Police Speed Enforcement Cameras

Whether you love them or hate them, there's no escaping the fact that Speed Cameras are popping up all over the UK. There are an estimated 7,000 cameras on our tiny island, and millions of pounds in revenue is gained each year by fining speeding motorists.

Safety Camera Partnerships

In the UK, Safety Camera Partnerships are local government organisations set up to be part of the National Safety Camera Scheme. They are given the cash raised from speeding fines in their locality to reinvest back into speed enforcement and red light camera enforcement at so called 'hot spots'.

The stated objective is to reduce death and serious injury by reducing the level of speeding and the severity of the offences, as well as to bring down the number of people 'running' red lights. They state that they want to bring these changes about by preventing and detecting offenders, enforcing speed and red light offences by using cameras and driver education schemes.

Gatso

The most commonly spotted speed camera in the UK is the Gatso. Manufactured by a Dutch company named Gatsomeer BV, it was invented by 1950's rally driver Maurice Gatsonides and uses a radar to measure the speed of vehicles passing it. It then photographs the vehicle from behind, after it has gone past the device travelling at a speed above the preset maximum limit.

Gatso installations are identifiable by a series of white lines painted on the road. The camera will usually take two photographs with a time interval (usually somewhere around the 0.5 second mark) and the vehicle's position when compared with the white road markings will be used to work out approximately how fast the car was travelling and verify the reported speed if the driver decides to dispute the offence.

Up until April 2007 all speed cameras in the UK had to have the rear pannel painted yellow to identify the whereabouts of it, however, since the new rules came into play in April 2007, it ceases to be an obligation and it remains to be seen whether the yellow cameras will start to become less visible, in an attempt to catch out more speeding motorists.

Mobile Speed Cameras

A mobile speed camera is a road vehicle fitted with speed camera equipment which can park on bridges or other places that static speed cameras would be unable to access.

They can come in many different guises but generally, you can spot them either as a white van with the equipment poking out of the back or out of a sliding panel along the side. They have to carry a speed camera warning logo, but this as a warning is largely useless because by the time you're close enough to see it, they've already recorded your speed.

There has also been an increase of motorcycle based mobile speed cameras to allow monitoring in places that even the vans cannot get to.

SPECS

SPECS is a speed camera system that is made by Speed Check Services Limited, a company based in the UK.

The cameras operate as one or two sets along any given route and the average speed over the distance travelled between two cameras is worked out using automatic number plate recognition technology (ANPR). This is a variant of camera likely to become more popular in the future, as the use of ANPR becomes more widespread.

Truvelo

Truvelo cameras are made by a South African company named Truvelo Manufacturers Ltd.

The truvelo camera takes pictures from either the front or rear (but more commonly the front) using a flash gun filtered with a magenta filter so that the driver isn't blinded by the sudden flash in their eyes.

The reflected light provides the film with the right exposure and results in a clear photograph of the driver committing the offence.

Piezo-electric road strips are set a measured distance apart into the road in front of the camera and the time between compressions caused by the vehicle is measured and this gives the resulting speed of the car.

So remember, next time you notice your needle going over the speed limit - Big Brother really is watching you, and he might just be waiting to take your photograph too!