Speed camera to target boy races

LEWIS HANNAM
01 April 2006 09:53

A £40,000 speed camera is to be installed in a city centre road to stop boy racers from causing accidents and disturbing homeowners.

Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership has revealed it will put up the camera in Koblenz Avenue, near Riverside, following a high number of accidents.

Bryan Edwards, a spokesman for the partnership, said problems with boy racers had made the camera a necessity.

He said: “There have been a number of complaints from local residents in the area about speeding cars, particularly boy racers.

“Over the past three years there have been 15 injuries as a result of accidents along the road, including two serious ones to pedestrians.

“There are a lot of pedestrians in the area because of the night-time economy and we are trying to improve safety.”

The new camera will be installed this year. However, despite the fact the new addition will take the number of fixed camera sites up to 20, it does not mean they will always be in use.

Mr Edwards added: “We only have six cameras to put within the shells, so they will be rotated according to priority.”

Earlier this year, the partnership came under fire after mobile speed camera vans caught almost 400 drivers in

four hours on the A11 near the Thickthorn roundabout, raking in £22,000 in fines.

Road safety campaigner Safe Speed said the huge haul destroyed respect for the UK's speed limits.

Paul King, 45, an IT worker who lives off Wherry Road, part of the Riverside development, welcomed the new camera at Koblenz Avenue.

He said: “There are lots of people milling about in the road late at night so it should make it safer.

“I think it is a good idea; anything that makes the boy racers slow down.”

The camera is one of two fixed speed camera sites and nine mobile speed camera camera sites Norfolk is to get in 2006/7. The second fixed camera is on the A47 in Narborough.

Mobile cameras in Norwich will be at Aylsham Road, Salhouse Road and Fifers Lane.

Ü What do you think of plans to put up a speed camera in Koblenz Avenue? Is your community plagued by boy racers? Write to: Evening News Letters, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1 1RE, email eveningnewsletters@archant.co.uk or visit www.eveningnews24.co.uk/forums