The fury of a German driver caught speeding knows no bounds. And the roadside devices used in Germany to catch speeders may just be in for some harsh treatment as a result.

Some speed demons get so angry, they'll do anything to avoid prosecution, as police in the Harz mountains town of Osterode discovered recently.

In order to avoid being charged, one speeding driver stopped his car long enough to rip out all the speed limit signs he could find along a stretch of road and tossed them into a nearby ditch. Officers came across them several days later.

"It was probably someone caught by a camera while speeding on the B 243 highway," a police spokesman said, pointing out that countless other speeding motorists had probably slipped through the net in the days that followed since they could rightly claim that no speed limit signs were visible.

The fury of a speeder scorned

Police have not given up hope of catching the sign-destroyers who will face heavy fines once caught -- just like the one handed down to a 75-year-old pensioner convicted recently by a court in the city of Goslar.

Despite a previous conviction for firing bullets at a radar speed trap in Fulda, the elderly man hurled stones at a pole-mounted camera after it had snapped a picture of him while speeding. Unfortunately for him, the outburst was recorded on film, too.

Meanwhile, an unknown driver destroyed a speed camera in the Harz region by dousing it with petrol and setting it alight.

The culprits behind these acts of highway vandalism are still at large, such as is the man in Göttingen whose method of avoiding a speeding prosecution was exceptionally thorough. He dismantled an entire surveillance camera system installed at a traffic light and took the device worth 20,000 euros ($27,000) away with him.

A 22-year-old man from the Peine area had to wave goodbye to his driving license and was fined heavily after repeatedly hurtling past a speed camera while making an obscene gesture with his middle finger. The motorist had taped over the car's registration plate in a bid to escape identification and it was only after he was involved in an accident that police managed to track him down.

Following the DNA trail

A speed trap installation on the A 44 highway near Kassel also became a hate object for a number of motorists. The first device was stolen by traffic rowdies, while a 19-year-old took an axe to its replacement. Police found the perpetrator by matching the DNA of blood traces left at the scene of the crime.

Many drivers do not actually view the cameras as a deterrent to speeding but as a way for local authorities to stuff their pockets.

Indeed, fining motorists for driving too fast is a lucrative source of income. In the German state of Hesse, for example it brings in more than a million euros ($1.3 million) a year.

The speed traps also pay for themselves quickly. One camera near the small town of Hildesheim registered more than 5,000 speeding motorists during its first two months on the job -- triggering an income of 45,000 euros in fines.