Samuel's Blog

Here’s an idiot who needs to be caught

December 30th, 2008 at 11:07am

A mere click away from the WIN News videos that I posted earlier today, in the “related videos” section of YouTube, I came across these videos of an idiot hooning around Canberra’s streets on a motorbike, in one case reaching 212km/h on ANZAC Parade which is a 60km/h zone, and reaching plenty of other ridiculous speeds on other Canberra roads, in traffic.

Edit: It looks like The RiotACT stumbled on this a few days ago, and the Canberra Times have a story this morning about Police trying to find this menace.

For the record, this article on this blog was written at about 7pm yesterday. End Edit.

It looks like they may have run a red light towards the end of the second video as well…almost a certainty considering that they were slowing down but still travelling in excess of 100km/h when the video faded to a different clip just as they were reaching the stop line.

The sooner this idiot is caught and stopped, the better. It’s just a pity that the numberplate which appears briefly is unreadable.

Update 3:42pm: Thanks to Kenneth for a link to an ABC News article which notes that a man is being questioned by police over the videos.

I congratulate the police on their swift work, however I am taken aback by a section of the article:

Superintendent [Matthew] Varley has also criticised internet users who viewed the video.

He says viewing the video might encourage others to drive unsafely.

“We want Canberrans to recognise themselves that simply promoting this sort of behaviour, viewing this sort of behaviour and commenting on it online encourages this sort of thing and it’s quite simply a stupid irresponsible act that puts other people at risk,” he said.

“If you see people driving around at excessive speeds, report it to us at the time so we can take some action at the time as well.”

I must say that I find the comments of Superintendent Varley somewhat perplexing considering that the online community did a lot of the legwork on this case (see the work done by The RiotACT in unearthing various online profiles which apparently belong to the creator of the videos) and have been highly critical of the rider in the videos. It would also be fair to say that a number of people have reported these videos to Police after watching them.

In my view, Superintendent Varley needs to remember that watching the videos is not illegal, and in a democratic society the public is entitled to discuss such things. Whilst it is possible that Superintendent Varley is venting at the few people on YouTube who seem to be encouraging the creator of the videos, his comments are too broad, and are enough to prompt me to write a letter to him expressing both my concerns about his comments, and my thanks for his, and his team’s, prompt action. End Update

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Lunacy/Idiots

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