A Texas man who got a speeding ticket decided to protest in the most unusual way imaginable – by paying the fine in pennies he carried in buckets to the municipal court clerk's office.
According to a report in Washington Post, Brett Sanders from Fresco, Texas, was fined $222.60 for driving at 39 mph in a 30 mph zone. In response, he headed to the municipal court clerk’s office carrying two buckets full of pennies and upturned them at the clerk’s counter. "Ya'll can mail me the receipt too," he told the clerk. Sanders then left the office coolly as if this was normal, and waved to cameras as he got into his vehicle.
In order to pay the fine, Sanders spray painted two spackle buckets and stenciled the words, "Extortion money" on them. He obtained wrapped rolls of pennies, busted them open and filled the buckets. Then he went to the court clerk in a T-shirt saying, "Authority -- you have not." – and ‘deposited’ the money.
Now Sanders has become an Internet celebrity for his stunt. More than 1 million people have viewed his YouTube video.
"I just decided I would comply in the most disrespectful, most flamboyant way I could. It was peaceful resistance and compliance at the same time," Sanders said in a telephone interview to Washington Post.
"This boils down to a morality issue for me," Sanders said in the interview. "We shouldn't just roll over and pay traffic tickets . . . I want to make a bigger point that laws are not always just."
Sanders is a self-described "freedom fighter" and "citizen journalist". He supports the right to open-carry firearms and is in favour of "Copblock," a movement dedicated to monitoring abuses by law enforcement and ensuring that people can legally film police activity in public.
According to Sanders, all interactions in society should be voluntary and therefore mutual for both parties. In such a society, police would be less coercive, and traffic laws would be more like recommendations. Motorists could drive at whatever speed they wanted, as long as they don’t ‘create a victim’. That is to say, unless someone is seriously injured or dies, Sanders does not support any penalty.
But jurors who heard his argument after he was given the speeding ticket did not agree, and fined him the maximum amount. Guess it will take a long while before this self-appointed freedom fighter obtains his freedom.
