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Report from the Metro –
SPEED cameras on one of the country’s busiest motorways have not caught a single offender in the past year.
The reason? They haven’t even been turned on.
The 36 overhead cameras on the M25 were supposed to enforce variable speed limits on a road used by about 500,000 drivers a day.
But it emerged yesterday that they are, in effect, scarecrows.
The failure was discovered when the AOL website tried to find out which cameras had led to the most fines on the 188km (117-mile road), only to learn they had caught no one.
Describing the discovery as ‘unbelievable’, Labour’s road safety spokesman, Jim Fitzpatrick, said: ‘The M25 is already used as a racetrack by a number of reckless drivers. If there is one place where we need working cameras, it is on that stretch of motorway.’
The Highways Agency admitted it had not received statutory authority to use the digital cameras after replacing earlier models on the Surrey, Hertfordshire and Essex stretches.
On other parts of the M25 where authority has been given, the difficulties were described as ‘technical’.
Robert Gifford, of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: ‘This sounds like a perfect combination of cock-ups.’
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