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M6 Motorway - WFT is going on with Speed Cameras?????

I'be just driven from Hertfordshire to to Manchester, going M25/M1/ M6. Just South or Birmingham my GPS starts to pipe up with 'You are approaching a speed camera - approach with caution', which I did, only to watch this thing flash as it took a photo of someone who didn't approach with caution. There are now flashing speed cameras all the way up the M6, so you either are got by average speed cameras where there are roadworks or flash cameras where they arent and its a 70MPH limit. This lot has gone up during the lockdown. The GPS pipes up with the alert every 3 or 4 minutes. The M6 is basically now covered in the bloody things. WTF????
As a regular user of the M6, there is a very good reason that it is (imho) the second most hated motorway after the M25.
 
One of the things I've noticed is that if there is a speed camera on the gantry on the opposite carrigeway, there will be one on the side I'm on. This applies to the older ones over each lane and the newer ones on the uprights.

The other thing is that average speed cameras all appear to either not work or be the 'TV Detector van' of speeding, I got a SP30 once for going over the limit in an average speed camera area - it was from a traditional speed camera van on a parallel road.
At roadworks, which is where most (but not all) average speed cameras are to be found, the usual set up is an entry camera near the start of the traffic management, an exit camera near the end, one on or near entry and exit slips and sometimes one or more on the mainline if the job is a long one. Same on the opposite carriageway but the cameras, being post mounted, are rarely coincident.

There are permanent average speed sites which are usually installed where there was an accident problem. From what I recall, the accident numbers rapidly fell off when the cameras were installed.

Having said all that, how many of the cameras are live and how many are non-functioning is up to the local fuzz. Many forces only want one direction to be live, to keep down the volume of tickets they need to process.

Of course to the passing driver, there's no obvious way of spotting which are the live cameras and which are dummy. Well there is if you know what to look for but if you've been speeding by the time you spot the tell-tale, it'll be too late to avoid the ticket. But even then, you can't be 100% certain which is live or dummy. The dummys, I think, can still capture the speed of passing traffic. The firm who supplies them used to send a monthly(?) profile of speeds through the site. It was ALWAYS a very steep rising and falling curve with the peak a couple of mph below whatever the signed limit was. Basically it's a very effective bit of kit to ensure drivers stick to the limit, a few knobheads notwithstanding.
 
Just as well I'm a traffic officer and not a police occifer. ;)
Pisst... thats not something that you should be admitting to mate. It's on a par with admitting that you're ex RAF Regt.
Shame on you sir. Shame on you.
PS: Is it true that when you join traffic they give you a cover name to avoid any embarrassment?
 
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