London road pilots new speed camera
The first UK speed camera to operate without film and without being serviced is due to be installed in east London.
The digital camera is being placed on the route through a road tunnel, and should be operational from next month.
The Limehouse Link tunnel, which is nearly 2km long, is a dual carriageway providing access between the City and Docklands.
And according to road traffic surveys over 90% of drivers who use the tunnel break the 30mph speed limit.
The camera relays pictures of speeding drivers down a phone line to a Metropolitan Police traffic centre, allowing fines to be issued within 24 hours.
The director of the RAC Foundation, Edmund King, welcomed the new technology, but suggested the need ensure that the cameras were targeted at accident blackspots.
And he claimed that measures to prevent speeding should be accompanied by changes to current limits.
“Perhaps we should look at 80mph on motorways, perhaps we should look at 20mph outside schools, and be a little more flexible,” he said.
But Roger Vincent from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents was more positive about the digicam.
“They do reduce the number of people that are killed and injured on our roads, and they’ve been shown to do that over a number of years.”
Government figures released this month showed that last year deaths and serious injuries on our roads are down by 3%, and for children they were down by 10%.
Mr. Vincent also noted that people needed to realise that “at many times they should be driving well below the speed limit at speeds appropriate to the conditions”.
However, road safety campaigners, including the RAC Foundation, have raised concerns that more speed cameras on the roads is leading to fewer traffic police being on patrol. That means that other major causes such as drink-driving may go unnoticed.
Official estimates suggest that as many as three million speeding tickets could be sent out this year.
