Drivers face 650% increase in speed camera prosecutions

Road safety group, The Association of British Drivers (ABD), has discovered a new system used by Speed Camera Partnerships that could enable them to process 650% more prosecutions automatically. The automated system, called StarTraq, would enable a Speed Camera Partnership to increase prosecutions from 800 per day (£48,000) to 6,000 (£360,000) per day.

Camera Partnerships have, until recently, been limited in the number of fines they could manually process per day. This has led to them setting higher trigger speeds for their cameras. The StarTraq system enables them to increase the number of drivers fined by 650%, according to information from the company. This increased processing capability has the potential to allow Partnerships to reduce camera trigger speeds as they will be able to process more fines.

StarTraq has already in use in South Africa, and the company quotes a reference from the City Council of Pretoria as saying "We are beating out annual budget with over R33 million in collections to date." In the UK, Derbyshire, Wiltshire and Swindon, North Wales, Kent and Medway and Bedfordshire Camera Partnerships are already using the system, with the likelihood of more Partnerships considering it.

Mark McArthur-Christie, the ABD’s Road Safety Spokesman said "It’s a tragedy when road safety has moved so far away from saving lives that it is reduced to maximising the number of tickets and fines a Partnership can process in a day."