Roadside cameras: inside the weapon of the war against speed | M6 | Zone Interdite

On October 27 2003, French drivers saw the first automatic camera spring up at the side of a national highway. Inaugurated with great ceremony, this first example of a long series was smashed to pieces by hammer blows a few days later! However, that did not prevent the whole country being equipped on a grand scale within ten years: by the end of 2013, France will have 6000 cameras over its entire road network. 4200 will be fixed cameras, the most common, but there are also traffic light cameras, motorway section cameras, or even level crossing cameras. Never will the country have snapped so many drivers. In 2012, 21 million snaps generated 730 million Euros in fines. That’s 100 million more than in 2011. Behind the figures, the French have taken sides. On one side are the pro-cameras, who believe they contribute greatly to road safety. The Interior Minister estimates that they have saved 36000 lives in 10 years. On the other side, are the anti-cameras, who refuse to accept that their “freedom” to speed should be thwarted by this “automated police force” now present in the landscape. Some of them pay top prices for the services of specialist, often shady, lawyers. Others dream up systems worthy of James Bond and other secret agents with licence plates that retract when approaching speed detectors. The most extreme have even organised into commando units to put the cameras out of action. They work in the dead of night and they post their exploits on the Internet. The result: 1 camera in 5 is out of action. So manufacturers vie with each other in imagination to invent ever more efficient equipment: more discrete, like the onboard camera that snaps as it drives; more secure against vandalism; faster in order to snap more and more. In Belgium, one manufacturer wants to set up a new device in France: an indestructible camera that can snap at 2800 up to 24000 times a day?6 times more than the most prolific of French cameras! He’s also working on a camera that can detect under-inflated tyres! An investigation into the weapon of the war against speed.