10/16/2006
UK: Easy Defense to Average Time Speed CamerasA lane change is all it takes to defeat the latest UK speed camera technology.
UK motorists do not need to fear the latest in speed camera technology as government regulations have created a simple and effective countermeasure. A lane change will prevent the extremely lucrative SPECS cameras from calculating the average speed of a motorist between two or more cameras over the distance of up to 6.2 miles. SPECS was designed to remedy the shortcoming of the standard speed camera which is defeated by braking suddenly before the device can snap a photograph.
The UK Home Office admitted to the Daily Mail newspaper that type approval for the SPECS system only allows them to be used to monitor one lane at a time. On a multilane freeway, there would need to be as many sets of cameras as there are lanes. A pair of cameras monitoring, for example, the inside lane from point A to point B would not be able to calculate the motorist's speed if he changed to the outside lane before passing point B.
SPECS cameras are in use at 27 locations. Officials discourage use of lane changing to avoid a ticket because it could create an accident.