Government warnings over latest speed cameras

16 February 2007

The Government has warned councils against using time-over-distance cameras to enforce 20mph speed limits.
From April, it will be possible to use the new technology – if Home Office-type approval is gained – to effectively police speeds in residential areas under forthcoming, less-prescriptive guidance on camera deployment. However, the Department for Transport believes 20mph zones do not need the new technology.
Residential 20mph zones "are typically self-enforcing, where appropriate through suitable traffic calming measures’, the DfT told backbenchers on the transport select committee. "This should continue to be the case."
However, the department was ‘happy to consider’ a proposal from Transport for London to use the cameras. TfL’s proposal says that time-based cameras are essential if the majority of residential areas are to enjoy the benefits of 20mph zones.
Chris Lines, head of the London road safety unit, said that relying on traffic calming would take 35 years to introduce 20mph on 60% of borough roads.
The promised fresh guidance for the safety camera partnerships on the deployment of speed cameras will be issued ‘shortly’ for 2007/08. While the primary objective ‘will continue to be to reduce deaths and injuries… partnerships will have much greater freedom to develop local deployment criteria and use cameras in response to community concerns about excessive speeding’. On-street trials of the time-distance cameras needed to gain Home Office approval started in the borough of Camden last spring.
The Government denied that this process for clearing new technologies ‘can delay anticipated improvements in roads policing,’ as the transport select committee claimed. It blamed manufacturers of equipment for often not being ‘able and willing to provide full technical documentation’. Some provide ‘nothing’ at the start of the process. If manufacturers come with final equipment, are clear about how it will be used, and are ready to provide technical information, ‘the process is likely to take less than one year’.

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Government warnings over latest speed cameras

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