Just TEN speed cameras have nicked 300,000 drivers and milked them for up to £30million in THREE years
They've clocked almost 300,000 motorists speeding in that time
ALMOST 300,000 motorists have been clocked speeding from Britain’s ten most lucrative speed camera sites - raising up to £30million.
Figures obtained from cops by a Sun freedom of information request have revealed the list of notorious driver traps over the last three years.
Official figures reveal 291,677 motorists were clocked speeding from the ten most lucrative speed camera sites in three years - potentially yielding as much as £30million in £100 fines if all the drivers caught paid their fines.
But not all the speeding offences caught by the cameras are turned into cash as some of the drivers will never be traced and some of the “offences” will have been triggered by 999 crews, who will see the vast majority of their tickets scrapped.
Some of the motorists who are tracked down might still manage to avoid a fine and points if they were offered and accepted a place on a speed awareness course.
The fixed camera with the biggest number of collars is on the the A10 in Cheshunt, Herts, just north of London’s M25 motorway, which clobbered 38,206 cars.
On the Great Cambridge Road the southbound camera snapped 21,282 speeders while its northbound twin recorded 16,924 breaking the speed limit.
Roads in Cambridge, Cardiff, Grimsby, Canterbury and Watford all feature in the places where the cameras have caught the most speeding drivers.
Other places on the list are the A140 Mile End Road, Norwich, where 34,775 speeding drivers have been caught, and the A1 at Barrowby Thorns, where 34,555 motorists were recorded breaking the limit.
RAC Foundation Director Steve Gooding said: “The whole point of installing a safety camera must be to improve road safety, often at high risk locations. Any camera that is raking in cash can’t be doing its job.
“Councils should be looking at the number of penalty notices issued, and where that number looks high, they should be urgently finding a better solution that actually works to promote road safety.”
Hugh Bladon, the treasurer and a founding member of The Alliance of British Drivers, said the number of drivers being clocked from the ten cameras was “totally inappropriate”.
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Mr Bladon said: “Cameras that collect a lot of money are probably collecting a lot of money because they shouldn’t be there. Or the speed limit is wrong.
“It is not the best way to make roads safer.
“We have taken the police off the roads and replaced them with these automated machines that just measure one aspect of driving. There is far more to driving than the speed.
“I’m not surprised by The Sun’s figures at all. It is very easy to catch people with a camera if you put the camera in the wrong place, or reduce the speed limit to a level where people are not going to obey it because it is totally inappropriate.”