Nearly half of speed cameras in England and Wales don’t work – is the local cam in your area broken?

NEARLY half of all speed cameras in England and Wales are not working, shocking new figures have revealed.

Driving safety charity Road Angel made the shocking discovery through a campaign of Freedom of Information requests.

GettyNew figures have revealed that 46% of the speed cameras in England and Wales do not work[/caption]

Of the 13 police forces that responded to the enquiries, six had more than half of their cameras inactive.

A whopping 46% of all cameras nationwide were out of action, meaning they could not detect driving offences.

In hard numbers, this amounts to 496 inactive devices out of a total of 1,069 across England and Wales.

Only two forces, Dyfed-Powys Police and Suffolk Police, had all of their cameras in action.

And in Derbyshire, Essex and Devon and Cornwall, the regions with the most speed cameras in England, at least 40% were inactive in each area.

Derbyshire was the worst offender, with just 20 of the county’s 113 cameras actually working.

Leicestershire only had four of its 18 fixed cameras operating, while in Cambridgeshire it was 29 of 46.

The news is particularly shocking in the context that speeding-related deaths have been on the rise.

Last year, 303 people died as a result of excessive speed, up by a fifth on the previous year’s 249.

Gary Digva, founder of Road Angel, slammed the numbers as “shocking” and claimed that dangerous drivers were being allowed to get away with their crimes.

He said: “We are urging local authorities and police forces to ensure speed cameras are fully working to catch speeding motorists who may be driving recklessly by breaking the limit.

“This in turn will help to reduce the number of dangerous drivers and help to keep our roads safer for everyone.

“With such high numbers of inactive devices, thousands of drivers are getting away with speeding every day.

“The UK police force, councils and the Government must take action on making sure these fixed speed cameras are fully operational.”

Even with the high proportion of non-operational cameras, research by Confused.com in 2022 still found that motorists were paying £46 million in speeding fines every year.

It comes after it was revealed that the pass rate for driving theory tests had hit a new low, with other half of wannabe drivers failing.

Meanwhile, a man who won a landmark legal ruling against the hated ULEZ charge is raising cash to take TfL to court again.

   

Advertisements