· STORM OVER EXPLOSION IN MOBILE SPEED CAMERAS

Police and councils are masterminding a massive increase in the number of mobile speed cameras as fines from fixed yellow Gatso boxes levelled off. They hope enough mobile traps will rake in enough income to subsidise enough income to subsidise their 35 safety camera partnerships which cover virtually every area of the country. But the revolution sparked an outcry with motoring organisations accusing the Government of increasing its ‘stealth tax’ on drivers.

A report to be published tomorrow will shoe the number of roving units has soared by more than a third in just 12 months. There were 3,499 cameras hidden in police cars, vans and motorcycles last year compared with 2,601 in 2003.
So many fixed cameras have been installed in the past decade, there are thought to be up to 6,000, that the network is near saturation point ant the authorities are running out of sites.
Motorists are also growing wise to their locations, leaving some police and local authority partnerships with less revenue from fines than expected. The Department for Transport says static camera sites must have had at least four serious crashes in the previous three years. But the criteria for temporary sites are less stringent, making them an attractive alternative for police chiefs and local councillors.

Motorists paid more than £112 million in speed camera fines last year – nearly double the previous year’s amount. About 1.8 million £60 fixed-penalty notices were issued in England and Wales in the financial year 2003-2004 – up from 260,000 three years earlier.
In 200-2001, when only eight partnership schemes were operating, receipts from fines – then costing £40 – totalled £10.3million.
More than £20 million went to the Treasury last year, fuelling suspicions that the Government has a vested financial interest in the scheme.
Tony Vickers of the Association of British Drivers said: “Partnerships are addicted to income they achieve through cameras. Now they are having to subsidise their bureaucratic empires by introducing as many mobile cameras as possible. It’s becoming obvious this is just a stealth tax on motorists.”

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said: “We are concerned that there is an over concentration on cameras. Other aspects of road safety, such as driver education and redesigning dangerous roads are being neglected.”

The Department for Transport said there were 2,153 approved mobile sites at the last count in June last year, but a spokesman added: “New data is being compiled and the total will undoubtedly have gone up.”

Andrew Baxter / Martin Delgado
Mail on Sunday
6th February 2005