The UK Government has failed to ban the devices that allow a motorist to know the location of mobile speed cameras and hand held police laser guns. The proposed new legislation failed because Parliament could not agree on the ban and the Government ran out of time to make a decision before the election.
The supplier of one of the best selling speed camera spotters, the Quintezz XT7000 Plus, has announced they will now increase production to meet demand now the law has failed. Mark Cornwall of www.carparts-direct.co.uk the UK supplier of the Quintezz said, “This is brilliant news – the Government’s failure means motorists will now have a legal defence against the greedy hidden mobile speed cameras and laser guns that are everywhere across the UK – this is great news for us and great news for our customers.”
The company supplying the Quintezz offers a guarantee that if the user receives a speeding ticket while their unit is fitted, the driver is paid £60 cash-back. The unit, which costs, £199 is designed to spot both Gatso and mobile laser speed traps.
Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said that 290 drivers were caught by cameras in 1992 against a massive 3.6 million drivers last year. Plans to activate still more cameras will likely see those numbers rise.
A spokesman for the Department of Transport when asked about the Government’s failure to impose the Radar Detection ban said: “We have not failed, we just ran out of time.”
The news comes in the week of the controversial announcement that speed cameras are to be activated on a heavily used stretch of England’s West-East M4 motorway.
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By GlobalDataThe Association of British Drivers pointed out that the use of speed camera vans on the M4 is a clear demonstration of how spurious safety arguments are used as an excuse to raise money.
“Camera partnerships are locally based organisations,” said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. “So if they catch too many local people on local roads, they lose the support of their constituents. A motorway is one great big gravy train for them, full of people who don’t live in their area, who they can rip off without fear of any local political fallout. It’s taxation without representation.”
As usual, the ABD said, Wiltshire camera partnership [M4 section] justify their actions by simply quoting the number of accidents that have occurred in a three year period.
But they make no attempt to explain why these accidents happened, or to demonstrate why slowing people from 85 to 75mph will make any difference, the ABD added.
“In fact, if you ask camera partnerships to release details of what caused the accidents that they are using to justify cameras, they won’t tell you”, continues Humphries. “How can keeping the causes of accidents a secret be consistent with an organisation that’s supposed to be about improving safety?”
On a motorway, this scam is more obvious than elsewhere, says the ABD, claiming that ‘anyone can see that accidents on motorways are caused by inattention, tailgating and changing lanes without looking. The more serious ones are caused by the bored and inattentive drivers of speed limited trucks and coaches ploughing into the back of stationary traffic.’
As the RAC foundation said, speed cameras are “irrelevant” to these accidents – in fact they make them worse by making drivers switch their cruise controls on and their brains off.
“This pattern of lying about the true causes of accidents to justify cameras is well established, and that’s why road deaths are increasing in Britain rather than falling as the camera apologists predicted,” concludes Humphries. “They work this scam on all roads, but the simplicity of a motorway makes it easier to expose. Camera partnerships have got a built-in financial incentive to indulge themselves in pointless speed enforcement to the detriment of safe, attentive driving, and that’s why they should be abolished immediately.”
