When was speed cameras invented

Online, the opposition to Gatsos is even clearer. There is a flourishing industry offering devices that warn motorists they are approaching a Gatso, and numerous websites offer talkboards where the evils of speed cameras are debated in an atmosphere of mutual outrage. At least one secretive organisation is devoted to the anonymous destruction of cameras. Motorists Against Detection Mad celebrates each camera that is put out of action with an image of the battered, torched or bent Gatso standing forlornly by the road.

Gatsos and the policy makers, local authorities and police forces that install them attract a level of vitriol their inventor could never have envisaged. A statement from Mad's spiritual leader, Captain Gatso, indicates the depth of feeling. We are fed up with lining the pockets of police forces and councils as a stealth tax revenue-raising scheme.

Captain Gatso's splenetic opposition is not unique. In common with the anti-fuel tax lobby, several groups campaign and coalesce opinion online, most of them advocating more legal forms of protest. The anti-camera lobby also has the support of the mainstream motoring groups, including the RAC and the AA. Both have been vocal in their opposition to the use of cameras for taxation, and argue that the current policy risks alienating the majority of motorists to the point where they lose respect for motoring law.

What these opposition groups share is an extraordinarily passionate opposition to cameras. In essence they take the view that the use of cameras to enforce speed amounts to a money-making scam that has a minimal effect on road safety. The bulk of the 5, speed cameras currently operating estimates range from 4, - the Department of Transport - to 9, - the anti-lobby are installed in partnership between local authorities and the police.

The revenue raised is passed to the Department of Transport, who reimburse the authority and the police force for the cost of maintaining the camera, and pass the surplus to the Treasury. The opposition groups argue that cameras are deliberately placed where they will generate most money rather than in locations where speed contributes to a high accident rate. They claim that an over-reliance on cameras has led the police to reduce traffic patrols, and that speed is not an indicator of safety.

Before the Monte Carlo Rally, a local newspaper interviewed the legendary and then-still-racing! Louis Chiron, who said that Gatsonides would win the upcoming event because he knew the roads better than the locals. He had spent a month with his family in the region driving all of the mountain passes, often completing them multiple times in a single day.

In those days, portions of the rally were run as an average speed trial, meaning that the winner would have to finish with the closest speed to an average told moments before the route was to begin. When it came to mechanical preparation, he experimented with ballast, the tread on his snow tires, and other improvements that were allowed under the rules. On a notably difficult downhill run, the brakes on his Works Ford Zephyr quickly faded. The solution?

Two teams of mechanics were placed at tight hairpins and equipped with buckets of water—to hurl at the passing race car, cooling its front brakes. Gatsonides won the Monte Carlo Rally. A more precise measurement of speed through a corner is a far more difficult task, however.

Timing must be spot-on in order to accurately gauge the small differences in speed a driver would achieve as he experiments with different racing lines. Using his electrical engineering skills to better understand how to drive more quickly, Gatsonides invented a simple pulse-counting device that relied on parallel rubber tubes laid across the circuit at a set distance to measure his speed through each corner.

His first demonstration ended up with both him and his son being fined for speeding: in order to prove the device worked, someone had to speed past it and break the law! Today, there are about 45, Gatso cameras in more than 60 countries, including Australia. Close Thumbnail View. Autonomous emergency braking will be compulsory in Australia from Thu 11 Nov.

Toyota channels the past with retro-inspired campervan Sun 14 Nov. Previous New Models. Lamborghini Huracan Tecnica and Sterrato trademarks hint at send-off specials. Alex Misoyannis. William Davis. Motor Shows. An engineer, Gatsonides was obsessed with using his technical know-how to enhance his speed, developing, in , a device which, connected to the speedometer, allowed him more easily to drive at a pre-set average speed.

As part of his research, Gatsonides also went on to produce a pulse-counting machine which calculated the speed of a vehicle travelling between two parallel rubber tubes laid across the circuit. He might never have developed that idea any further had it not been for a turn of misfortune. After getting into financial difficulties trying to put it into production, he had to sell it to meet the demands of his creditors.

Looking around for his next idea, Gatsonides had a brainwave. He realised that, ironically, the speed calculating device which had helped him improve his velocity was perfect for agencies seeking to enforce speed limits.

By he had retired from competitive sport and formed a company, Gatsometer B. He started demonstrating his pulse-counting, speed recording device — known as a Gatsometer or Gatso — to local Dutch police forces. He and his son soon picked up speeding fines like they were going out of fashion, as they had to break the law to prove that the device was working. Gatsonides did not stop there. In his company developed a speed camera and, in , radar detectors — they were possibly the first in the world, although that claim is disputed.

Britain was a relatively late adopter of the Gatso cameras. The first one was a traffic light camera installed at a junction in Nottingham in , following a horrific road accident which resulted in three fatalities.