City of Phoenix
Audio By Carbonatix
Phoenix drivers still have two weeks to go until speeding citations officially start flowing from the city’s new speed enforcement cameras. But some people appear intent on getting ticketed much sooner than that.
Last week, somebody toppled and beat up one of the cameras placed at Thunderbird Road and 19th Avenue. A week later, another speed camera was vandalized. On Tuesday, a user on the Phoenix subreddit posted a photo of a worker cleaning white paint off the lens of a camera on 7th Street between Osborn and Indian School roads.
According to the Phoenix Street Transportation Department, that’s the third speed enforcement camera to be vandalized since they went live on Feb. 23. The cameras now have been knocked over, spray-painted and covered with a sticker. In all instances, the city said, the cameras were repaired and placed back into action by Verra Mobility, the city contractor managing the program.
Verra Mobility “conducts daily checks throughout the day to ensure all the Photo Safety Cameras are operational and capturing events,” wrote Street Transportation Department spokesperson John Trierweiler in an email to Phoenix New Times. “In all of these cases the contractor discovered the issue, responded and returned the camera to normal operation.”
Trierweiler added that the vandals in these instances have not been caught.
“As far as any prosecution or citations for vandalism, none have been issued so far,” he wrote, “and The Street Transportation Department is working with the Phoenix Police Department and Verra Mobility to address any vandalism prevention and enforcement to prevent future occurrences.”
Trieweiler did not say how the city and Verra Mobility will prevent vandalism in the future, nor did he answer a question about whether the city is concerned that the cameras continue to be targeted.
The city installed 17 cameras on Feb. 23, placing nine of them on specific stretches of road and another eight in certain school zones. Drivers caught speeding by the cameras will receive warnings until March 25, when real tickets will be mailed out. If you don’t pay the ticket you receive in the mail, the city’s contract with Verra Mobility requires the company’s employees to personally serve you with the citation, though it remains to be seen how often that will really happen.
In the Reddit thread on the spray-painted camera, some celebrated what they cast as an act of resistance against constant government surveillance. “Doing the lords work,” wrote one user. Added someone else: “It’s one thing if I get pulled over and handed a ticket by a real human but I’ll be damned if I let a clankeR give me a ticket.”
Still, other users suggested that if you don’t want to get a ticket, maybe don’t speed so much.
“I’m not sure how the ‘lords work’ is encouraging speeding that leads to Phoenix having one of the highest pedestrian deaths in the country?” wrote one person. “Does Jesus want people to die so that someone can get to their destination 30 seconds faster?” Wrote another: “People get very offended when they can’t get away with speeding.”
One user found themselves right in the middle, probably where most Phoenix residents would be.
“I’m at this weird point in my life where half of me is like ‘haha, fuck the police,'” the user wrote, “and the other half is like ‘but drivers are a bit out of hand…'”
