Thursday 4th August 2005

Dual c'way Gatsos are safest

Because they're more likely to be empty

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Would you fancy maintaining this?

It's still a lottery but, according to Auto Express this week, the Gatsos most likely not to contain film are those sited in the middle of busy dual carriageways.

Central reservation speed cameras are less likely to contain film because of the safety risks to maintenance staff.

The magazine found that staff are instructed to cross busy dual carriageways to order to load the scameras with film. Naturally, they're not keen.

A technician who preferred anonymity said that one scamera on his beat hadn't been used for a long time because of health and safety issues. It means dodging traffic and hanging around in a narrow central reservation and is not a popular part of the job.

It's hard to escape the irony in this. If a speed camera partnership erects a scamera and religiously insists on maintenance workers feeding it with film, it's more likely, sadly, to become an accident blackspot -- and to justify its own existence simply by being there.

Image courtesy of www.speedcam.co.uk

[a666j]

There are two Gatsos in a dual c'way 60mph zone on the A45 SE of Coventry (near Whitley) that have not set off my detector for over 4yrs, and I'm up & down there almost every week... I wouldn't want to clamber over the barriers to get to these cameras...

[PhantomPH]

I thought cameras like the one in the photograph, had been removed? I am pretty sure I must have this wrong, but I thought speed cameras could not be 'hidden' or put behind signs anymore?

Must have been wrong. :shrug:

So following the childish thoughts in my mind - maintenance guys will not put film in cameras that are deemed 'hazardous'. I wonder if someone were to smear a dog turd all over the handle of an scam, if that one would be maintained?? I would be even less keen on handling dog dirt, than standing on the central reservation!

Joking of course.

P~

[BliarOut]

Do they include workers changing the film in KSI stats? If they do they should be hung from a noose mounted on the nearest SPECS gantry

[dazren]

That camera looks nicely hidden.

DAZ

[miniman]

dazren said:

That camera looks nicely hidden. DAZ

That looks to me like the one at the junction of the A45 and the M42 at the NEC / Brum Airport. And it's certainly been switched on most times I've passed it in the last few years.

[havoc]

miniman said:

That looks to me like the one at the junction of the A45 and the M42 at the NEC / Brum Airport. And it's certainly been switched on most times I've passed it in the last few years.

It is that camera...or at least, it was - that camera got removed around a year or so ago...because it was hidden.

[paulu]

We have the same thing in Bristol, St Phillips Causeway, in fact they have film in them that is over 10 years old, but no one will go and reload the camera's.

[jd]

PH said:

it's more likely, sadly, to become an accident blackspot -- and to justify its own existence simply by being there

That is Classic

[madou]

scamera partnerships may solve this problem by hiding an operator with a mobile laser near the static camera