Safe Speed Forums

Cheap camera could multiply road speed traps within months
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 10/10/2006)

A new generation of speed cameras capable of calculating how fast a car has been travelling over any distance could be on the roads within months.

The Spike system differs from both the Gatso cameras which flash cars as they go past and the costly Specs devices which are normally used to judge drivers' speed over a prolonged stretch of road.

Specs (Speed Check Enforcement System) costs several hundred thousand pounds, which has deterred some safety camera partnerships.

The alternative system, which has been submitted to the Home Office for approval, costs around £20,000. It is also portable, which would allow the cameras to be shifted to newly identified accident blackspots or road works. If approved, it could lead to the number of average speed safety camera systems soaring from the 14 in operation at present.

The new camera has been produced by Pips Technology, of Eastleigh, Hants, which already supplies digital number plate recognition cameras to a number of police forces.

Andrew Howard, the head of road safety at the AA Motoring Trust, said: "The great advantage with these cameras is that you can use them for long, nasty, curly stretches of road, rather than picking up motorists at odd points.

"They are particularly good on single carriageway roads, where people tend to go too fast and drive into trees or become involved in overtaking accidents. So these cameras can cut down on a lot of this behaviour."

The weakness of the average speed cameras was when a stretch of road was long enough for people to turn off, or join, at some point between the two cameras.

Paul Smith, a campaigner against speed cameras, said: "Oh dear, at that sort of price, it will lead to a proliferation which will be horrifying.

"This will lead to people looking at their speedometers every couple of seconds, rather than looking at the road.

"It is the massively expensive cost of the Specs system that has stopped it being introduced more widely.

"Speed cameras are greatly destructive and ones which take an average are even more so."

The alternative system, which has been submitted to the Home Office for approval, costs around £20,000. It is also portable, which would allow the cameras to be shifted to newly identified accident blackspots or road works. If approved, it could lead to the number of average speed safety camera systems soaring from the 14 in operation at present.

Andrew Howard, the head of road safety at the AA Motoring Trust, said: "The great advantage with these cameras is that you can use them for long, nasty, curly stretches of road, rather than picking up motorists at odd points.

They are particularly good on single carriageway roads, where people tend to go too fast and drive into trees or become involved in overtaking accidents.

Odd thing to say by the AA.

I think the AA are pro-camera.

I thought they AA were now owned by centrica? I got the feeling they're a company which gets government contracts for all sorts. They own British Gas too. Or am I thinking of the RAC?

I've actually found that it's quite difficult to average over 60mph on the NSL country lanes that the AA man seems to think are risky. So, in order for this to work, the blanket NSL on rural roads would need to be reduced. Where have I heard that before?



And how will they stop overtaking accidents within the limit?

We have a couple of stretches of road which have been reduced - the B5284 through Crook is now 40 with some stretches of 30 - way beyond the villages they pass through. Overall, this is a road leading straight to a busy tourist destination, avoiding Windermere, and was over used for the size and quality of the road, and the limit did deter some motorists - but now they have learned it is not policed, it's not unusual to be caught up by cars doing well in excess of the limit, OR, worse still encountering vehicles well below the limit, driving without due care and generally causing apoplexy in other drivers who have no choice but to use the road!

When did the A5284 change? I've got a customer on that road and I don't remember long stretches of 40 when I was last there (probably 3mths back).

It has had a blanket 40 throughout its entire length for c. 10 years now!

I only use it 3 or 4 times a year and I've driven a lot of miles since then. It was the way Ernest worded it that I thought it had recently changed

The most memorable thing is that it's an A road, yet a number of really narrow lanes join onto it; so the entrance to each of which sports a de-restriction sign.