TENN. MAN GETS HIGH-TECH REVENGE FOR CAMERA CITATION
He saw that his local police department’s website would soon expire, so he bought the domain himself
By Frank Cerabino
The Palm Beach Newspapers
June 17, 2010
BLUFF CITY, Tenn. — If you're one of those people who think traffic surveillance cameras have more to do with municipal fund-raising than traffic safety, here's a story that will warm your heart.
Readers of this column might remember Doreen Poreba, the Stuart public relations company owner who returned from a long car trip to discover a speeding ticket from Tennessee in her mailbox.
Poreba had no idea that weeks earlier a surveillance camera had clocked her car going 56 in a 45 mph zone through a town called Bluff City.
She was just a passenger at the time, she said, but it doesn't even matter with these automatic tickets. She's still liable for the $90 ticket, unless she wants to drive back to Tennessee to dispute it.
"The ticket's due this Friday," Poreba told me Monday. "I'm going to pay it, because I don't want it to ruin my credit. But it bugs me because it says on it that by paying it, I am making an admission of guilt. It's not an admission of anything. It's payment by force."
The Arizona-based company that operates the speed trap in Bluff City is American Traffic Solutions, the same company that runs the red-light surveillance cameras in West Palm Beach. The automated speed trap in that Tennessee town of about 1,500 residents raises between $125,000 and $250,000 a month, the town's police chief said. And it spares the department, which has been downsized to eight officers because of budget cuts, from using an officer along the road with a radar gun.
But it's a nasty way to make money, say scores of people who have been snagged like Poreba.
One of them, though, has done something about it in a big way. His name is Brian McCrary, a 33-year-old telephone company worker from nearby Gray, Tenn.
McCrary received one of those 56 mph speeding tickets in Bluff City.
"I went to the police department's website to get information on how to schedule a hearing," McCrary said. "And I saw that the website was about to expire."
The www.bluffcitypd.com site registration was up for renewal. So McCrary kept checking back as the renewal deadline approached, and discovered, much to his surprise, that the department had neglected to renew its domain name before the expiration date.
So instead of paying his $90 ticket, McCrary paid $80 to GoDaddy.com and bought the police department's Web address, turning it into a virtual bathroom wall to complain about the speed surveillance cameras.
"Just about everybody I know has gotten a ticket from there," he said. "I thought it would make a great sounding board for this speed trap."
The former police site now shows a cartoon character shaped like a police badge holding cash in one hand. And it's devoted to news about the speed surveillance cameras and testimonials from the people who loathe them.
At first, McCrary got messages of support from locals.
"I drive past the camera at least once a day during heavy traffic and it never fails that someone slows down to 35 mph because they are scared of the camera," one person wrote. "In fact, today I was almost rear-ended because someone slowed down too much."
But when news of what McCrary did spread, his site began getting messages of support from around the world and he became heralded as a new age revolutionary.
"Mountain Ranch, CA, salutes you!" one message said. "Dude, you're a hero. You've brought attention to what many of us thankfully aren't burdened with elsewhere."
A man from Austin, Texas, wrote: "Whatever you do, please do not let them bully or intimidate you into giving it up. It is your legal property now, and that's all there is to it. Fight the power."
A minority of messages urge McCrary to pay the fine and give the police department its website back.
McCrary, who still hasn't paid his fine for the February ticket, says he's not sure if he'd give the website back to the police department.
"They haven't asked me yet," he said. "I might consider it, but I don't know."
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