France targets speeding drivers

The first of three hundred cars carrying speed camera systems are due to start operations on France’s roads on 15 March in around twenty regions. Installed in an ordinary-looking Renault Megane is a new-generation speed camera built into the dashboard with a vehicle detector radar behind the licence plate. Each is capable of detecting speeding vehicles and photographing them, without flash, while on the move at motorway speeds. Although unmarked cars are used, the officers driving them will still be in uni
February 28, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
The first of three hundred cars carrying speed camera systems are due to start operations on France’s roads on 15 March in around twenty regions.

Installed in an ordinary-looking 2453 Renault Megane is a new-generation speed camera built into the dashboard with a vehicle detector radar behind the licence plate.  Each is capable of detecting speeding vehicles and photographing them, without flash, while on the move at motorway speeds.

Although unmarked cars are used, the officers driving them will still be in uniform and for the initial period only drivers who overtake the unmarked car will be penalised.

The cars will also only target high-speed drivers, according to senior Sécurité Routière official Aurélien Wattez, who said they were aimed at motorists who ignored restrictions everywhere except where there were road-side cameras. They are set to catch drivers speeding at more than ten per cent above the road’s limit, above 143 km/h on the bulk of French motorways.

It is intended to bring in three hundred equipped vehicles over the next three years in a bid to cut road deaths, with excess speed blamed for twenty-six per cent of fatal road accidents in 2012, around 1,000 deaths.
Enforcement

Related Content

  • Young drivers admit they are unsafe
    September 30, 2016
    Nearly half of new young drivers in the UK admit they are unsafe on the road and think that they are not being taught enough about road safety, with two thirds of parents agreeing, according to a new report. The poll of 1,000 young motorists and their parents found that 50 per cent of drivers under 24 would not know where to start with basics like checking their tyres. Less than half of young road users know what the legal tyre tread limit is and one in five have no idea what solution, such as a spare ty
    Read More
  • IBTTA summit hits right notes in Salzburg
    December 5, 2018
    In the birthplace of Mozart, Colin Sowman found that delegates at the IBTTA’s inaugural World Tolling Summit were playing a variety of interesting tunes The first World Tolling Summit took place in Salzburg, Austria this autumn. Created and organised by the International Bridge Tolling and Turnpike Association (IBTTA), the event was supported by its European counterpart Asecap and hosted by Austria’s tolling authority, Asfinag. The transfer of views, experience and practice both ways across the Atl
    Read More
  • Videalert provides full time enforcement with part time workload
    March 19, 2014
    Videalert says its algorithms on automated enforcement can reduce the workload on staff while providing an effective deterrent to offenders. Colin Sowman reports. While members of the public may believe that the enforcement of parking regulations, bus lanes and box junctions has no practical benefit and is purely a money-making operation, for many authorities the opposite is true. Enforcement is a loss-making but vital exercise as illegally parked vehicles create obstructions and dangers leading to gridl
    Read More
  • Promising results from latest German speed enforcement marathon
    May 21, 2014
    During the sixth German speed control operation North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, police found that motorists generally obeyed speed limits. Around 3,500 police officers and 300 employees of local authorities measured the speeds of vehicles over a period of 24 hours at 2,610 locations. Despite publication of the speed check points and the extensive coverage in the media across the country, 21,600 of the approximately 788,000, or 2.7 per cent, of car drivers checked were driving too fast. On a nor
    Read More

Highlighted Content