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@ 2012/12/14The advanced snooping technology of the UK Highways Agency has proved so useless that not a single motorist has received a ticket for speeding on the M25.
While many users of the world's largest carpark might be amazed that anyone could go fast enough to get a speeding ticket, it is fairly clear that someone must have got past 70 mph during a year.
According to the Daily Telegraph, technical and legal difficulties have prevented the Highways Agency from switching on the network of 36 new digital cameras.
The cameras were bought in to enforce variable speed limits on the London orbital motorway.
The wasted tech was found when AOL asked which section of the road netted the most cash, only to find that the cameras had caught no speeders at all.
When the first of the digital cameras were installed in 2009, the Highways Agency spokesperson admitted that it had still not received statutory authority to use them in some English counties.
But in other parts of the M25, difficulties were "technical" as the older generation of "wet film" cameras were upgraded to new digital devices.
For some reason in Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex these cameras have not even been tested.
An Agency spokesperson did not know how much the overhead cameras had cost or when it would be able to use them.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour's road safety spokesperson, insisted that the M25 was used as a racetrack by a number of reckless drivers and it was amazing that the network did not work.
Claire Armstrong, of the anti-camera group, Safespeed, thought that if the Agency believed that the cameras were any good, then why wasn't it using them?
While many users of the world's largest carpark might be amazed that anyone could go fast enough to get a speeding ticket, it is fairly clear that someone must have got past 70 mph during a year.
According to the Daily Telegraph, technical and legal difficulties have prevented the Highways Agency from switching on the network of 36 new digital cameras.
The cameras were bought in to enforce variable speed limits on the London orbital motorway.
The wasted tech was found when AOL asked which section of the road netted the most cash, only to find that the cameras had caught no speeders at all.
When the first of the digital cameras were installed in 2009, the Highways Agency spokesperson admitted that it had still not received statutory authority to use them in some English counties.
But in other parts of the M25, difficulties were "technical" as the older generation of "wet film" cameras were upgraded to new digital devices.
For some reason in Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex these cameras have not even been tested.
An Agency spokesperson did not know how much the overhead cameras had cost or when it would be able to use them.
Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour's road safety spokesperson, insisted that the M25 was used as a racetrack by a number of reckless drivers and it was amazing that the network did not work.
Claire Armstrong, of the anti-camera group, Safespeed, thought that if the Agency believed that the cameras were any good, then why wasn't it using them?
