Ever smaller and more efficient radars… The city of Perpignan is the French champion in the number of radars installed in the city according to the Auto Plus newspaper. Road safety benefits but motorist associations first see it as an easy way to make money.
Autoplus magazine recently did the calculations: with one radar for 9,204 inhabitants, Perpignan would be the best equipped urban area of more than 100,000 inhabitants in France. Twelve radars are currently installed in the city, one for speed and eleven which monitor red lights. This feat is not due to the city, but to the prefecture, which until now had sole competence in this matter.
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Perpignan champion of France in the number of speed cameras
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©FTV.
Ludovic Julia, chief of staff of the Prefect of Pyrénées-Orientales, confirms the effectiveness of radars: “The national observation, but which is also verified in Perpignan, is a 50% reduction in fatal accidents, so really deaths on the road, not just accidents but really deaths on the road. So yes, the results are positive.” He adds that the number of offenses picked up by the radars has also been halved since their implementation.
Currently, two things worry motorist associations. First, the arrival of new, smaller and less visible radars. Then, the new decentralization law which will give more power to cities to install these new radars.
A law which could also allow these cities to recover part of the money from fines and therefore encourage them to implement more and more. “It’s really important today for communities to recover money because they lack it, explains Nathalie Troussard, general secretary of the drivers’ league. They need it and they say it. They express it all the more since the housing tax has been abolished. So we presuppose that the communities will use these small miniature radars to also fill the coffers of the municipality“.
For a month, the cities have had new jurisdiction on the radars, but nothing has yet been decided on the distribution of revenue. As for the city of Perpignan, we want to be reassuring. “The first radar, a fire radar, is to prevent a car from going red and hitting a pedestrian, a scooter or a bicycle. The first goal is there and it’s not at all a race to money”, assures Frédéric Guillaumon, mobility assistant at Perpignan town hall.
Last year, Perpignan radars detected 9,000 motorists in the city.
Written with Philippe Georget.
