American influencer shocked to discover speed cameras are real
An American influencer currently living in Sydney has learned an expensive lesson in obeying the rules of the road, particularly while in full view of speed cameras.
TikToker Sophia Kim was caught racing through Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel at 21 km/h over the speed limit - 101 km/h in an 80 km/h zone - and took to social media to share her surprise at receiving a ticket for her actions.
In a video posted to her TikTok account, Sophia broke the news to her followers, running through what had transpired - her ‘reasons’ for speeding, and sharing images of her car between lanes in the tunnel, along with the caption “this is BS and I was only going 60 mph”.
“I got a speeding fine because I was going 100km in the Cross City Tunnel when it was 80km,” she explained in the now-viral post, “and apparently there are cameras in the tunnel.
“As an American, I got a licence here without taking any test, without learning about the Australian [driving] laws here, and I didn’t realise that you guys have cameras for speeding in the tunnels.
“And apparently there are signs everywhere.”
Sophia went on to describe how she’d been “so focussed on driving” and “stressed out” trying to navigate while “driving for the first time in a different country on the other side of the road”.
According to the TikToker, at home in America there might be cameras involved when it came to running red lights, but that speeding offences fell to police officers and their scanners. At this stage, Sophia was talking over an image of her car with an 80 km/h sign clear on the ceiling of the tunnel.
“The fine is $295,” she announced, before revealing that she’d been having a great day, on her way to Fashion Week events, and “was rushing to get there.
“I thought I was saving money by driving and not Ubering but no, it’s actually more when you get a fine.”
It turns out that Sophia had borrowed the car from a friend, who informed her that he couldn’t afford “to lose 3 points over this”, and had to transfer the fine into her name.
And despite claiming that she would pay the fine and have the points deducted from her licence, she then asked her followers if she “should fight this”.
Her post attracted more than 9,000 comments, and while some took Sophia’s side, most were of the opinion that fighting the fine would be a waste of time, and had many thoughts to share about the whole situation.
“There’s no fighting this one,” one told her, “if there’s a speed sign that says 80 right in front of you they’re not gonna be forgivable”.
“That's a fair bit over the limit. Maybe just don't speed hey!” one suggested.
“If only there were large LED displays hung above the road every 1 km to tell you the maximum speed you can do,” another mused.
And as a like-minded soul put it, “[it’s] almost like speed signs exist for a reason and not decoration”.
“Because the signs with the speed limit and the fact they tell you every 100m there’s a speed camera don’t help,” someone else added.
Meanwhile, one was of the opinion that it could have been worse, sharing that “in QLD that would be a $646 fine for 21km over the limit. NSW is cheap”.
“Lesson learned I guess,” one more supposed, before noting that at least “now you know."
Images: TikTok