Police admit speed cameras are fallible
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by Lee Kimber • Hundreds of drivers may be wrongly receiving penalty points and speeding fines dished out by snap-happy speed cameras on British roads.
The risk from the roadside cameras has been highlighted by Manchester owner-driver Jim Wilson, who defended himself against a police Notice of Intention to Prosecute (NIP) after he saw a speed camera flash as he passed it at walking speed.
Wilson believes drivers caught by similar errors will pay the £40 fine and receive three points because they will not remember where and when they were alleged to have been speeding.
Wilson was logged as driving at 45mph by a radar-controlled camera earlier this month but forced police to concede that he was driving at less than 5mph when they checked the time-lapse photographs— these should have been checked by Manchester's central ticketing office before the NIP was issued.
"What if you're a driver from Aberdeen?" asks Wilson. "Truckers who don't know the camera's there will just own up to speeding and pay and that'll be the end of it."
This week a second driver confirmed that he was the victim of a similar error in November.
Manchester police admit that radar-controlled cameras can be set off accidentally but claim that doublechecks should catch any mistakes. "It sounds as if a bit of human error is creeping in on the reading of the film, maybe," says a spokesman.
L LGV drivers caught speeding on the M25 will only be prosecuted if they exceed the limit by 10% plus 2mph, say police. The move is designed to reduce bunching when a variable speed policy is introduced from 15 May.