Current News - Speed cameras target M4 drivers

I have today driven along the M4 from London to Bristol and back again in the evening. It only dawned on me after going about 60 miles of my outbound journey that I was travelling at over 80 to 85 miles per hour (mph). Here in the UK on the M4, the speed limit is 70 mph, and it came rushing back to me that I had heard on the BBC News earlier in April (2005) that the M4 was going to get speed cameras enforcing the 70 mph limit.

Speeding motorists on the Wiltshire section of the motorway now face £60 fines and three penalty points according to the news article. According to unqualified sources (I haven't check them thoroughly) drivers found to be travelling more than nine miles per hour over the limit will be the one's hit by this.

The "Wiltshire Safety Camera Partnership" (WSCP) marked vans at fixed, permanent sites, along a 40-mile stretch between Bath and Hungerford. This covers the stretch between junctions 14 and 18. The scheme went live on the 13th April.

According to Saira Khan from the WSCP said that more than 200 people had died or were seriously injured on the M4 in the past year, and defended the use of the cameras.

"If those 240 people had been wiped out in one day there would have been an outcry."

At their other fixed camera sites in Wiltshire, they have seen a 64% drop in personal injury collisions, and they hope to see the same kind of improvement on the M4. According to their own website, the cameras will be stationed on motorway bridges.

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Mr James Gray, Tory candidate for North Wiltshire added that should the Conservative party win the next election, they would raise the motorway speed limit to 85 miles per hour. (Other sources quote him as saying 80 mph).

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Back in August last year some 30 drivers an hour have been filmed speeding through the new M4 roadworks in North Wiltshire. Most of the alleged law-breakers – 295 - have been invited to pay a fine and ten of them, often because of the high speeds they were doing, face going straight to court. These roadworks are still going on and there is a fixed cameras just over the hill going west after junction 18 for a 40 mph limit.

If you want to read more on the subject try .... http://www.ukspeedcameras.co.uk/guide.htm

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In signing off from this post...
If you don't want to get caught, DON'T SPEED!