Skip to main content

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.

Related Content

  • Active traffic management - challenges and benefits
    April 12, 2013
    Minnesota DoT has built one of the most intensive Active Traffic Management (ATM) systems on the road today. Like many ITS deployments, the state has gained benefits but also faces many challenges, as Pete Goldin reports. Smart Lanes is the brand name of Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MnDoT) ATM system on I-35W in the Twin Cities Metro Area. The original system covered 16 miles of I-35W south of Minneapolis starting in 2009, and was extended by two miles in 2011. Additional ATM equipment was inst
  • Siemens influences congestion reduction
    March 12, 2021
    When it comes to reducing congestion, even relatively small interventions can have significant and positive knock-on effects, suggests Steve O’Sullivan of Siemens Mobility
  • Valuing ITS
    February 6, 2012
    Politicians, policy- and decision-makers need no-nonsense, non-technical answers on which to base investments in ITS. The International Benefits, Evaluation and Costs (IBEC) Working Group can provide them, says its Chair, Richard Harris
  • Valuing ITS
    February 2, 2012
    Politicians, policy- and decision-makers need no-nonsense, non-technical answers on which to base investments in ITS. The International Benefits, Evaluation and Costs (IBEC) Working Group can provide them, says its Chair, Richard Harris