SPEED CAMERA DETECTORS

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Car Parts Direct threatened to take the government to court if it tries to ban speed camera detectors. Ministers outlined plans to outlaw the devices, which retail at about £200, saying they were allowing people to break the law. But Mark Cornwall, who runs Car Parts Direct which supplies the detectors, said he would take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.

The government has rejected claims the cameras are used simply to make money. Mr Cornwall said the government wanted to ban the devices because they caused an estimated £30m a year in lost speeding fine revenue. He also maintained that motorists who fitted a detector were more determined to keep within the law and that a Mori poll showed drivers using them were safer and had 28% less accidents.

Mr Cornwall said, "The government has a soft target in the motorist and has made it clear it is going to continue to screw them for all it can. By their own admission, it is costing them cash. It is not just a motoring issue. We will be taking the speed camera issue all the way to the European court. We feel we will be able to prove it is a human rights issue. If speed cameras are here to stay, so are radar detectors."

Many European countries, including France and Iceland, have already outlawed the use of such devices. There are around 6,000 speed cameras on Britain's roads which have been responsible for around 2 million fines. Government figures show there were more than 3,500 deaths on Britain's roads in 2003, up from 3,431 in the previous year.

Car Parts Direct has paid out thousands of pounds to drivers who have been caught speeding. The company promises to reimburse all motorists who have bought the Quintezz detector for a first £60 speeding ticket. Since the detectors went on sale in 2003, 170 drivers have had the cost of their speeding fine covered by the company and more than £I0,000 has been paid out.

The move has prompted Car Parts Direct, of Burton Road, to admit that it might have underestimated the number of speed cameras that cannot be detected by the Quintezz. Company spokesman Mark Cornwall said that 98.5% of the 11,000 people who have bought the detectors had not received speeding tickets.

"Most of our customers are careful drivers who use the Quintezz to assist them to keep within the speed limits." he said. "Whilst the number of claims has been larger than we anticipated, this is mainly due to a massive increase in mobile speed cameras and because some customers have failed to switch on their Quintezz." The detector plugs into the cigarette lighter socket and, once switched on, gives a beeping sound and a flashing light when drivers approach a speed camera.

Mr Cornwall added, "The device does sometimes issue false alerts and drivers need to be aware of this." The Quintezz costs £I99 and "detects all Gatso speed camera, both static and fixed, as well as speed laser guns used by the police". Gatso cameras are square and contain a film with 400 exposures.

Once the film is spent, the camera is no longer live. But the device does not detect digital cameras. These are distinguished by a round hole on the camera's box. The Government is trying to ban such devices under the Road Safety Bill and argues that they prevent police from carrying out under-cover speed-detection. Like catching speeding motorists because they slow down.

Under the Road Safety Act 2006, it has become an offence to have a radar or laser speed-camera detection device in use or fitted in a vehicle, a device capable of identifying or jamming a speed detection device. There has been a lot of confusion and misinformation concerning these devices over the years. It was widely believed that they were already illegal to use in the UK. But in fact this has not been the case and politicians have battled for years to ban the devices, said Andrew Howard, head of road safety at the AA .

As the detectors have been legal, sales have been brisk and thousands have been sold to motorists. The Gatso radar or laser-based detectors should not be confused with ordinary satellite navigation systems. These remain legal because they use GPS and published mapping technology to warn of published camera sites but the banned devices can tell in real time which cameras are dummies or have no film. Some devices can also detect mobile sites and laser speed guns used by the police. However, sat nav users should be aware that some devices come bundled with illegal plug-and-play Gatso or laser speed detection capabilities.

Mr Howard also warned that a sat nav system legal in the UK may be illegal in some European countries. He said the AA has recently learned that there could be problems if the GPS database has information on speed cameras in some European Union member states. He said, "We are checking that the AA database doesn't contain these details but I have yet to hear back. Because the databases are produced by only a few companies, it is possible that the information could be contained without anyone knowing."

How the police will be able to tell if someone is using a banned device is not clear however, Andrew Howard admitted it would be a steep learning curve for the police to identify illegal devices when the Bill finally becomes law. Meanwhile, Car Parts Direct is offering a full refund to customers who want to return banned devices, and will upgrade them to a new legal satellite navigator and camera spotter. The company said that customers who bought the products in the past six months will get the £199 replacement device free. Those who paid more than six months ago get 50% off the cost.

Mark Cornwall said, "Customers bought radar detectors in good faith, when they were legal to use. Now the government has banned them, thousands of motorists are out of pocket and with no protection against cameras. We did warn that radar detectors could be banned, but we feel obliged to offer our customers support." The offer is expected to run for a few weeks, with 500 Rossini Navigator units allocated for the promotion. (Source: Computeractive, Mar/07)

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