Skip to main content

Dubai increases enforcement cameras

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is to install 100 new radar speed-camera stations, twenty-four of which will be activated by Dubai Police in May. The new cameras include systems installed at traffic signals to catch drivers who speed up to catch the green light or jump a red light. In 2011, more than 1.5 million speeding offences were recorded by radar cameras, the Dubai Statistics Centre reported. That figure represented a leap of about 115,000 on the previous year, when 1.4 million speeding
March 4, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is to install 100 new radar speed-camera stations, twenty-four of which will be activated by Dubai Police in May.  The new cameras include systems installed at traffic signals to catch drivers who speed up to catch the green light or jump a red light.

In 2011, more than 1.5 million speeding offences were recorded by radar cameras, the Dubai Statistics Centre reported.  That figure represented a leap of about 115,000 on the previous year, when 1.4 million speeding offences were recorded.

Dubai Police only recently calibrated the cameras at traffic lights to give them the ability to catch drivers who speed up on a flashing green signal to make it through an intersection.  Within weeks, police said they registered “thousands” of fines.

Although the offenders were caught during a testing phase, a spokesman for Dubai Traffic Police said the fines would be levied because these drivers had been caught breaking an existing law - speeding.  Anyone travelling more than 20 km/h over the limit to make the light could have their car impounded while those going less than 20 km/h over the limit would face a fine.

In 2011, 19,000 fines were issued for jumping a red light in Dubai, 1,200 more than in 2010, according to the Dubai Statistics centre.  In the same year, motorists jumping red lights were responsible for 199 accidents, and 63 were caused by speeding.

The speed cameras are managed by the RTA.  Maitha bin Adai, chief executive of the RTA’s traffic and roads department, said it had installed 450 radar stations, and 230 intersection camera stations.  However, not all of these contain cameras.

He continued, “In coordination with Dubai Police we have installed 320 radar speed cameras and 156 intersection cameras.  It is imperative to review our law and compare them with the best international standards on a regular basis if we are to raise the safety standards on our roads.”

Related Content

  • Dubai vaccinates all taxi and transit drivers
    March 30, 2021
    Covid jab programme now extending to other staff in Dubai Road and Transport Authority
  • IAMRoadSmart: Over a third of police use mobile safety camera vans
    February 2, 2018
    More than a third of UK police forces used mobile safety camera vans to prosecute over 8,000 drivers for not wearing seatbelts and around 1,000 with a mobile phone in their hand in, according to IAM RoadSmart’s freedom of Information request in 2016. It was submitted to 44 police forces which revealed that 16 of them used pictures from the cameras in their vans to pursue these offences as a matter of routine while a further four did so occasionally.
  • In-vehicle automation of safety compliance and other traffic violations
    January 24, 2012
    David Crawford explores new initiatives in enforcement. Achieving the EU’s new road safety target of reducing road traffic deaths by 50 per cent by 2020 depends on removing legal and institutional barriers to the deployment of new enforcement technologies, stresses Jan Malenstein. The senior ITS Adviser to Dutch National Police Agency the KLPD, and a European-level spokesperson on road and traffic safety, points to the importance of, among other requirements, an effective EUwide type approval process for fr
  • Section speed enforcements gains global converts
    October 26, 2017
    As the benefits of section speed enforcement are becoming clearer, the technology is gaining converts worldwide. Colin Sowman reports. America’s National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is calling for urgent action from both road authorities and the federal government to combat speeding which has been identified as one of the most common factors in motor vehicle crashes in the United States. This new call follows the publication of a safety study which found that between 2005 through 2014, 31% of all