Police department accidently lets website domain expire, speed camera foe snatches it up

[Liberal_in_LA]

speed camera tickets are almost $500 in los angeles

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Speed camera foe buys city's police website

After a Tennessee police department let its website expire, the site was snatched up by a new owner - a man who uses it to gripe about traffic cameras that issue speeding tickets.

Comments (18)BLUFF CITY, Tenn. (AP) - After a Tennessee police department let its website expire, the site was snatched up by a new owner - a man who uses it to gripe about traffic cameras that issue speeding tickets.

Computer network designer Brian McCrary says he discovered the Bluff City Police Department site was up for grabs, so he paid domain provider Go Daddy for the rights to http://www.bluffcitypd.com.

McCrary, who says he received a $90 speeding citation earlier this year, took over the site May 22.

His site now shows a smiling cartoon police badge clutching green currency. It also posts gripes from others who've been cited.

Police Chief David Nelson said the officer who managed the site had been on medical leave and the expiration slipped up on the department.

http://www.komonews.com/news/offbeat/95779739.html

[mikelgb]

1. sweet

[jtuck004]

2. LOL Bet they wish they'd spent that $27 on the web site n.t.

[Raster]

3. For the most part those traffic cameras and their tickets are not about traffic safety.

They are about money. Police departments across the country are addicted--just like drug addicts--to their high-tech toys. Money. It comes down yet again to money.

[jp11]

8. It is more the municipality that wants the revenue that is why they often will contract the

operation out to companies over paying their own people, police or whomever, to monitor and maintain them.

[Raster]

9. No matter either the city or the police. It's still about money. Not public safety. Money.

[Stevenmarc]

21. It's never about public safety, after they put one in across from my office we would hear our

weekly Screech ....Crash when someone slammed the brakes to avoid the ticket and got rear ended, it never happened before that.

[Hawkeye-X]

4. We have a few of these here in Denver. Some temporary, some permanent

We get random photo enforcement with obvious minivans with 4 lights and a camera inside of it.

Denver has several permanent installations of the photo enforcement. Two are within blocks of each other on eastbound 6th Avenue off the freeway (Denverites know what I'm talking about), two in different location of the same area in Stapleton area (I'm not even sure why it's there - it's very low traffic area - there are better locations - like Colfax and Colorado & Alameda and Colorado - lots of numbnuts plow through it)

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mopinko]

6. i am personally in favor of making assholes who run red lights

carry a little extra freight. where there is diddling with the yellow, etc, that should be punished harshly. not denying that that happens. but that is no reason to let people get away with vehicular homicide. in chicago, they deploy those cameras based on accident numbers.

[rbixby]

10. The only problem is....

how can you guarantee you know who's driving the car? If I lend my car to someone to run some errands and they run a red light, why should I be liable for the ticket?

[mopinko]

11. first of all, ours clearly capture the face of the driver, and secondly you are

responsible for what happens with your car unless it is stolen. you get a time stamp with which you can track down the person you lent your car to, and take it out one them. but if they crash your car, or commit a crime with your car, it is on you. legally. period.

[rbixby]

15. That's not how the Minnesota supreme court saw it

We had red light cameras in Minneapolis for awhile, but eventually the Supreme Court decided that they were unconstitutional because they couldn't positively identify the driver. With your line of thinking, if someone borrows a baseball bat from you, gets drunk, and gets in a fight, and uses the bat to beat someone up, you're then you should be punished for the assault because it was your bat. If you don't commit the crime, why should you be forced to pay the penalty for it? It kind of goes against due process if the person committing the crime isn't clearly identified, and it does not go along with the innocent until proven guilty philosophy of our legal system.

I agree with the intent of the law, but if the person breaking the law is not clearly identified, only the ownership of the vehicle, then its impossible to determine who actually committed the crime. It may not be the law of the land where you are, but that's how the courts have decided in Minnesota. That way people don't end up being charged with a crime they did not commit (granted, this was all because of a case where the driver of the vehicle was most likely also the owner of the vehicle, and they just had a very good lawyer to fight it, but nonetheless, it points out the flaws in these type of cameras).

[mopinko]

17. cars are different, as are many other things

ladders are different. if you get hurt at work on a ladder or scaffold, they cannot hold you negligent. the company is responsible no matter what you were doing.
but like I said, here the shows the driver. it went through the courts when it was implemented.

[truebrit71]

14. Correction* In Chicago they deploy those cameras based on where the highest revenue will be made..

...for Daley and his gang of crooks..It has bugger all to do with "safety" and everything to do with $$$$

[mopinko]

18. you are free to be cynical, but

I still love taxes on the stupid.

[truebrit71]

19. ..unless you shorten the yellow light time and INCREASE the number of rear-end accidents to boot..

..the stupid aren't the only ones that get clipped with this scheme..

[mopinko]

20. clearly addressed in my first post np

[Incitatus]

7. Yeah, that's that the automatic renewal functon is for. nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. Governments shouldn't have .com domains

one of my pet peeves.

[Heywood J]

13. Why not?

It's become a for-profit commercial entity like any corporation...

[Echo In Light]

16. K/R