Camera Partnerships win the right to camouflage speed cameras

[Satch]

MOTORISTS face the return of hidden speed cameras after rules governing their siting and visibility cease to be enforced from April 2007. Camera partnerships, which include police and local authorities, will be able to repaint yellow cameras to make them blend into the background

They will also be able to install cameras where there is a speeding problem but little or no history of crashes and injury.

At present the partnerships are bound by strict rules issued by the Department for Transport. The cameras must be painted bright yellow and be visible from at least 60m (200ft) away. They can be installed only at sites where there have been at least three collisions causing death or serious injury and three causing slight injury within a kilometre in the previous three years.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, said in December that partnerships would no longer be able to keep the cash from camera fines to pay for more cameras. They will get grants from a central road safety fund to pay for cameras or alternative measures such as new markings or humps.

Ian Bell, the camera liaison officer for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that regional differences were likely. “If a highway authority wants to install more cameras and they have the money there will be nothing to stop them. They may decide to put cameras in places the criteria do not currently allow, such as in villages and around schools.”

Lee Murphy, speed camera manager for Cheshire, said: “If the rules weren’t compulsory we could use cameras to tackle emerging trends rather than waiting for the minimum number of collisions.”

A Department of Transport spokesman said: “Local authorities will have freedom to use cameras where appropriate and where they see fit. But we do not want to see a return to the bad old days of cameras being hidden behind trees. We are minded to use guidance to achieve this, but if authorities flout it we will consider regulation. If they want to paint cameras grey we will want to know why.”

The RAC Foundation spokesman said: “We are concerned that some partnerships will conceal cameras and risk losing the trust of motorists. It makes sense for cameras to be yellow because it slows people down at accident blackspots.”

 

[C43AMG]

Get yourself Origin b2.

 

[Rose Chap]

I've got all manner of issues with this.

They will also be able to install cameras where there is a speeding problem but little or no history of crashes and injury.

So where's the problem?

They may decide to put cameras in places the criteria do not currently allow, such as in villages and around schools.

So currently cameras aren't ALLOWED outside schools?!?! Who made that decision? That's probably one of the few places when a rigorously enforced speed limit (at the correct times) would be useful!

If the rules weren’t compulsory we could use cameras to tackle emerging trends rather than waiting for the minimum number of collisions.

What emerging trends are these then? The emerging trend of the bottom line of your balance sheet more like.

This is essentially a blatant indication that cameras are there to raise revenue rather than for (questionable) reasons of safety. I sincerely hope this initiative gets the roasting it deserves.

 

[Spinal]

Slightly OT.. but is there something like the origin or the angel for bikers? Maybe something that ties in with a earphone or a flashing red light and is waterproof?
Michele

 

[Rumble]

Slightly OT.. but is there something like the origin or the angel for bikers? Maybe something that ties in with a earphone or a flashing red light and is waterproof?
Michele

How about a pda with tom tom, you just hook up earphones to it?

 

[fuzzer]

Slightly OT.. but is there something like the origin or the angel for bikers? Maybe something that ties in with a earphone or a flashing red light and is waterproof?
Michele

the morpheous geooddisy or smiliar was designed for bikes.

 

[Swiss Toni]

So currently cameras aren't ALLOWED outside schools?!?! Who made that decision? That's probably one of the few places when a rigorously enforced speed limit (at the correct times) would be useful!

It is not so much that they aren't allowed, just that the current rules require a given number of serious injury or fatal collisions with speed as a causal factor - the change will mean that where the parish council shout loud enough, the cameras might get put there instead of where there is an evidenced link (which is the current situation...).

Seems like a backward step?

 

[BTB 500]

Slightly OT.. but is there something like the origin or the angel for bikers? Maybe something that ties in with a earphone or a flashing red light and is waterproof?
Michele

Morpheus Geodesy for one:

http://www.radardetectors.co.uk/morpheous_geodesy.htm

 

[Satch]

- the change will mean that where the parish council shout loud enough, the cameras might get put there instead of where there is an evidenced link (which is the current situation...).

Seems like a backward step?

I had a look at the DFT website and here is the offending policy

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_rdsafety/documents/page/dft_rdsafety_611087.pdf

Report was a bit wrong, only the Police have the authority to mount covert speed cameras and so can go it alone. Camera Partnerships are still supposed to install Hi Vis cameras. However we find this:

"Compliance with these rules has no bearing on the enforcement of offences detected by the use of safety cameras. Non-compliance with these rules and guidelines by a partnership, or representative of a partnership, does not provide any mitigation of, or defence for, an alleged offence committed under current UK law."

So they can do pretty much what they want and might, just, get a stiff letter about it.

If those concerned could be trusted to site cameras where there was only a genuine safety case then I do not think many people could or would object. but this is they key bit:

"Rule 17: Financial performance
It is a key requirement of the programme that partnerships break-even for every year in which they operate."

But the Partnerships will in future have costs reimbursed by the DFT. So there is an entire industry plus armies of central and local jobsworths that rely of continuing flows of revenues from NIP's to fund themselves and that must always tend to drive the siting of cameras.

The stuff about "promoting alternative means of speed control" is claptrap. Partnerships will not be reimbursed for this as it is already part of local authority funding. There absolutely no incentive for anyone involved in a Camera Partnership to do anything other than to site cameras units in revenue earning spots.

 

[perdikoula888]

The above article does not give any camouflage cameras future enforcement evidence....