DUBAI - Motorists cheat radar & Laser Speed Cameras with tampered plates
DUBAI - Cases of drivers tampering number plates to avoid paying fines are on the rise in Dubai with police issuing alerts for 1,158 vehicles with such false plates.
Major General Mohammed Safi Al Zafin, Director of the General Department of Traffic of Dubai Police, said eight cases involving fake number plates were referred to public prosecution since October this year and the police had seized 263 vehicles for such violations.
Al Zafin said many drivers reported their number plates had been stolen and applied for new ones in a bid to get away from the law, while others made plates with three digits instead of five. There have also been cases where the UAE symbol is stuck near the numbers to avoid being caught by cameras while speeding.
He said some drivers got caught because they changed only the front plate while the back gave them away as speed cameras click both the front and back of the vehicle.
The Dubai General Department of Traffic recovered fines worth Dh922,742,330 for traffic violations committed over two years until October 2011. Al Zafin said there were 1,520,213 traffic violations committed by drivers during this period. When the department realised that many drivers had not paid their fines, the police tracked down the vehicles and their owners who had not paid fines running into thousands of dirhams, he said.
ARAB NEWS - RIYADH - Speed Camera Operator Burned Alive
RIYADH: A Saher car was set on fire in the Alquwayiyah area on the Makkah highway east of Riyadh, killing the driver.
Riyadh police is intensifying its search for the attacker. The reason of the attack is still unknown.
On Thursday deputy spokesman for Riyadh Police Maj. Fawaz Al-Maiman said: “The police with the cooperation of Saudi security agencies are investigating the shooting incident. Police investigators were dispatched to the area where the incident occurred for additional evidence.”
A Saher employee was also recently attacked in Abha when a gun-toting man shot at his car, a local newspaper reported Monday.
The worker, identified as Sultan, said he noticed a vehicle following him. When he stopped at a restaurant, two people got out of the car, approached him and threatened to kill him. He said that he tried to talk to them but they did not listen and one of them shot at him, missing.
"I did not know who they were and why they were attacking me. When I got out of my car and confronted them, one of them returned to his car, took his gun and aimed it at me,” said Sultan.
“He fired his gun, but he missed. A number of people managed to seize the gun from the shooter, but the two escaped before police arrived. I did succeed in writing down the number plate. I was slightly injured from the attack," said Sultan. Police are still searching for the attackers.
This attack is similar to other incidents where Saher employees and their cars have been attacked.
In a recent incident in Buraidah, two Saudis in a pick-up truck pulled up next to a Saher vehicle and threw a metal bar at it, smashing the window. The driver suffered minor injuries.
Last year a youth threw an iron bar at a Saher car also in Buraidah while driving at high speed. The rod broke the windshield, and damaged cameras and other equipment.
Joburg prosecutor arrested for speeding fine corruption
A senior prosecutor and two others have been arrested for allegedly taking an estimated R5 million in bribes to cancel summonses served on speeding motorists, Johannesburg police said on Friday.
Captain Pinky Tsinyane said the 49-year-old prosecutor was arrested on Thursday morning in his office at the Johannesburg Traffic Court.
A tout, who solicited clients at the court on behalf of lawyers, was also being held in connection with the scam, Tsinyane said.
Another man, who monitored surveillance cameras at the court, handed himself in later on Thursday for the same offence.
"The men were allegedly charging motorists R2000 in order to cancel their summonses," said Tsinyane.
"This was going on for a period of two years, which made them pocket an amount estimated at R5m," she said.
Tsinyane said they had been charged with corruption.
She said the arrests followed an investigation by the Hawks that started in October.
A man paid the R2000 to the court official, thinking it was going to cover the speeding offence, Tsinyane said.
"He then complained to the Johannesburg metro police department about not getting a receipt for the money he paid. This resulted in the investigation of the syndicate."
Tsinyane said more arrests were expected.
The three arrested so far were expected to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Monday.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK: Speed Camera Operator Killed, Devices Attacked
Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK: Speed Camera Operator Killed, Devices Attacked
Emirates News 24/7 - 12th Nov 2011
Speed camera van driver killed in Saudi Arabia. Vigilantes spraypaint and burn cameras in United Arab Emirates and the UK.
Saudi Arabia camera attackedAl-Qahtani Muflih, president of the National Assembly for Human Rights, called for an end to the "Saher" speed camera system after the driver of a photo enforcement car was gunned down in Saudi Arabia, Al Shams reported. A man used a rifle to fire down from a bridge to a speed camera car that had just pulled to the side of the highway from Riyadh to Taif to begin issuing tickets. The photo radar van driver was shot and killed and the van itself caught fire.
In the United Arab Emirates, spraypaint was used to disable a speed camera on Friday in Ras Al Khaimah. The automated ticketing machine on Shaml Al Rams street was prevented from issuing citations, Emirates 24/7 reported. Officials announced they would install round-the-clock surveillance cameras to monitor the traffic cameras.
Vigilantes set fire to a speed camera in Cambridge, England on November 5 at 11:30pm. Cambridgeshire officials are upset at the loss of ticketing from the device on Histon Road in Arbury, the Cambridge News reported. The same device had been destroyed in an attack in 2004.