and therefore increase the price of driving even further – especially damaging to those with little money to spare.

Many have praised the Yellow Vests, or Gilets Jaunes as they are called in France, for for their work in standing up to the government and using this time to make a change. However some have expressed anger at how innocent bystanders have had their property damaged from uncontrollable rioting.

You gotta pay for immigrants on welfare somehow.

Keep up the good work, Frencie. My son got tagged with 3 of these stupid tickets for ‘speeding’. They came at least a month after he was back. He never felt he exceeded the speed limit, but with a 1 mph tolerance, everyone is a victim.
Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
You gotta pay for immigrants on welfare somehow.

That and doomed to fail green energy projects. And global warming and stuff.

They demanded crippling taxes on the wealthy, never did they realize they were considered wealthy by the squalid immigrants.



So, after they overthrow the government, how long will it before they cycle begins again?

I say good for the yellow vest people. I am sure they are sick and tired of the liberal, progressive, socialist big brother government know it alls and their agenda.
The American politicians better listen up, because I'm sure it will come here soon than later. Especially with the new emerging crop of Democrat Socialist that are infesting our country. You can only push normally peace loving people so far until they have had enough.

If they truly want to get their politicians attention roll out the guillotines.

I can certainly confirm this, I am in Bayonne France and all the cameras I have driven by today had bright green stickers slapped on over the cameras! A lot of cars driving around with the green vest sitting on th dash boars of cars. Hope they stay out of my way tomorrow as I head back to Toulouse and get out of dodge.

This sounds like anarchy.
I too have received camera tickets in Europe, but I wouldn’t condone damaging speed cameras. If you follow the rules, you don’t get a ticket. Don’t like the rules? Don’t drive.

quote:

Originally posted by LoungeChair:
This sounds like anarchy.
I too have received camera tickets in Europe, but I wouldn’t condone damaging speed cameras. If you follow the rules, you don’t get a ticket. Don’t like the rules? Don’t drive.

What are the tolerances on those cameras? Like what is the threshold for issuing a ticket? Where do they place them? Around here they like to put those radar trailers at the bottom a hill (thankfully ours don't issue tickets, yet).

In my dumbass opinion, speed cameras are nothing but revenue generators that occasionally might show usefulness, same with red light cameras. Burn them to the ground, and run the companies that make, install, and operate them, out of town. Tar and feathers is their choice.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
Keep up the good work, Frencie. My son got tagged with 3 of these stupid tickets for ‘speeding’. They came at least a month after he was back. He never felt he exceeded the speed limit, but with a 1 mph tolerance, everyone is a victim.
Mike

The thing about these cameras is that there are usually signs warning you that you are approaching them about a half mile before the camera. Locals of course know this. A friend of mine who came to my wedding in France and drove from Paris to Brest got hit by about 12 of them.

Anyway, my wife and I noticed a bunch of these cameras covered up or "disabled" during our recent visit.

Regarding this issue, vive la France!

I detest cctv cameras of all forms in public areas.

Not sure what would be more fun for me, destroying invasive cameras or Somalian pirates. Either would be a dream job.

Speed camera / radar trailer usage should be outlawed.
It takes away a fundamental right. The right to confront your accuser.
Cameras at intersections are fine as long as they are not linked to enforcement (with exception for crash investigation) or ticketing.

If antifa tards were doing this here everyone would be screaming for their execution. "Gas is too expensive! I want the government to make everyone equal and babysit me! Let's burn a bunch of cars!" These are not freedom fighters. They're socialist anarchists.

quote:

Originally posted by 1KPerDay:
If antifa tards were doing this here everyone would be screaming for their execution. "Gas is too expensive! I want the government to make everyone equal and babysit me! Let's burn a bunch of cars!" These are not freedom fighters. They're socialist anarchists.

Not really. There are probably are some anarchists using the yellow vest movement as an excuse, but it really is grassroots movement. There's really no central organization for this, it's just people being generally pissed off that the government is attacking their livelihood.

The initial spark to the movement was the latest round of tax increases on fuel. I believe the latest was a 26% increase pushing the tax rate on fuel to over 60% pushing prices to a $6.50/gallon equivalent. Along the same time speed limits were reduced on rural roads in the name of fuel conservation. Then speed cameras were put up to, "Enforce" the new lower limits. 1kph over the limit is a 90 euro fine. So that would be why protesters are disabling cameras. Paris now has an emission limit on cars that only late model cars can comply with, so now you can't drive your beater Citroen 2CV into Paris.

All this done by the government to the people for their own good; improve air quality by reducing driving, reduce driving by making it too expensive. So if you live outside the city, you're kind of screwed. You can't afford to put fuel in your car, you cannot afford to get a ticket from a speed camera, and you probably can't afford a late model car with all of the associated VAT and other taxes to drive into Paris.

So people are pissed. They can't afford to drive, get to work, get their kids to school, etc. Basically their government is taxing away their livelihood. I'm glad they're protesting and their government has no idea what to do. If our government did something similar, there would probably be an even more volatile reaction on the part of citizens here and it wouldn't be the ANTIFA crowd.

I still remember in the late 80's, Atlanta put up a series of unmanned traffic radars on their beltway trying to slow traffic down. A good ol' boy in his pickup made a lap of the city one night and took out almost every one of them with a shotgun.

Europeans are prone to bitch. They're to used to being supported by government.

If only the "Yellow Vests" types were getting killed by speeding/red lights, that's fine. They might be doing society a favor. But if a member of my/your family gets injured or killed, we'd be demanding stringent enforcement and prosecution.

FWIW, we have a neighboring town in northern AZ that put up red light cameras at intersections where injury and fatality collisions had occurred. The town was mandated to take them down by our short sighted state legislators, some of whom got caught by the cameras along with the town council members. By the way, the cameras were revenue neutral.

After they were removed, the collisions at those intersections increased up to 300% from what they were with the cameras. Now the push is for round-a-bouts where few yield as they're supposed to. Collisions still result albeit at lower speeds, and cross traffic comes to a halt during congested periods.

I'll take camera intersections any day if it modifies poor driving behavior at least approaching the intersections.

Although I think the Yellow Jackets are a buncha commie assholes, good on them in this case.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:

...but with a 1 mph tolerance, everyone is a victim.
Mike

1 mph is, er...ridiculous! Adjacent Davenport has (maybe it's now had) them, they're set to take your picture at 12 mph over.

quote:

Originally posted by 1KPerDay:
If antifa tards were doing this here everyone would be screaming for their execution. "Gas is too expensive! I want the government to make everyone equal and babysit me! Let's burn a bunch of cars!" These are not freedom fighters. They're socialist anarchists.

I agree. If this were to happen here, everyone would vilify them for one reason or another.