Londoners Vs. ULEZ Cameras

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From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Background: 

Remember that the World Bank recognizes personal mobility as the defining characteristic of the Middle Class.  Also recall that as Aristotle stated, the Middle Class is the social buffer against tryanny by the elite and slavery of the poor.

Finally, be informed that C40 is a global network of mayors of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis. It was founded in 2005 as C20, and has since expanded to its current network of 96 cities, including London.  More at Daily Sceptic The Green Globalists Behind Ulez – and What They Have Planned Next  (Of course our virtue signalling Montreal Mayor Plante is all in on imposing ULEZ here.)

Freedom Fighters Take to the Streets of London

Within this context comes the report that Londoners are conducting an organized attack on the ULEZ cameras placed to enforce fines for people straying from their home neighborhood. The Remix News article is Hundreds of ULEZ cameras destroyed by vigilante group following wider London roll-out.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds. H/T Tyler Durden

The group intent on disrupting London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s green vehicle tax
has received some political support despite its criminal activity.

Hundreds of Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) cameras have been vandalized by a vigilante group that opposes the controversial scheme, which extended across wider London this week and charges road users for traveling in non-compliant vehicles.

The scheme is part of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s green agenda to enhance the air quality across the U.K. capital; however, many critics of its extension into London’s suburbs consider it to be a regressive tax and cash grab that will hit working families the hardest.

vigilante group known as the Blade Runners has been targeting newly installed cameras across the capital in a bid to disrupt the implementation of ULEZ as much as possible, and hundreds of cameras have already been hit.

Prior to the roll-out, which came into force on Tuesday, around 500 cameras had been marked as out of action or damaged, according to a map the vigilante group promoted. Many of the cameras targeted were located in London’s southeast with 156 of the 185 cameras around the districts of Sydenham and Sidcup being hit, as well as 18 of the 22 cameras installed in Bromley.

The camera map, published on a popular anti-ULEZ Facebook page, allows users to update it when a camera has been rendered out of action. The black pins represent cameras that are now missing or damaged.

In the southeast town of Orpington, just two of the new number plate recognition cameras were in working order on the day of the ULEZ expansion after vigilantes smashed, spray-painted, or cut the wires of 14 cameras on a single road.

Video footage and photographs of disruptors vandalizing the cameras have been published on social media, much to the delight of those critical of the scheme.

One camera was even installed just meters from a crematorium in order to
pick up funeral-goers, a camera that was swiftly taken care of by locals.

Despite their criminal activity, the vigilantes have received political support, including from a former Conservative Party leader and cabinet minister, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who insisted he was “happy” for Londoners to fight back because “they are facing an imposition that no one wants and they have been lied to about it.”

“A lot of people in my constituency have been cementing up the cameras or putting plastic bags over them,” he said. “The actions you are seeing show how angry people are at what is being imposed on them. Sadiq Khan has gerrymandered all the information – people have had enough.”

Last November, Khan announced the extension to the scheme, which had previously been reserved for central London, to all London boroughs despite overwhelming opposition to the plan.

It is the latest in a continuous assault by Khan on motorists, following the installation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), extensive road-narrowing, and the excessive expansion of 20-mph zones.

When he was heckled at a public event back in March over the ULEZ roll-out, Khan suggested that those who opposed the plans were “far-right,” a remark that was met by derision and booing from the Question Time audience.