"Whinging Courier" wrote in message
t...
They're gatso-yellow in colour, they're on longer poles than gastos and
I've seen at least five brand new installations in the last two days at
least.

Some are covered in polythene, some aren't. Some have datum lines, some
haven't.

Are these new digital speed cameras? They're in some very unlikely
places if they are. I saw one in Rosalynn Hill, NW3 today. Going up!

If this is in Camden Town I think they are doing a trial of SPECS cameras on
some estate to cut speeding down to 20MPH I think.

On Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:22:30 +0100, Whinging Courier
wrote:

In uk.transport.london, purple pete belched forth and ejected the
following:


"Whinging Courier" wrote in message
t...
They're gatso-yellow in colour, they're on longer poles than gastos and
I've seen at least five brand new installations in the last two days at
least.

Some are covered in polythene, some aren't. Some have datum lines, some
haven't.

Are these new digital speed cameras? They're in some very unlikely
places if they are. I saw one in Rosalynn Hill, NW3 today. Going up!

If this is in Camden Town I think they are doing a trial of SPECS cameras on
some estate to cut speeding down to 20MPH I think.

They don't look like SPECS cameras, or at least they don't look like
motorway SPECS cameras.

They look a lot like mini versions of the Limehouse Link cameras but as
they're in such unlikely places, I did wonder.

There's one appeared on the Hammersmith Road westbound just after the
Hammersmith Gyratory in the last two weeks. To me it looks like a bus
lane camera (quite a small box) but as you say it is on a *much*
taller post than a regular speed camera or bus lane camera, and is
bright yellow (the camera unit - the post is standard gray). Besides
there is no bus lane at that point. As far as I can see there is no
way to easily lower it to the ground (to change film etc) so it must
be digital. It is covered in plastic bagging so I could be wrong.

Against the nearest building a cabinet has been installed at the same
time (like a traffic light control cabinet) which is definitely linked
to the new camera. It's quite a big cabinet, so taking this to mean
the camera needs "brains", and the small size of the actual camera,
I'm with the guy that calls SPECS. However, I'm at a loss as to where
the matching pair for it is in that case. It might be somewhere on
Kensington High Street but if so I haven't noticed it, or it may be
that it hasn't gone up yet.

Unless they are not going up in pairs like traditional SPECS ...
perhaps it is some massive London-wide SPECS system where they measure
your journey time between *any* two cameras.

If it is SPECS-style, I'm 99% in favour. People speed along
Hammersmith Road *all the time* (it's a 30mph road) and I've seen a
fair few nasty accidents and near accidents in the last six years;
however a conventional GATSO would do nothing as the scum would just
slow down past the camera itself and then speed up again; SPECS should
keep them to 30mph all the way along the monitored zone. My 1% against
is because all camera schemes encourage false number plates (which are
nowhere near as hard to obtain as you might think) which makes
tracking other road offences difficult.

To me it looks like a bus
lane camera (quite a small box) but as you say it is on a *much*
taller post than a regular speed camera or bus lane camera, and is
bright yellow (the camera unit - the post is standard gray). Besides
there is no bus lane at that point. As far as I can see there is no
way to easily lower it to the ground (to change film etc) so it must
be digital.



One of these has just gone up round here, right next to a GATSO (30MPH) -
its a 2 lane road with L1 being a bus lane (7am to 7pm) and BOTH lanes
having the GATSO markers on the ground. Now this taller camera has
appeared next to the GATSO and I am assuming it may be a Bus lane Camera.

Also spotted another white camera at another location which is pointing down
from a quite high position and overlooking a width restriction which has 2
lanes the first being for buses only, and lane 2 is for cars only. The
buses have to give way to the cars in the middle of the the restriction.
Will try to upload some pics of these cameras soon.

i read somewhere they are the new didital replacements for GATSO's


"purple pete" wrote in message
...
To me it looks like a bus
lane camera (quite a small box) but as you say it is on a *much*
taller post than a regular speed camera or bus lane camera, and is
bright yellow (the camera unit - the post is standard gray). Besides
there is no bus lane at that point. As far as I can see there is no
way to easily lower it to the ground (to change film etc) so it must
be digital.



One of these has just gone up round here, right next to a GATSO (30MPH) -
its a 2 lane road with L1 being a bus lane (7am to 7pm) and BOTH lanes
having the GATSO markers on the ground. Now this taller camera has
appeared next to the GATSO and I am assuming it may be a Bus lane Camera.

Also spotted another white camera at another location which is pointing
down from a quite high position and overlooking a width restriction which
has 2 lanes the first being for buses only, and lane 2 is for cars only.
The buses have to give way to the cars in the middle of the the
restriction. Will try to upload some pics of these cameras soon.

I've just been down to have look at the camera. Its basically as I
described it except the pole is a grey-green instead of just green.
There's a plate attached informing you its alarmed back to the police
in Central London. Two rectangular openings in the front of the box.
Pole is about twelve feet in height. I wonder if that has anything to
do with an attempt to stop vandalism?
Nearby is a grey-green box attached by some new tarmac in the path.
More new tarmac leads from that to the road where there are four
embedded lines that must be some sort of sensor. There's also the
standard speed camera road markings.
There are no other similar cameras in the area, neither are there any
camera warning signs preceeding it. The nearest cameras are standard
GATSOS about two miles away.
It seems a bit of a bizarre place to put a speed camera. The road limit
is 30mph, but it is not a fast road and while people no doubt exceed
the limit along that stretch at times there is no history of accidents
to justify such an installation. A lot of the time the congestion along
there is so bad it is difficult to reach the speed limit, let alone
exceed it. There are far more spots locally where cameras would be
justified in my opinion.

Neill

On 7 Apr 2006 05:28:41 -0700, "Neillw001"
wrote:

I've just been down to have look at the camera. Its basically as I
described it except the pole is a grey-green instead of just green.
There's a plate attached informing you its alarmed back to the police
in Central London. Two rectangular openings in the front of the box.
Pole is about twelve feet in height. I wonder if that has anything to
do with an attempt to stop vandalism?
Nearby is a grey-green box attached by some new tarmac in the path.
More new tarmac leads from that to the road where there are four
embedded lines that must be some sort of sensor. There's also the
standard speed camera road markings.
There are no other similar cameras in the area, neither are there any
camera warning signs preceeding it. The nearest cameras are standard
GATSOS about two miles away.
It seems a bit of a bizarre place to put a speed camera. The road limit
is 30mph, but it is not a fast road and while people no doubt exceed
the limit along that stretch at times there is no history of accidents
to justify such an installation. A lot of the time the congestion along
there is so bad it is difficult to reach the speed limit, let alone
exceed it. There are far more spots locally where cameras would be
justified in my opinion.

Neill

The one I saw and mentioned earlier in the thread has been
subsequently identified as a Monitron camera, capable of digitally
recording both speeding and red light offences, depending on siting
and configuration:

http://www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/gatso12.htm

Last weekend the usual speed camera markings appeared on the road as
well, so mine is definitely for speeding. Mine also has the "alarmed
to police" sticker on it, and the actual camera head is bright yellow
unlike the one in the picture.

What's interesting is that this one near me has the piezo strips
buried in the road, but they're only on the side of the road that the
camera is on, so I wonder if persistent and regular speeders (who know
the road well) will just start to cut the corner and drive on the
wrong side of the road to it.

I am sure I heard on the radio news this morning a story about TfL
being busy installing 65-odd new speed cameras in London at the
moment, so I guess our examples are part of that program.

On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 14:27:29 -0000, "David A Stocks"
wrote:


"Peter Frimberly" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 1 Apr 2006 09:22:30 +0100, Whinging Courier
wrote:


There's one appeared on the Hammersmith Road westbound just after the
Hammersmith Gyratory in the last two weeks. To me it looks like a bus
lane camera (quite a small box) but as you say it is on a *much*
taller post than a regular speed camera or bus lane camera, and is
bright yellow (the camera unit - the post is standard gray). Besides
there is no bus lane at that point. As far as I can see there is no
way to easily lower it to the ground (to change film etc) so it must
be digital. It is covered in plastic bagging so I could be wrong.

Not sure that the locations match up, but surely there must be a lot of new
camera installations for the congestion charge zone extension?


No the congestion charge cameras (or at least the poles for them) have
now gone up at the Western end of Kensington High Street - different
location and very different type of pole.

According to what I've found out there's only been six fatal accidents
in the borough of Kingston since 2002, an area that contains a large
chunck of the a3. However, the A037 runs right through the area and the
section in the north of the borough is a well-know accident blackspot.
So much so, there's been two GATSO's on one stretch of the road for
several years now. I suspect the criteria can be bent to include any
section of a road in one area whether a particular portion is safe or
not.

Neill

Neillw001 wrote:
According to what I've found out there's only been six fatal accidents
in the borough of Kingston since 2002, an area that contains a large
chunck of the a3. However, the A037 runs right through the area and the
section in the north of the borough is a well-know accident blackspot.
So much so, there's been two GATSO's on one stretch of the road for
several years now. I suspect the criteria can be bent to include any
section of a road in one area whether a particular portion is safe or
not.

Neill

As I said before the criteria is based on serious or fatal accidents.
I expect you will find there are a lot more 'serious' accidents
(requiring hospital treatment) in Kingston plus an even larger number
of 'slight' casualties (walking wounded). Just because there are
relatively few deaths doesn't make it "safe" by any stretch of the
imagination. If you ask the Borough or TfL they will be able to give
you the precise justification for the camera at that location. It is
no secret.