The New Gatso MCS

Drivers to face 'mother-of-all' Speed Cameras The "mother of all' speed cameras could soon be on its way to the UK, provided it can get approval from the Home Office. The "see all" camera is fitted with three digital stills cameras plus a video capture system, enabling the camera to patrol up to four separate lanes of traffic at a time and have moving film as back-up evidence. Read full story...

UK: Government Study Admits Camera Benefits Overstated New UK government speed camera study admits at least 80 percent of claimed serious accident reduction could be achieved without the device. Read full story.
March of Speed Cameras Halted November 05, 2005 THE relentless advance of speed cameras across Britain is to be halted under government plans to restore confidence in traffic policing, The Times has learnt. Read Full Story
Lincolnshire spends less on cameras yet reduces road deaths LINCOLNSHIRE’s road safety team is to be the model for the Government’s new approach to speed enforcement after exploding the myth that the only way to cut road deaths is to put up more cameras. Read Full Story
Probe on 'money-making' speed cameras SENIOR politicians today admitted for the first time that they believe many speed cameras in the West Midlands are there purely to raise cash. Read Full Story
Olympic Camera Shocker UK - Cameras in London will mail US $8870 tickets to drivers who stray into lanes designated for Olympic and government officials during the 2012 games Read Full Story
Cononer Critisises Speed Camera "distraction" that led to the death of a pensioner. A UK speed camera may have been to blame for an accident which killed a pensioner in late 2004. Read Full Story.
'Speed Cameras fail to cut road casualties' Oldham Advertiser - Oldham,England,UK	... calling for an urgent investigation after it was revealed Old-ham's road casualty rates are not falling despite the widespread introduction of speed cameras. Read Full Story

Drivers to face 'mother-of-all' Speed Cameras
Keith Hall
June 2006

Gatso’s MCS · One camera for each lane · One camera for two lanes · Overview camera · Digital video recorder · White or infrared flash unit

The "see all" camera is fitted with three digital stills cameras plus a video capture system, enabling the camera to patrol up to four separate lanes of traffic at a time and have moving film as back-up evidence

Current fixed speed camera systems are only able to monitor part of a wide carriageway. This means speeders in certain lanes can go unnoticed.

But this will not be the case with the new Multi-Camera System (MCS), which can also be used to police traffic lights and box junctions.

And there will be no dispute as to who was behind the wheel either, as the device has an infrared as well as normal flash and can be mounted forward-facing to take pictures of drivers' faces.

The MCS is made by Dutch firm Gatsometer, producer of the Gatso - the most common type of speed camera in the UK.

The new machine can hold up to 60,000 images of speeders on its encrypted hard-drive while the photos can be downloaded at any time via a telecommunication link. This, plus the fact that it comes with defence spikes to deter vandals, means the MCS is almost maintenance-free - something which will appeal to UK safety camera partnerships.

Auto Express said it had spoken to the Serco company, Gatsometer's UK distributor, and a spokesman had agreed the MCS could soon hit the streets of Britain.

The Serco spokesman went on: "It's not available in the UK at the moment but it may well be something we will bring in the future. It's up to the local camera partnerships to decide if they want them. If they do it could be here within 12 to 18 months."

Auto Express editor-in-chief David Johns said: "This news will send shivers down the spine of every motorist. You can bet it's only a matter of time before it arrives over here and starts trapping UK drivers.

"Cash-greedy safety camera partnerships will find the hi-tech, low-maintenance device a pretty attractive proposition and something they can't ignore."

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "All equipment used for speed enforcement in the UK and used as part of the safety camera programme must be type-approved by the Home Office.

"This equipment mentioned is not type-approved and therefore cannot be used in the UK at the moment."

The New Gatso MCS

UK: Government Study Admits Camera Benefits Overstated

New UK government speed camera study admits at least 80 percent of claimed serious accident reduction could be achieved without the device.

The long-awaited UK Department for Transport study of the effects of speed camera enforcement released today suggests, in an appendix at the end of the report, that the device's safety effect may be overstated by a factor of five. The report's executive summary first proclaims that the national speed camera policy has achieved a 2.2 MPH reduction in average speeds at camera sites and a 42 percent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured.

These figures, however, come with brand new disclaimers: "This (figure) is subject to some reduction due to regression-to-mean (RTM)... which will exaggerate accident savings estimated in the main analysis." Tucked away at the very end of the report is the explanation of the disclaimer along with the correction of the main analysis:

"Whenever site selection is based on particularly high numbers of observed collisions in a particular period of time, the sites identified will tend to be those with more collisions than expected during the period of observation. Such locations will then tend to have fewer collisions in a subsequent time period (with or without a camera) simply because the collision count in the first time period was abnormally high. This is the RTM effect. If RTM effects are not allowed for there is a danger that the effectiveness of cameras will be over-estimated." (Page 143)

The report accounts for these errors by examining the sites with the most available traffic data and comparing them to similar sites that do not have cameras. Overall, the camera sites saw a 54.5 percent drop in fatal and serious collisions. However, an adjustment for regression to the mean errors and long-term accident trends, shows the same site would have experienced a 44.1 percent drop in those collisions had the speed cameras never been present. The report goes further to suggest that even the remaining effect attributed to the cameras may in fact be due to drivers avoiding monitored roads.

"Previous research... however, suggests that part of the reduction in collisions attributable to the cameras may be due to diversion of traffic away from routes with cameras," the report states. "There is thus a possibility that some of the collision reduction attributable to cameras may be compensated for by an increase in collisions on diversionary routes." (Page 154-5)

In releasing the report, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announced a possible slowdown in the deployment rate of cameras -- the nation currently has around 6000 fixed and mobile ticketing devices. A new regulation would allow speed camera profits to be directed to "road safety" measures other than more speed cameras.

"The Department for Transport's move away from speed cameras is a shameful and cowardly attempt to pretend that their policy has been working and it's clearly time to move on," said Paul Smith of the Safe Speed road safety campaign. "Realising the gross error, DfT now seeks to move quietly away from speed cameras and the disastrous speed camera funding scheme."

The full report is available in a 1mb PDF file at the source link below.

Source: National safety camera programme four-year evaluation report (UK Department for Transport, 12/15/2005)

March of Speed Cameras Halted

November 05, 2005

THE relentless advance of speed cameras across Britain is to be halted under government plans to restore confidence in traffic policing, The Times has learnt.

Cameras will no longer be used as revenue-raising devices, and the system of recycling speeding fines to fund increasing numbers of cameras is to be abolished.

Camera partnerships, which include police forces and local authorities, will be ordered to consider every other option for improving safety and will only be allowed to install a camera as a last resort.

Ministers believe that the "cash for cameras" scheme, under which forces keep a proportion of camera fines to pay for more cameras, has resulted in widespread distrust of the speed enforcement system, The Times has been told.

The number of camera fines has increased ten-fold in the past decade, from 200,000 in 1995 to more than two million last year.

The Department for Transport remains convinced that cameras work and will soon publish its annual report on the scheme, showing that cameras save more than 100 lives a year. But the department will also announce reforms to the way inwhich the partnerships are managed and funded.

Revenue from camera fines will be collected centrally and redistributed among the partnership areas for use in all aspects of road safety.

Rather than being restricted to erecting more cameras, the partnerships will be able to use the money to make junctions safer and to improve the visibility of signs and road markings.

No partnership will benefit more than any other from increases in revenue, removing the incentive to focus enforcement where the highest number of drivers can be caught. Motoring groups believe that the partnerships have become self-perpetuating bureaucracies that are more concerned with maintaining financial targets than tackling the least safe roads.

The department wants them to follow the example of Lincolnshire, which has managed to reduce road casualties while issuing fewer tickets.

Whereas most partnerships apply to the department each year to erect more cameras, Lincolnshire has said that it does not need any more devices.

Ministers also approve of the county’s policy of having camera officials working alongside police road safety officers and council highway engineers.

A government source said: "If all partnerships were made to work together in this way they would think much more carefully about the alternatives to cameras.

"We need to have a better deal with motorists to convince them that cameras are not about making money." However, the department is also planning to give partnerships greater flexibility to use cameras where there is a speeding problem but no recent history of crashes. Roads beside schools will be given priority.

Under the existing criteria, fixed cameras can only be installed where there have been at least four crashes involving death or serious injury in the previous three years.

Cameras can be used in areas of "community concern" that have not had the required number of crashes, but only for 15 per cent of the total time they spend enforcing the limit.

The department is planning either to increase that percentage or give police greater freedom to choose how they use the allotted time.

Ministers accept that this will result in a few hundred new camera sites but believe that the removal of existing cameras will mean that the total will remain about 6,000.

There will also be new guidelines on the enforcement of temporary speed limits during roadworks. Partnerships will be encouraged to use digital cameras, which record the average speed between two points.

The department is also preparing to publish independent research refuting claims that the benefits of speed cameras have been exaggerated.

Safe Speed, the anti-camera campaign group, argues that casualty reduction at camera sites is simply the result of the frequency of crashes returning to normal.

However, academics from the University of Liverpool, who previously questioned the benefits of cameras, now accept that they are genuine.

Lincolnshire spends less on cameras yet reduces road deaths

LINCOLNSHIRE’s road safety team is to be the model for the Government’s new approach to speed enforcement after exploding the myth that the only way to cut road deaths is to put up more cameras.

The county has one the best records for reducing casualties, despite freezing the number of cameras. Road deaths and serious injuries fell by 18 per cent in Lincolnshire last year, more than double the national rate of improvement.

The fall coincided with a drop in camera penalties to the lowest number for four years.

The Lincolnshire camera partnership is one of the few that is spending less on camera enforcement this year than it did last year. Motoring groups have criticised the camera partnerships for setting themselves ever-larger budgets that they then need to fund by catching thousands more motorists.

In the spring the Government blocked proposals by 39 partnerships for more than 500 additional cameras. Lincolnshire was one of only four partnerships that decided not to apply for any more cameras.

Ministers want all partnerships to follow Lincolnshire’s policy of having camera officials, highway engineers and police road safety officers all working in the same building.

When a road is identified as having a high casualty rate, a member of each group inspects the site. This ensures that all the alternatives are fully considered before any decision is made to install a camera. A spokesman for the partnership said: "Having everyone sat together reinforces the attitude that cameras are only one of many solutions to the problem of speeding. In most other regions these people work in completely different offices.

"We also believe that the camera partnership doesn’t need to spend more to reduce casualties."

Lincolnshire makes widespread use of speed indicator devices, which detect a vehicle’s speed and flash it up on a screen. These devices do not make any money but research has shown they can be more effective than cameras.

Motorists who receive community service orders for the most serious offences are ordered to visit villages blighted by speed and to help officials to erect signs highlighting the dangers of breaking the limit.

Lincolnshire’s six camera vans are used only in places where they can be seen well in advance. "We park vans in prominent positions so people have an opportunity to slow down," the spokesman said.

Probe on 'money-making' Speed Cameras

Sep 23 2005

SENIOR politicians today admitted for the first time that they believe many speed cameras in the West Midlands are there purely to raise cash.

The stark claim was made as a team of consultants was appointed to assess every single speed camera site in the region.

Any which are not there for safety reasons will be ripped out. This has already happened to three.

Consultants Mott McDonald will travel out to all 300 sites and will analyse accident data after being commissioned by the West Midlands planning and transportation sub committee.
This committee contains senior councillors from across the seven local authorities in the West Midlands.

Chairman Coun Les Kyles said: "Members of the committee are very concerned, together with members of the public that the cameras are there to gather cash and nothing else.

"What we have to do is make sure there are safety reasons and if there are not then they will be taken away. Quite simply speed cameras are there to stop accidents. We have to make sure that is the only reason they are there."

But road safety campaigners say accident rates have dropped drastically since the widespread introduction of cameras.

In the last 12 months alone, 55,000 West Midland motorists paid fines totalling £3.29 million, compared to 46,000 drivers paying out £2.76 million the previous year. The West Midlands Casualty Reduction Partnership claims there has been a 39 per cent reduction in casualties at areas covered by cameras.(Really?)

The three cameras ripped out include one on the A45 Stonebridge Flyover, Solihull, and two on the Coventry Ring Road.

UK Creates $8,870 Olympic Camera Ticket

Cameras in London will mail US $8870 tickets to drivers who stray into lanes designated for Olympic and government officials during the 2012 games.

Automated cameras will begin snapping photographs and mailing tickets worth £5000 (US $8870) to any motorist that accidentally strays into new "Olympic" lanes to be set aside for the 2012 Olympics in London, UK. Department for Transport officials will take traffic lanes away from general use so that 55,000 people designated as special can use them. Their numbers will include athletes, the media, government officials, corporate sponsors and their guests.

The Olympic-sized citations will be issued between 6:30am and midnight when the 150-mile Olympic Route Network restrictions are in effect. Similar £150 tickets currently generate millions in revenue from those who stray for just a moment into special "bus only" lanes, including those making an otherwise legal turn into a parking lot who cross into the special lane for seconds.

"The last thing we are after is people's money -- we simply want to get everyone to their venues on time," a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport told the London Times.

Cononer Critisises Speed Camera "distraction" that led to the death of a pensioner.

Killed: Myra Nevett

A UK speed camera may have been to blame for an accident which killed a pensioner in late 2004. Coroner John Pollard told an inquest that he was investigating the possibility that the speed camera device distracted the driver who knocked down and killed Myra Nevett 69. Traffic officer PC Michael Jeffrey said: "They do tend to divert drivers' attention away from other areas and they concentrate solely on their speedometer.

Read Full Newspaper Article - (Use Zoom buttom to read fine printing)

More must be done to cut road toll - UK

Speed Cameras Fail to Cut Road Toll UK An effective deterrent or merely a hidden tax on drivers? Published: 24th August 2005

SPEED cameras - an effective deterrent or merely a hidden tax on drivers?MP PHIL WOOLAS is calling for an urgent investigation after it was revealed Old-ham’s road casualty rates are not falling despite the widespread introduction of speed cameras.

Statistics obtained by the Advertiser reveal that the number of people fatally, seriously or slightly injured in road accidents has remained almost static for the past five years in the borough. Over the same period the borough’s speed cameras have raised over £350,000 in fines.

The figures sit uneasily with Government statistics showing that the number of people killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads fell by seven per cent in 2004 – with the number of fatalities at the lowest level since records began in 1926.

This week, Oldham Council’s Road Safety Unit and emergency services staged a hard-hitting reconstruction in the town centre involving two crashed cars to help raise awareness of unsafe driving – but Woolas believes more needs to be done.

“This is very worrying because the trends are getting better across the country as a whole – why not here?,” he said.

“It’s no direct criticism of any one person or department but I think an investigation is required to see if this is down to a lack of driver awareness and education, excess speed, motorbikes, or whether this is even crime related in any way.

“I think we need to get the police and the council to look again at the main causes in problem areas and see what can be done about it.”

Julie Williams, borough road safety officer, admitted the figures were a concern as her department strives to contribute to the Government’s target of reducing the numbers killed or seriously injured by 40 per cent by 2010.

“There’s no obvious improvement in that five-year period and it's difficult to say exactly why,” she said.

“That’s one of the main reasons behind the awareness event this week and all the work that we do. We are working hard towards government targets and also follow the national campaigns each month. We have a heavy programme of work within the borough's schools and are also targetting adults and parents to get our message across.”

And whether better public awareness is the answer, the flat-lining figures also re-ignite the debate as to whether speed cameras contribute to better road safety.

Figures obtained by the Advertiser from the Greater Manchester Casualty Reduction Partnership show that Oldham’s camera sites raised £362,940 in fines in the last five years.

The amount relates to a total of 6,409 ‘conditional offers’ paid within that period but due to insufficient records only includes part of the year 2000.

The figure also does not include unpaid fines - which stood at 29 per cent in 2003/4 - nor people who chose to contest fines in court.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed campaign, says there is insufficient evidence of improving road safety in Greater Manchester generally. He believes cameras make drivers more worried about their speedometers and driving licences rather than paying attention to the road ahead.

“After thousands of hours of research we have been unable to find any benefit resulting from speed cameras - in fact, we find the opposite ,” he said.

“There's damage to the police-public relationship, but worse than that, speed cameras are damaging road safety priorities and core values. There’s nothing wrong with sticking to the speed limit, but it must not become an obsession. They used to be a useful servant of road safety, but these days they are a dangerously incompetent master.”

But despite calling for Oldham’s safety record to be investigated, MP Woolas insists speed cameras are effective. He also says myths about the revenue raised - which is used by the Partnership to purchase new cameras and maintain existing ones - are dangerous.

“As much as I don’t like speed cameras as a driver and as much as they annoy the public, they do work,” he said. “This idea you hear in the pub that they generate revenue for the police or the council is simply not true. This is a non-partisan issue and is the biggest preventable cause of death in the UK. It’s a serious debate and needs to be had with the full facts properly aired.”

Recent polls indicate more than 90 per cent of drivers admit to flouting speed limits, with half not even knowing what the limits were.

But the government maintains that the national doubling of camera sites to 6,000 in recent years has reduced speeding. Since 2000, the proportion of vehicles exceeding the limit in 30mph zones has fallen from two-thirds to just over half and camera advocates like Woolas say better education and awareness are the answer.