Policing

Depending on the seriousness of a motoring offence, penalties include can fines, licence points, driving bans and imprisonment.

National guidance recommends that a driving ban should be considered for motorists who end up with more than 11 penalty points in three years.

Evidence recorded on camera can be used to convict motorists of a range of offences such as:

• Speeding
• Driving through red lights
• Driving the wrong way down a one-way street
• Performing illegal u-turns
• Crossing double white lines in the middle of a road
• Using a mobile phone while driving.

In Derbyshire, both permanent cameras and mobile cameras are used to detect motoring offences. Two types of fixed safety camera are used on the Derbyshire roads managed by councils:

• Gatso cameras use a radar to measure the speed of vehicles and are only able to take rear facing photography
• Truvelo cameras use sensors embedded in the road to measure the speed of vehicles. They can prove who was driving the vehicle because they can take front and rear facing photography

Mobile cameras are used on the Derbyshire roads that are managed by councils. They work in a similar way to a video camera and are usually operated through the window of a vehicle.

Specs cameras measure the average vehicle speed between two fixed points. They are used along the Derbyshire stretches of the M1 motorway. In common with all motorways and trunk roads, the M1 is managed by the Highways Agency.

Cameras are not the only devices used by the police to gather evidence of speeding – hand-held laser guns and in-car computers that measure average speed between two fixed points are also used.

Visit www.slowitdown.co.uk (opens in a new window) for more information about the cameras used to detect motoring offences in Derbyshire. The website belongs to the CREST safety camera team which is based at Derbyshire police headquarters in Ripley.

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