Speed Camera Jammer Gets Banned

Jamie Shreeve, a 21 year old British Vauxhall Astra driver, is the newest victim of the global crackdown on speeding. The driver was handed a thirty day driving ban for using sophisticated electronic devices to jam Police scanners. Shreeve’s ban, the first of it’s kind in the country, comes as a result of a British Court's decision that found him guilty of willfully obstructing police activities. He was also fined £100 (US$157) and had the offending equipment confiscated by the Norfolk Police.

Laser jammers are not new, with the department of transport estimating there are over 1 million in use in Great Britain. It seems the police are recording multiple instances where the speed of vehicles cannot be read.

What is strange is that the sentence was given as a result of the culprit’s confession. Usually drivers go around the ban by telling the questioning officer that they believe the device is created for operating a garage door remotely. This would get around the issue of obstruction since the device itself is not illegal.

Sgt. Geoff Bowers and Pc. Christ Harris were the first to come across the new devices, when they stopped a Porsche 911 Turbo that they could not get a speed reading from on the A47 in Norfolk. The two officers have seen a lot of these devices mounted to the exterior of sports cars.

Sgt. Bowers was quoted as saying "I'm extremely pleased with this result, which shows that the courts are taking these offences seriously," after the Court announced their decision.
Thanks to the driver’s plead, a second charge of exceeding 70 mph was dropped.