Digital camera that catches every speeder

Daily Mail, Saturday April 8 th 2006
By Ray Massey, Transport Editor

Motorists face an onslaught from a new generation of high-rise, vandal-proof digital speed cameras that work around the clock and do not need film. The super-cameras mean penalty notices can be printed and sent out within half an hour of the offence. Drivers could be snapped on their way to work, and find a speeding ticket on their doormat the next morning.

The £50,000 devices are set on top of 16ft-high poles to protect them from vandals or protesters. They will run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And because the 'fit and forget' system uses digital technology - the same as in most modern consumer cameras - teams of technicians to replace and develop film are not needed. The camera sends electronic images via high-speed broadband phone link to authorities, allowing for the fast turn-around on notices.

Manufacturer RedSpeed, based in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, is talking with speed camera groups nationwide who want to use them.

But critics accuse the camera operators of erecting the devices in haste to use excess 'end of financial year' cash before it reverts to the Treasury - and ahead of new rules which will restrict how they can spend the money from fines.

Transport for London is installing 66 of the cameras and says it will order scores more. At least 25 are already set up, and some are believed to be operating already.

Avon and Somerset has about 30 of the new devices and there are up to 70 more in locations including Manchester, Nottingham, Leicester, Cumbria and the Isle Of Man

The Highways Agency wants to use the cameras on motorway roadworks, including the M5 contraflow near Bristol and the M6 Grayrigg works south of Penrith, Cumbria.

Unlike traditional Gatso cameras, which send out a radar beam to measure a car's speed over a set distance, the RedSpeed cameras measure speed from sensors under the road which, they claim, gives a far more accurate reading.

RedSpeed's Mark Haylock said they are calibrated to catch drivers at or above police guidelines - roughly 10 per cent of the speed limit plus 2mph - but they could operate virtually at the speed limit.

Transport for London said motorists caught a few miles over the limit could be offered a driver awareness course in lieu of losing points off their licence.

'Captain Gatso,' the campaign director of protest group Motorists Against Detection, said speed camera operators are "clearly trying to burn money before the end of the financial year." He added: "If you are caught by one of these cameras, it's a dead cert you'll be prosecuted." Paul Smith, of campaigners SafeSpeed, said: "There's a dash to spend the cash so the don't have to send it back to Gordon Brown." He said cameras will have generated more than £1billion in fines to 15million motorists before the change to the 'netting-off' scheme in April 2007.

Under the scheme, introduced in 2001, most of the money from speeding fines is used to pay for cameras and film. But this spending will be restricted next year.