New hi-tech speed cameras, widely used in Europe, are being set up in Cape Town for the first time to record motorists’ average speeds over stretches of key city arterial routes – and fine them if they are found to be speeding.
The city’s mayoral committee (mayco) member for safety, JP Smith, said the two cameras installed two weeks ago on the M5 were the first in the city.
The National Prosecuting Authority had already “signed off” on the technology – both their operational configuration and their accuracy – meaning that the courts would accept their readings.
Smith acknowledged that the camera systems were “much hated” wherever they were used around the world, especially in the UK, “because they’re quite difficult to defeat”.
The system works by having cameras successively installed on the same route – on the M5 they are under the Wetton and Kromboom roads’ bridges.
The cameras record the times at which a vehicle passes them and are programmed to trap vehicles that cover the distance at an average speed that is higher than the permitted maximum speed limit.
“The limitation with traditional speed cameras is that you can slow down as you hit the camera, and then accelerate away afterwards, which is what many people routinely do,” Smith explained.
“This system compels motorists to remain within the speed limit for quite a distance.
“With this system, a motorist could in theory speed and then sit at the side of the road between the two cameras and wait for the time to pass, but that would completely defeat the purpose for having sped in the first place,” Smith said.
The cameras are provided and maintained by Syntell, a company which is already the city’s service provider for its traditional speed cameras.
Smith warned speeding motorists that the new cameras could also record speeding in the usual fashion.
For Cape Town motorists, the cameras on the M5 are likely to be first of many such systems across the city to trap speeding drivers over important sections of roads.
Smith said the route between the city centre and Hospital Bend was a prime example of where the new cameras could be situated.
One camera would record a motorist setting off on Eastern Boulevard, and, if he was speed- ing, he would be recorded passing a second camera on Hospital Bend in less than the allotted time for travelling at the prescribed maximum speed.
Asked how many such systems would be installed across the city, Smith was at pains to point out that while the new cameras “would probably pay for themselves, like most such innovations”, this rationale could not be used as a basis on which to order them.
He said the city was prohibited from considering fines as a source of revenue – even to cross-subsidise new law enforcement equipment.
Instead, any new speed enforcement system had to be argued on its merits alone and not on whether the cost of staff or equipment would be offset by the fines it would generate.
And, in any event, the income from paid fines went into the city’s general coffers, said Smith
“So for each new speed enforcement system, we need to prove the need and the city’s ability to absorb the cost.”
Smith said the city had a critical shortage of speed enforcement resources.
“Johannesburg has 240 speed enforcement members, we only have 13,” he reported.
Smith also denied that traffic officers had any financial incentive, such as a “Christmas quota”, to work towards.
He said his department received about 880 requests a month from the public to trap in certain areas, but could respond to only 350 of the requests.
Of the M5 cameras, he said: “This is the first experiment. As soon as we’re sure it’s accurate then it will go live next Wednesday.”