Monkey-masked Ariz. speeder gets 37 photo tickets

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_us/us_masked_speeder/
print>


Yahoo! News

Monkey-masked Ariz. speeder gets 37 photo tickets
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 11, 5:58 pm ET

PHOENIX  Speed camera photos of the man in the monkey and giraffe
masks have generated lots of chuckles. But the cops aren't laughing.

Dave VonTesmar, 47, started getting the $181.50 tickets last year, but
it took Arizona state police several months to realize the same driver
was repeatedly triggering speed cameras and refusing to pay the fines.
By the time they did, more than 50 of the tickets had become invalid
because the deadline for prosecution had passed.

VonTesmar, who has now amassed $6,7000 in fines, is fighting each
citation by claiming he wasn't behind the wheel.

In Arizona, people who get photo-enforcement tickets in the mail have
four options: Agree they were driving and pay the fine, say they
weren't driving and send in their driver's license photo as proof,
request a court date and fight the ticket, or simply ignore the ticket
because law enforcement can't prove they received it. The ticket
becomes invalid if a violator who ignores it isn't served in person
within three months.

On Aug. 19, DPS served VonTesmar in person with 37 tickets, mostly
between 11 and 15 mph over the speed limit. The pictures accompanying
the tickets show a driver wearing either a monkey or giraffe masks in
VonTesmar's white Subaru, which has black-and-white checkered racing
stickers on its sides and a sticker on the windshield that reads
"Bucktooth Racin'."

"It's a peaceful act of resistance  that's what this country was
founded on," VonTesmar, a flight attendant, said from Houston. "I'm
not thumbing my nose at DPS, but photo radar is not a DPS officer
protecting public safety. It's nothing but a speed tax."

VonTesmar didn't deny that he was the driver wearing the masks. But he
did say, "They can't prove I was operating the vehicle. You've got to
identify the driver, and if you can't it's not a valid ticket."

But like other people DPS refers to as "frequent fliers," VonTesmar
received some special attention.

Agency spokesman Bart Graves said DPS has surveillance photos of
VonTesmar putting on masks before driving and believes that they will
convince justice court judges in three area cities that he was the one
behind the wheel and must pay his tickets.

"We have pretty strong evidence against him," Graves said. "We're just
asking for his fines to be paid."

Graves said VonTesmar has repeatedly endangered public safety and that
DPS is taking his case very seriously.

VonTesmar, who said he simply drives with the flow of traffic, said if
DPS does have surveillance photos of him on the road, it proves he's
not a danger to other drivers. If he were, DPS would have pulled him
over, he said.

Since the speed cameras began snapping photos of drivers going 11 mph
or more over the speed limit, the backlash against them has been
fairly constant. Arizonans have used sticky notes, Silly String and
even a pickax to sabotage the cameras.

Then, on April 19, speed-enforcement van operator Doug Georgianni was
shot to death on a Phoenix freeway. Thomas Patrick Destories, a 68-
year-old Phoenix man charged with first-degree murder in the death,
has pleaded not guilty.

Arizona began deploying the stationary and mobile cameras on state
highways on Sept. 26, 2008, and through Sept. 4 had issued more than
497,000 tickets. Of those, about 132,000 recipients had paid the fine
of $165 plus a 10 percent penalty, netting the state more than $23
million.

Many of the remaining tickets are either new, being appealed or have
just been ignored. The state didn't have figures immediately available
on the breakdown.

Three separate citizens groups are targeting the cameras in
initiatives for the 2010 ballot.

Shawn Dow, chairman of the Arizona Citizens Against Photo Radar, one
of the groups targeting the cameras, said he's not sure whether
VonTesmar has affected their cause.

"It is very funny," he said. "In one sense it shows how silly this
whole thing is, so you know I'm glad he's using a sense of humor. The
fact that he did it 90 times, I don't want to drive around the guy."

Dow said he finds it interesting that DPS conducted surveillance on
VonTesmar.

"They're out staking out a guy with a monkey mask?" he said. "They
watched him break the law and didn't do anything about it? If they had
pulled him over, they could have pulled the mask off. It just proves
photo radar is not about safety, it's about money."

DPS officials say the photo-enforcement program is designed to slow
drivers down and keep the roads safer.