Nearly 60% of drivers are in favour of police forces using long-range mobile cameras to enforce motoring offences, a new survey suggests.
The cameras, which were trialled by Gloucestershire Police in 2018, can detect offences including speeding, tailgating and mobile phone usage from 1km away.
A survey, published by the RAC today (21 Feb), suggests 59% are supportive of the cameras – compared to 28% who were against the technology being used by police forces.
Of those in favour, 78% of respondents said it would be good to catch people illegally using a handheld phone – while 77% backed it for enforcing offences such as tailgating, middle lane hogging and not wearing seatbelts.
71% of respondents felt a long-range camera would make the country’s roads safer while 50% believed it would lead to more drivers being caught speeding.
However of the 28% against, 44% of respondents felt the camera’s use was ‘unfair’ as drivers would not be able to see it in advance. Just over a third (35%) were concerned about privacy issues and one in 10 (13%) thought they would probably end up getting caught speeding.
On the issue of whether speed cameras should be visible, drivers surveyed by the RAC were split – with 45% saying it is fair to have hidden police speed traps without warnings and 46% saying it is not.
However, respondents gave ‘very clear support’ for mobile speed cameras and police radars with only a quarter (25%) claiming they should be scrapped and 75% saying they should continue to be used.
The research also revealed no appetite for further increasing the penalties for speeding from the current minimum standard fine of £100 and three penalty points, with the majority (69%) believing this should be kept the same.
Pete Williams, RAC road safety spokesperson, said: “While speed enforcement can split driver opinion, the findings of our survey show widespread support for the new long lens of the law.
“This is perhaps because drivers are used to speeding being enforced by a variety of means and are frustrated a similar focus is not employed to catch those they regularly see committing other motoring offences.
“Although this new long-range camera could be used to enforce illegal mobile phone use or tailgating, it’s primary use will no doubt be to catch speeding drivers, if indeed it becomes more widely used by forces.
“Some drivers will inevitably end up being very surprised when a notice of intended prosecution letter arrives on their doormat when they felt they had managed to slow down enough after spotting a police car in the distance.”
Having said that, whilst this is novel at the moment, technology is improving all the time and this will eventually be tried in court, I’m sure, and probably eventually be accepted as the norm. Convincing the Magistrates might be the difficult part.
Tailgating is, as many have pointed out, possibly more of a danger than pure speeding. Evidencing it has always been the problem and whilst video from a police vehicle is probably best, if this can be made to work, so much the better!
R Brunsdon
+1
//Quote// I would like to see just how a camera 1km away from two vehicles, travelling at various speeds, could determine whether the following vehicle was tailgating. It needs to register both vehicle speeds – and also the lack of clear distances between each. I don’t know of a camera that could do that, or is it going to up to the observations and discretion of the user as to whether an offence may have been committed?
You’re right – it’s mostly hype. Tailgating evidence by camera has never really been tested in court and, for the reasons you point out, it will probably only need a moderately smart defence lawyer to bamboozle most magistrates.
R Brunsdon
+3
Have you considered the possibility that the camera van was there when you weren’t, Graham? Or, on the reasonable assumption that it was also windy and raining hard in other parts of your county, that the van and police patrols were operating somewhere else? .. just a thought. It is annoying though, when the authorities don’t take the trouble to find out when and where as individuals we’re all going to be travelling, so that their vehicles can be easily seen by us, to save us putting pen to paper.
Hugh Jones
+2
The use of this type of ‘technology’ is an anachronism surely?
If you want to stop speeding surely the fitting of telemetric equipment to all vehicles is the way forward? You could load software that allows a permutation of settings from speed limits to appropriate safe speeds based on local weather conditions etc.
Not only that when crime is reported or detected rather than a load of plods stopping motorists asking them if they were in the vicinity on that day, you could have a print out of who was around that area in that time frame, and the bronze could pay house calls, instead of clogging up the arterial road system?
I was always thought to think smart, not hard…
Why someday your own car could issue you with an on the spot fine or disqualification!
The use of technology is literally only bound by our own imagination!
Sandy Allan, Aberdeen
--2
The question I have is whether these will be used appropriately, ie for safety, or simply for revenue raising?
For example, I was travelling up the A34 on a Friday, it was clear, dry, traffic was reasonably light and free flowing when I noticed, approaching a downhill section, people suddenly hitting their brakes because there was a mobile camera in a layby waiting to catch people who let their vehicle go over the limit on the downslope.
On the Monday I was coming back, it was windy and raining hard, there was spray and standing water, yet some people were still doing 70mph plus as if it was clear and they could stop on a sixpence.
Naturally in the second case there was no “safety” camera to be seen, nor Police patrols or anything to stop people from using inappropriate speed for the conditions.
This is the sort of thing that brings these cameras into disrepute, because the first one was clearly just there to raise money, rather than for any actual safety purpose.
Graham, Portsmouth
+6
This is hardly ‘breaking news’ as cameras like these have been in use in the UK for the last 15 years and to my knowledge, at least as far back as 10 years, they were recording and acting upon offences detected up to 1km away. I can only assume that the technology is somehow better now warranting this story, perhaps giving better images possibly, however the principle has been with us for a long time.
Hugh Jones
+7
I would like to see just how a camera 1km away from two vehicles, travelling at various speeds, could determine whether the following vehicle was tailgating. It needs to register both vehicle speeds – and also the lack of clear distances between each. I don’t know of a camera that could do that, or is it going to up to the observations and discretion of the user as to whether an offence may have been committed?
If it is the case then I welcome this detection device and hope that it is going to be used frequently for that purpose. It could help reduce the 75% of rear end shunts that occur on Highways England’s main roads and in all some of the 30% plus of tailgating offences that occur throughout our road network.
Many of the rear end shunts that the Highways Officers deal with [75% of all collisions] rarely end up as a prosecution mainly because they are dealt with by none police officers and they cant take up a prosecution in their own right.
R.Craven
+7