Speed Cameras No Longer Need To Be Hidden.....

[Tim-Mk2]

This is taken from timesonline.co.uk

Go slow: police win the right to camouflage speed cameras
By Ben Webster

The prominent yellow boxes may be harder to identify from next year


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 history of crashes.

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.

Many partnerships believe that the rules are too restrictive. Last autumn, Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales Police, said that many more lives would be saved if there were more flexibility in camera location.

He said: “Parents often write to us and ask us to put a camera outside a school because the traffic is so dangerous. It’s very difficult to write back and say, ‘Please let us know when your son is killed and then we can consider putting a camera there.’ ”

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.”

Kevin Delaney, the head of road safety at the RAC Foundation, 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.”

Brake, a road safety charity, welcomed the new flexibility for partnerships. Mary Williams, its chief executive, said: “Requiring casualties before action is abhorrent and results in needless deaths. We welcome the opportunity for covert enforcement because too many motorists simply slow down briefly for a yellow camera.”

[HayleyS]

I can see the pro's and the cons of this. But at the end of the day its just going to hit drivers in the pocket even more than it does now! 

Great that they can put them in areas where people like children are at risk. I agree with that!
But as for them being able to hide the cameras, I think that it wrong. They are always banging on about how the cameras are there as preventative to slow people down, not to catch people and make money. How can they be a preventative measure and not a piggy bank if you dont know they are there and cant see them? I think thats terrible! 

[Agreeable Slick]

there is a topic in general - not so good news or something like that.

[Judderi]

I can see the pro's and the cons of this. But at the end of the day its just going to hit drivers in the pocket even more than it does now! 

Great that they can put them in areas where people like children are at risk. I agree with that!
But as for them being able to hide the cameras, I think that it wrong. They are always banging on about how the cameras are there as preventative to slow people down, not to catch people and make money. How can they be a preventative measure and not a piggy bank if you dont know they are there and cant see them? I think thats terrible! 

I agree. 

[Ricky_M]

Cameras should  be a detterent, not Police funding. That just proves they want to catch people commiting an offence rather than preventing it in the first place!

[weedwhacker]

why dont the speed cameras just total up points rather than spot fines, i mean if you know your totting up a load of points it kinda makes you slow down a bit anyway. the fine is just a pi@@ take after.
i mean if you get nabbed in a 40 zone for doing 44 that will realy put a damperner on your day.

at least they dont hide em in wheelie bins like they do in other countrys.

im sorry but if your driving like an idiot you deserve to get nabbed... but realy its not the speed that causes the accidents its bad drivers that do that.

sunday drivers making other road users take risks by trying to overtake. now they are the people that need to be taken off the road.