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The
Cumbria Road Casualty Reduction Partnership has been formed to help
cut the number killed and seriously injured on the counties roads.
The
purpose of the project is to raise awareness of the dangers of excessive
speed or abuse of speed limits at accident black spots by maintaining
a well publicised and high profile presence of the safety cameras.
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| The
mobile speed camera in operation |
The
partnership intends to make use of mobile camera units operated
by police officers and trained civilian staff at 47 locations that
account for 76% of all reported injury collisions.
Steve
Callaghan, Safety Camera Project Manager stated: "It must be
stressed from the outset that this campaign is about safety and
not income generation. As in previous road safety campaigns, its
aim is to effect a change in public attitude to speeding".
The
Partnership will achieve this through the deployment of highly visible
Safety Camera Vehicles throughout the county with advance warning
signs
Study
finds speed camera support
A survey
of attitudes to speed cameras in Cumbria suggested most people support
their use.
Researchers
interviewed 400 people in the county.
The
research found
•
Seven out of 10 thought the cameras were meant to encourage drivers
to keep to limits, were not there to punish them and disagreed there
were too many cameras in Cumbria.
•Two
thirds agreed that less accidents happen on roads where cameras
are installed
•Three
fifths agreed that cameras mean dangerous drivers are more likely
to be caught.
Fixed
camera sites
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| One
of the new digital speed cameras. |
2005
saw the introduction of fixed speed camera positions at a number
of sites in the county.
There
are four permanent sites using digital cameras:-
•Salthouse
Road, Barrow,
•On
the A590 at Millside
•the
A591 at Ings
•A595
at Howgate.
The
speed of vehicles passing through a monitored section of carriageway
is measured by either electronic sensors buried in the road surface,
a laser or a built in radar module.
All
data is protected against tampering through use of encryption and
data integrity codes embedded in the information. A built in flash
module permits operation at night.
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| The
'dragon's teeth' markings on a road service. |
The
camera takes three images. There are two separate wide-angle shots
showing vehicles' movement over the markings laid out on the road,
called dragon's teeth.
These
shots enable staff to identify the make and colour of the vehicle
should the offence be contested.
The
final photograph provides a close up of the registration plate of
the vehicle
Each
camera has its own dedicated server located at police HQ in Penrith.
Offences are uploaded from the cameras every five minutes over the
Internet via a secure broadband link and saved to a hard disc.
Offences
are copied onto a DVD for permanent storage and verified on specialist
software. These are processed on a secure, dedicated PC and then
transferred to the central ticket office where number plates are
checked against the Police National Computer and Notices of Intended
Prosecutions issued.
The
CSC, Cumbria Safety Camera Partnership, team perform a manual secondary
check on each speeding offence using the lines on the road to confirm
speed using time and distance.
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