They are smaller, more discreet and, above all, more numerous: the new generation urban radars begin reporting from Tuesday, January 16. In trials since 2021, they now issue a fine to violators if they exceed the speed limit or run a red light. Eventually, they will also fine people who use their phones while driving or are not wearing a seat belt.
Active radars and decoys.
This small box makes them difficult to identify compared to traditional radar booths and they can be attached to existing street furniture. It must be indicated a few dozen meters upstream with the usual sign, but in such a reduced format.
“It is a miniaturized version of the turret radar that we know well outside the cities. It has the same principle of operation at red lights and for speed, some cabins are active, others are decoys, we cannot do it. Likewise, We cannot know if we have been fined because the infrared flash is invisible,” summarizes François Tarrain, editor-in-chief of Auto Plus magazine, in RMC.
Road safety tool or money making machine?
Radars that could improve security in the city, insists Anne Lavaud, general delegate of the Prévention Road association:
“In the case of an impact on a pedestrian, the pedestrian’s survival rate is 85% in the event of an impact at 30 km/h, and only 15% if this impact occurs at 60 km/h.”
But for Alexandra Legendre, spokesperson for the Pilots Defense League, we are faced with a money-making machine:
“The problem is that these new urban radars are installed within the framework of the decentralization law of the end of 2022 that authorizes the presidents of local authorities, the mayors, to install these radars themselves, they no longer have to request authorization to the prefect. Of course, they inform the prefect, but this right, which was the State’s right to deploy radars, is now the local elected officials who can apply it.”
Potentially additional revenue for cities, but it is not yet possible to know how this new unexpected revenue will be distributed between cities and the State.
Source: BFM TV
