More Speed Cameras for the UK as New Digital Cameras Make It Easier & Cheaper To Operate Them
As if we don’t have enough already, a new range of smarter digital speed cameras has been unveiled which are likely to be popping up where you live in the coming months.
Presently, “cash machines” sorry, I meant speed cameras use film to record Mr. Naughty as he drives by and that means that to function, they obviously need to have film in them and the film has to be changed by someone who opens up the camera. The new digital cameras are just like most of us use for our holiday snaps as they don’t need film and all the pictures can be instantly loaded onto a computer, requiring no processing work at all.
What this means is that councils will no longer have to send somebody out to swap the film, but instead, simply have the camera transmit the images it takes to a central control room, so it makes it easier and cheaper to operate the cameras and you know what that means? Well chances are, if they are easier and cheaper to run, well there is going to me more of them.
The government as you might expect has tried to distance itself from this, insisting that the numbers of cameras a council decides to operate is a decision for that council alone and not something the government will influence. In fact Transport Minister Stephen Hammond has said “It is for local authorities and police to decide whether or not to use speed cameras and how they wish to operate them,”, so that’s clear then.
Fact is though that already research from the Institute of Advanced Motorists reveals that 45 per cent of respondents believe the main reason for the introduction of more cameras is not to increase road safety, but to raise funds for councils. That’s almost a half of all drivers and that’s appalling and shows the level of distaste for these devices by motorists.
Whilst for sure, speed cameras slow drivers down, or if they don’t, they certainly make them pay for the privilege of going fast, its important that drivers can see some reason for them being there and if almost half already believe they mainly exist to raise money, any proliferation of them is just going to make that belief stronger and drivers will go from tolerating them to despising them, very quickly.
