Speed Trap

Claim:   Police speed camera photograph shows car blown at 133 MPH by Hurricane Katrina.

Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2005]

You know those speed trap cameras police often use to catch speeders? Well, apparently one of them in New Orleans was still functioning during Hurricane Katrina and caught this infraction . . . Notice the speed caught in the black square!

Origins:   This image, purportedly of an automobile blown airborne at Hurricane Katrina's 130 MPH winds and captured by a New Orleans police radar camera (which subsequently issued it a speeding ticket), is fairly obviously a composite of different images and text overlays. (Presumably the jape originated here.)

The storm image onto which the other components were overlaid is in fact a frame from a video of 2004's Hurricane Charley making landfall in Florida:

Last updated:   19 September 2005