100 more speed cameras to monitor London roads

100 more speed cameras to monitor London roads

By David Williams, Evening Standard


London: One hundred more speed cameras will monitor London's roads over the next year.

The powerful new digital devices are much more sophisticated than the old ones and will lead to more motorists being fined £60 (Dh399) for breaking the limit.

They will be rolled out at accident blackspots across the capital, increasing the number of speed cameras in London to 600.

The cameras will also spearhead a fresh crackdown on drivers who break urban speed limits by just a few miles per hour.

Way above

Until recently London cameras flashed motorists way above the 30mph (48kmph) limit. Some only flashed drivers exceeding 45mph (72kmph), leading to criticism that the London Safety Camera Partnership was "too soft".

Now officials will move the trigger "threshold" closer to guidelines set by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The ACPO says cameras should flash motorists at 35mph in a 30mph limit and at 46mph in a 40mph limit.

The RAC Foundation said the move would help reduce the severity of crashes. "If motorists go slower and have accidents at lower speeds, more people will walk away from crashes instead of on stretchers," said the foundation's road safety spokesman Kevin Delaney.

The Mayor's road safety adviser Jenny Jones confirmed the crackdown would lead to a rise in fines.

Obeying law

"More drivers are going to get caught while everyone gets used to obeying the law," she told the Standard. Jones, who is a London Assembly Green Party member, added: "These new cameras will save lives and prevent Cameras injuries." The digital cameras are far more efficient than older cameras which only catch a limited number of speeders because they run out of film, which must be manually reloaded.

This forced police to set the older cameras at high trigger speeds so that the film did not run out too quickly.