A campaign group has claimed a speed camera on a Dorset road nets about £1.3m a year in fines despite one serious injury on the road since 1999. Dorset Speed said an average 1,843 motorists a month get a £60 ticket after being caught over the 30mph limit on the A350 Holes Bay Road in Poole. But Dorset Safety Camera Partnership (DSCP) said about 600,000 vehicles pass through the junction every month. It added that “only 0.26% of these drivers were prosecuted for speeding”. Ian Belchamber, who founded Dorset Speed, said the DSCP refused his Freedom of Information request claiming the data would encourage attacks on speed cameras. Mr Belchamber took the case to the Information Commissioner who released the figures. He added that the fines totalled around £108,000 a month, equating to the £1.3m figure. Mr Belchamber said: “Quite obviously, speed cameras are being deliberately used where they are going to get the maximum amount of funds and not where there’s a safety problem. More
(AD Remarks ~ In what seems to be a road with high volumes of traffic and not having a bad record, the camera appears to be a `cash cow` for the authoritites rather than a device to enhance road safey.)
Ministers have promised to put the brake on any new fixed speed cameras and warned they will no longer be used as a ‘cash cow’ to milk motorists. Transport minister Mike Penning told MPs yesterday that the Government will scrap millions of pounds a year in grants handed to local authorities to fund new speed traps. Mr Penning warned town halls to use other effective road safety measures – such as speed warning signs – to cut deaths and injuries on Britain’s roads. Local authorities will still be able to install new speed cameras, but they will have to fund them from council tax and are likely to have to justify their introduction to residents. Over the past decade, the number of speed cameras has trebled, making Britain the speed camera capital of Europe. They raise about £110million a year for the Treasury. More
(AD Comments ~ Perhaps the money saved, might better be used to put more traffic police on the roads. A much more visible police pressence on the roads will discourage not justs peeders, but dangerous driving as well!)
Two fixed cameras installed to slow cars to 40mph approaching roadworks are thought to be the biggest moneyspinners in Britain. Activated just 10 days ago, officials estimate 1,000 drivers a day speed past the cameras at over 40mph. But only those exceeding 46mph are issued with tickets. Despite the higher threshold, at least 900 tickets potentially netting £54,000 in £60 fixed penalty notices have already been issued. The cameras were installed last Monday to slow drivers on the A1139 Frank Perkins Parkway in Peterborough. Previously, the most prolific camera was a Gatso on the M11 in Essex, which issues around tickets 9,000 a year, costing speeding motorists £500,000 annually. More
(AD Suggests ~ A good little earner for the new government. Will road users in this particular area, see more gatso`s pop up soon?)
An estate agent who prides herself on ‘having a wealth of experience and knowledge in marketing’ has been getting her business noticed for all the wrong reasons. Jennie Jones’s distinctive black and yellow ‘For Sale’ signs have been fooling motorists into thinking they are speed cameras. The signs, which have been erected outside properties in Suffolk by the local agent, have been prompting drivers to brake as they pass by. From a distance, the signs bear a remarkable resemblance to the yellow boxes that contain speed cameras, and it seems their presence is having a dramatic effect on speeding. As cars near the signs, drivers are applying their brakes in response to the unmissable canary yellow square. More
(AD Suggests ~ Good advertising for this company, and helping to keep the roads in this area slower and safer!)
Meet the latest weapon in the war on motorists – this police speed camera van equipped with FOUR cameras which catches drivers on film in every direction simultaneously. Bedfordshire Police are now operating the new ‘Command Vans’ with cameras at the front, both sides and back rather than just the rear as with traditional speed vans. The four vans, which were converted from traditonal rear camera only vans at a cost of £28,000 each, allow a single operator to monitor traffic from all angles at once. Tradtional vans could capture speeding cars but struggle to identify drivers who contested tickets and motorbikes which do not have front number plates. But the new vehicles will can register a speeding vehicle as it approaches up to a kilometre away and then record front, rear and side images as it passes to ensure identification. An officer sits in the back mannning a laser gun and monitors feeds from the three extra cameras high on each side panel and on the dashboard. Bedfordshire Police are believed to be the first force in the UK to use the new Commander Vans. More
(AD Suggests ~ Story in our local area, and has already been spotted during driving lessons! Interesting that the technology allows motorists speeds to be tracked from the large distance of a kilometre away.)
Speed cameras which communicate with each other by satellite are being secretly tested on British roads. The hi-tech devices can follow drivers’ progress for miles to calculate whether they have broken speed limits. Combining number plate recognition technology with global positioning satellites, they can be set up in a network to monitor tens of thousands of cars over huge areas for the smallest breach. Known as SpeedSpike, the system uses similar methods of recognition as the cameras which enforce the congestion charge in London, and allow two cameras to ‘talk’ to each other if a vehicle appears to have travelled too far in too short a space of time. After a covert national trial which has not been publicised until now, just days after a report showed motorists have been fined almost £1billion in speeding tickets under Labour, authorities hope the new cameras will enable them to re-create the system used on motorway contraflows. The Home Office is currently testing them at two sites – one in Southwark in London and another on the A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall. Details of the secret trials emerged in a House of Commons report and immediately attracted criticism. More
(AD Thoughts ~ If this works it will either make a massive contribution to road safety slowing traffic down, or provide even more revenue in fines for the government.)
POLICE are to give more speed offenders the opportunity to attend an educational course instead of driving license endorsements. Speed seminars were introduced in 2001 for those caught committing low level speed offences – now rules over which drivers qualify have been relaxed, meaning more motorists than ever will qualify. The day long workshops are designed to educate offenders on the dangers of breaking speed limits and police say they are better at curbing re-offending rates than license points. Casualty reduction officer, Pc Barry Gardner, said: “The changes concerning which drivers qualify to be offered a place on the seminar will change this summer and we’re obviously expecting an increase in the number of people attending. “The biggest being that it’s thought people are less likely to commit a speeding offence again – everybody benefits from that.” The equation currently used to decide if a course can be offered is to calculate ten per cent of the speed limit, plus an extra 4mph – so someone doing up to 37mph in a 30mph could qualify as may someone doing up to 59mph in a 50mph limit. Under the new rules the additional speed on top of the ten per cent of the speed limit will be boosted to 6pmh, meaning a driver caught at 39pmh in a 30mph or 61mph limit in a 50mph limit could escape points. More
(AD Thoughts ~ Good to have more education for drivers on the road. But we could do with much tougher clampdowns of dangerous speeders and repeat offenders.)
Average speed cameras similar to those used to police motorways are to be deployed on a stretch of the A13 in London, Transport for London (TfL) has announced. The cameras – which record the time each passing vehicle takes to cover a fixed distance – are currently being fitted along a “notorious” stretch of the road between Canning Town and the Goresbrook interchange, in a bid to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured. TfL said that the route’s accident rate is almost one-fifth higher than is typical of the capital’s major roads, with speeding causing one half of all crashes. Between 2006 and 2008 there were nearly 500 collisions on the 7.5-mile section of road, with three fatal and 34 serious accidents. The scheme, which will see 84 cameras installed at 37 locations, will be the first time in the UK that such cameras have been deployed to police speed on an urban road with multiple entries and exits. As part of the project, which is due to be completed by the summer, the speed limit on a section of the route will be raised from 40mph to 50mph. More
(AD Comments ~ These cameras will certainly lower speeds and improve road safety, be interesting to see how much lower revenue they will bring in)
Average speed cameras are set to be introduced into residential areas from next year. The government has approved the Spec3 cameras and plans to roll them out in 2010 with the aim of enforcing a 20mph speed limit in urban areas. Camden, Southwark and Waltham Forrest will be among eight London boroughs to pioneer the cameras. Along with Norwich and York, they will also follow Portsmouth and introduce a blanket 20mph limit on all residential roads. Research carried out by the Department for Transport in London claims that cutting the speed limit to 20mph makes these areas much safer for road users. According to the research, only one in forty pedestrians dies when hit at 20mph compared with one in five hit at 30mph. The cameras will be connected to each other wirelessly – allowing them to track cars for up to 15 miles, monitoring their average speed. More
(AD Remarks ~ Sounds a good idea for some areas, but hope that every road in the country will not be `camered up` in the future. I wonder what the mark of success for the scheme will be, road safety or revenue!)
A motorway speed camera responsible for earning the Government £500,000-a-year in fines has been blamed for increasing accidents since it was installed. The camera, which monitors a busy stretch of the M11 in Essex, results in 9,000 tickets a year, but figures released by police show crashes have risen by a quarter at the site. A Freedom of Information request made by campaigners who oppose what they see as revenue-based penalty tickets also showed casualties have almost doubled since 2001 when the camera was set up. Paul Pearson, who runs motoring website penaltychargenotice.co.uk, said: ‘No wonder they haven’t removed the camera that is causing these accidents. ‘It is just raising too much money and they clearly want to keep it there.’ More
(AD Suggests ~ With average speed cameras set up along this stretch, the road will be much safer and flow better, but perhaps the income from this camera would mean it remains in place!)
Britain’s motorists are about to be hit with a new breed of hi-tech sneaky speed cameras. Nicknamed the ‘supertraps’, the latest generation of speed cameras do not flash, can cover multiple lanes at once and tell the difference between speeding lorries and over-the-limit cars. The new devices won’t be easy to spot, either. They look like nothing more than steel posts by the roadside, which means many drivers may not even realise they’ve been caught until they get their fines through the post. The new cameras were invented in France and are set to be tried out on French roads before making their way across the Channel. According to French motor magazine Auto Plus, the French government intends to introduce them within a year and the UK is likely to follow within months. More
(AD Notes ~ Should be more of a deterent than current camera`s, and hopefully will make the roads safer.)
A massive flaw in a new generation of speed cameras means motorists can avoid fines and points on their licence simply by changing lanes. The Home Office admitted last night that drivers can avoid being caught the by hi-tech ‘SPECS’ cameras which calculate a car’s average speed over a long distance. The astonishing loophole means that millions of speeding drivers around Britain could escape a £60 fine and three points on their licence. The hidden blind-spot – revealed today by the Daily Mail – raises questions about the supposedly foolproof hi-tech camera system which is increasingly used on Britain’s roads. Although designed to improve road safety, the loophole means that drivers may actually increase the risk of accidents by continually switching lanes. More
(AD Notes ~ Repeated switching lanes to avoid cameras can make the roads more dangerous, while not shortening the journey time to any large ammount anyway.)
Thousands of middle-class motorists who challenge speeding fines face having to pay most of their legal costs even if they win their cases. Reforms, which have been described as a ‘ stitch-up ‘ aimed at excluding the middle classes, will limit the costs that can be claimed back by the drivers. From October, the Ministry of Justice is cutting the current generous level of costs awarded to successful defendants to the lower rates used in legal aid cases. Legal experts say that as a result, some court victors, who currently have between 80 per cent and 100 per cent of their costs reimbursed by the legal system, can expect to have only between a fifth and a third paid back. The new rules will also affect drivers who successfully challenge drink- drive and other motoring prosecutions. Currently, nearly 400,000 drivers a year – about one in four of those who go to court – win their cases. More
(AD Comment ~ The motorists are just another cash cow for the government of the day)
The average motorist has their car journeys recorded and stored by police almost 100 times a year, new figures show, furthering concerns over the growing surveillance state. Forces across the country have expanded a car surveillance operation that will soon record up to 50 million licence plates each day. The images captured on CCTV cameras – many of innocent motorists – are stored on a police database for up to two years, enabling officers to reconstruct journeys. Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that more than three billion licence plates may have been recorded nationwide in the past year. It means that the 34 million vehicles registered in Britain were captured and stored on average up to 100 times in 2008. Thousands of CCTV cameras across the country have been converted to read number plates, taking pictures of people’s movements in cars on motorways, main roads, airports and town centres even if they are not suspected of a crime. Police say the system, called Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR), has proved an essential tool in fighting crime. More
(AD comment ~ Perhaps one day a network of cameras will cover every stretch of road in the country. Scary thought!)
Bloggers Comments