RGualtieri Mayor Enzo Bergamini was on his way to buy a newspaper on Tuesday morning when he noticed something unusual about one of the two speed humps on the town’s ring road.
“I could see that the hump was a little off,” he said. “The bolt was loose.”
A town in Emilia-Romagna was attacked overnight by the Dossoman. Dossoman is one of several speed hump disruptors who emerged this week in the wake of the rapidly spreading fleximan phenomenon, involving a mysterious figure who has been destroying speed cameras across the country.
Dosso Fleximan means speed hump in Italian, and Fleximan means angle grinder in Italian. Flexible, It is the perfect weapon for destroying speed cameras, as it can tear apart the metal pole on which the speed camera is installed in seconds.
“I understand why speed cameras would be targeted because they incur a fine, but I didn’t expect that to happen for speeding as well. It’s unfathomable,” said Gualtieri, who wondered if Dossoman was from out of town. said a skeptical Bergamini.
One Dossoman also paid an overnight visit to Calderara di Reno, a town near Bologna, where he left a green spray-painted sign next to a destroyed speed hump. Town Mayor Giampiero Falzone didn’t mince words. “He’s a fool,” he said. “First it was the Fleximan, now the Dossoman. Will the next target be the traffic light? These people are vandals, criminals and must be condemned.”
The Avengers also struck a nerve in a country famous for its fast driving, but with the highest number of speed cameras in Europe.
The original Fleximan launched a campaign last year and within eight months had destroyed at least 15 speed cameras across Veneto. The still-unidentified man has become a hero to some on social media, hailed as a modern-day Robin Hood among motorists who view cameras as money-making tools for local authorities. A street mural in Padua, Veneto region depicts a vigilante carrying a sword in one hand and a speed camera in the other, as the yellow-jersey assassin played by Uma Thurman in the movie Kill Bill. There is.
A copycat criminal named Fleximan in his 50s operating in Piedmont was identified by police last week. Since then, that number has skyrocketed. In one town in Liguria, 11 newly installed cameras were demolished within 24 hours. Cameras in the southern Italian region of Puglia were also targeted.
Police have installed surveillance cameras to catch the culprits, but the phenomenon is rapidly spreading and they are having trouble tracking them down.
Local councils have the power to decide how many cameras to install in their town or city. “Some mayors install them on roads that are considered dangerous, but others install them everywhere to make ends meet,” said Domenico Musico, president of Avisul, a traffic accident victims organization. “Some authorities make a lot of money from fines. Some drivers see this as an indirect tax. They are furious about any fines and want to encourage fleximen to finally eliminate the threat. I see them as heroes.”
Italy’s deputy prime minister and transport minister, Matteo Salvini, said last year that he would introduce national standards for speed cameras as part of a review of highway legislation. “There needs to be more precise control over where they are installed, such as on dangerous roads, and they should not be used solely to generate fines,” Musicko said.
According to Italian consumer group Kodacons, the number of speeding tickets given to motorists is increasing. Florence received the most fines in 2022 with €22m (about £19m), followed by Milan and Genoa.
They may be heroes to some, but critics of the subversives point to Italy’s high number of road fatalities. In 2022, 3,159 people will die from road accidents, almost twice as many as Spain or the UK.
“Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Fleximan is stealing lives,” Corriere della Sera journalist Luca Valdiselli wrote in an editorial. “There is nothing heroic about what these new symbols of selfishness are doing in a society that is gradually losing empathy and respect for the lives of others.”