Public Prosecution Service Opposes Towns’ Authority for Speed Cameras: NOS News Update

The Public Prosecution Service does not want towns to be given wider authority to install speed cameras. This is what the Chief Traffic Public Prosecution Officer of the Public Prosecution Service Liesbeth Schuijer reports News NOS Radio 1after reporting in the A.D. “Filling the Netherlands with speed cameras will not make traffic safer.”

Last month, the G4 (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague) requested wider powers to extend traffic regulations. Although the number of speed cameras the next few years it will be extended if the G4 wants to be able to take more effective action against, for example, speed violations. This is only possible if they can determine the location of speed cameras themselves, say the four major cities.

The enforcement of traffic rules, including speed cameras, is now managed nationally by the Public Prosecution Service. Government agencies, such as the police, enforce the policy and are accountable. The Public Prosecution Service wants to keep it that way.

But the Public Prosecution Service also believes that traffic does not need to be safer if there are more speed cameras. For Schuijer, the implementation of speed cameras is the last step that needs to be taken to make traffic safer. Campaigns to change driver behavior and change roads are much more effective, says the chief executive.

“If motorists have to drive 30 kilometers per hour on a two-way road, you make it very difficult for drivers to keep to that speed. Then you have to change the road before you can put it act credibly,” Schuijer said in AD magazine.

According to the senior official, speed camera installation is also very complicated. “There are all kinds of technical requirements that need to be met. There must be good lines of sight, so that you can get good pictures. place in consultation with the city.”

Schuijer recognizes the point of the towns that know best where the dangerous places are. “They have a point there,” she says. “That’s why there’s always a consultation about the location of the poles. And there’s always an analysis of the risk factors in a place like that and the cities are often an important source of information for us.”

The city of Tilburg, which does not fall under the G4 but also struggles with traffic victims, says it has submitted six applications for a new speed camera, but so far the never refuse. According to Schuijer, this might work well in the expansion.

“Our offer is very reasonable and we are also making an inventory so that by 2026 we can double the number of places we do now. And a large part of that place will come to end in the towns he asks for.”