Article from: www.thenewspaper.com/news/25/2505.asp

8/17/2008

UK: Unmarked Sport Bikes Used to Ticket Motorists
Speed cameras hidden in sport motorcycles and horse trailers generate big revenue for North Wales, UK.

Drivers in North Wales, UK are falling into well-hidden speed camera traps. Motorists who do not think twice when passing a high-performance sport bike or an SUV hauling a horse trailer may, weeks later, find notice of an alleged violation weeks later in the mail along with a demand for a payment of £60 (US $120). Motorcycle enthusiast websites have been tracking the latest tactics used by the North Wales Police.

Visordown News last week published reader photographs of the "CopBlade," a Honda Fireblade equipped with a front-mounted speed camera and hidden police lights. The 170hp motorcycle can cover a quarter-mile from a stop in just 10.8 seconds on the way to a top speed of 174 MPH.

"One hundred MPH wheelies have never been so easy as on the latest Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade," MotorcycleNews wrote in its review of the sport bike. "Yet the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade is also idiot-proof, docile and real-world responsive, too."

Observers noted that these unmarked police bikes wait at the side of the road for groups of high-performance motorcycles to pass. The officer then joins up from the back of the pack, waiting for any of the bikes ahead to exceed the speed limit by just a few miles per hour to begin generating citations. The all-black CopBlade license plate reads CX08 VDZ while the plate on the black and red CopBlade reads CX08 VEL.

The same law enforcement agency has been caught hiding a speed camera in a trailer used to haul horses. The trailer is parked at the side of the road while an automated ticketing machine generates a steady stream of tickets. View video of the horse trailer speed camera.

Extreme tactics have had a handsome payoff in Wales. Local speed camera partnerships collected £10 million (US $20 million) from 160,126 automated tickets issued in 2006 with North Wales accounting for more than a third of the total.