Skip to main content

UK city considers switching speed cameras back on

Bristol mayor George Ferguson is in talks with the city’s Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens to consider switching speed cameras back on in the city. The city’s thirty-seven fixed point speed cameras and traffic light cameras were switched off in April 2011 as part of a nationwide cost-cutting exercise. It was left to local authorities to make the final decision on whether to cut the deterrents. The Bristol Safecam partnership was abolished, leaving the cameras, twenty of which were red light c
April 2, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Bristol mayor George Ferguson is in talks with the city’s Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens to consider switching speed cameras back on in the city.
 
The city’s thirty-seven fixed point speed cameras and traffic light cameras were switched off in April 2011 as part of a nationwide cost-cutting exercise.  It was left to local authorities to make the final decision on whether to cut the deterrents.

The Bristol Safecam partnership was abolished, leaving the cameras, twenty of which were red light cameras, switched off indefinitely.

Ferguson says that certain junctions need to be made safer and that if cameras play a part in doing that then they may need to be switched back on in some places, but he also said "nobody should assume that cameras [in Bristol] are off".

Mayor Ferguson said a decision should be made within the next six months.

Related Content

  • February 7, 2013
    US and Canada extend use of safety cameras
    Orange Park is the latest town in north Florida to invest in red-light cameras. Over the next 20 days, crews will be installing, setting up and unveiling the machines at three intersections. A 30-day public awareness campaign will begin in March and the cameras will go live on 1 April. "Hopefully these red-light cameras will not only make people aware of running the red lights, but make them aware they need to slow down," Orange Park Police Chief Gary Goble said. York Region, Ontario is to install twenty r
  • March 15, 2012
    Traffic signals turn red to stop speeding drivers
    David Crawford is encouraged by the spread of 'soft' speed policing 
  • July 30, 2012
    Monitoring and transparency preserve enforcement's reputation
    What can be done to preserve automated enforcement's reputation in the face of media and public criticism? Here, system manufacturers and suppliers talk about what they think are the most appropriate business models. Recent events in Italy only served to once again to push automated enforcement into the media spotlight. At the heart of the matter were the numerous alleged instances of local authorities and their contract suppliers of enforcement services colluding to illegally shorten amber signal phase tim
  • September 25, 2023
    GridMatrix goes back to the future in New York City
    Legacy traffic management infrastructure doesn’t have to be a marker of the past: software upgrades can bring it into the present in a cost-effective and timely way, says Gordon Feller