HADEC speed cameras

stutrump

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london uk
Hi folks. Been meaning to post this for ages sorry. HADEC (Highways Agency Digital Enforcement Cameras) are now on every "smart" (aka money making) motorway.
If you dont know what they look like I suggest googling HADEC to see a piccy of them.
Watch out for them!! They DO adjust to the changes of speed limit on a smart motorway. I've seen many people flashed by them including at 1am on the M5 when there was basically no traffic around and suddenly a 50mph speed limit came up (for no apparent reason) and the car that came blatting past me at probably only 70 still got flashed.
They're yellow but quite small/subtle and easy to miss if you're tired. Watch out!!
 

tallpaul

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I've seen these blighters on the M62. The other thing people forget is they are always active. Some seem to think they only turn on when there is a reduced speed limit.
 

Squibb

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Bedford, UK
They run 24/7 on autopilot, so revenue collection is both prompt & fully automated.

FoI requests suggest that most are calibrated on a threshold/margin of 10% + 2 mph, but it's the potential for speed limit variation that concern me most. Some say there is a delay factor pre-programmed after a limit reduction, but we all know how speed limits can vary one gantry to the next when traffic is heavy (if you can remember back that far).
 

Checkswrecks

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We have one less than 3/4 mile from my house in front of a school. There's a long downhill straight leading to it and we used to constantly have horrible accidents, as commuters would come down the straight doing 60+ and T-bone parents with their kids coming out of the school. The life flight helicopters were all too regularly landing in the school ball field. People still massively speed, but hit the brakes for the school zone and the accidents there have all but stopped. The cops have picked up on the return to speeding past the school and there are less frequent accidents at other side streets so occasionally a cop with a laser gun will sit not too much farther down the road for the easy pickings.

On the highway the cameras really are just revenue collectors for people who aren't local or don't use GPS maps including Google and Apple, since the maps show their locations.
 

tallpaul

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The cameras we have around town are called traffic safety cameras. They are supposed to be a visible deterrent to make people slow down, but in Derbyshire (Glossop specifically) are painted green and on tree lined roads. Not very visible, so nobody slows down and safety is not improved! The best traffic camera would never take a photo because it would be very visible and make people think about their speed and act accordingly, thereby improving safety. Anything else is a cynical ploy to extract funds. The simple answer is don't speed. The problem is that people become more fixated on looking at the speedometer rather than looking at what is happening in front of them so they don't get a fine. Technology. Improving life for everyone...
 

stutrump

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Checkswrecks..I agree with cameras outside schools etc but not kn a motorway...that's where these HADEC cameras are
 

robsonthejob

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Jul 18, 2016
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Uk - Liverpool
My mate was caught in Coventry recently - been to court and everything so be careful !!!

Just slow down and watch the bmw cars/vans get flashed its more sport than speeding on dull straight line motorways !!!
 

stutrump

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Ouch...sympathy to your mate! The circumstance I mentioned earlier on this thread (on the M5 South late at night) still angers me when i think of it. It was suddenly reduced to 50 for no apparent reason just for about 1 mile. Nothing kn the road except me and one car. Didn't get me thankfully but it got the car. It was a good clear/dry night too. I wonder if they were watching on cameras and knew they could get someone if they changed the speed limit? Aaarrgghh
 

Checkswrecks

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Can they get a bike with only a rear plate to identify?
Darned right they do. I've gotten tagged when my head wasn't in the game because they constantly move the cameras between various locations, and also by toll highway cameras that didn't pick up my EZPass transponder. (No toll gates, so you need to have a transponder to be on those roads.) The difference I found between them in the US and Europe is that ours won't go off till you are roughly 10+ mph over the limit. The tolerance for where the technician sets them is the "roughly" part.


Over the next decade this is all going to change. Because highway maintenance revenues are dropping so fast due to higher mpg cars and EVs, Governments all over the world are being forced to move toward collection of GPS data. They have no choice but to collect tax based on usage miles because the data is already there. The only problems are political, concerning who collects the data and who can get access. People don't realize how closely Tesla, GM Onstar, Ford SYNC, etc can monitor you and while Governments don't have the resources to continuously monitor much of anybody, they can through the companies. I've been at the Tesla factory and personally used the telemetry data for accident investigations. China's car companies are similar and I know of cases in which an electric vehicle battery was about to overheat, leading the telemetry to the great computer prompting a service person to CALL THE CAR and tell the driver to get out of the vehicle.

Having worked with NHTSA for a number of years at the end of my career, I can tell you that right now this is all in the "How are we going to do it?" stage of studies and questions about collection and privacy. The biggest issue are all the cars in operation without telemetry (basically just GPS connected to wifi or BT) and the current view is that when this happens all those owners will need to buy a EZPass-like dongle as part of renewing their registration. It is coming.

If you think that is intrusive, what's coming in the name of COVID19 protection is actual Government tracking of each of our cell phones.
 

stutrump

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Blimey..interesting stuff. I'd be screwed. I do about 23000 miles per year on the bike but get paid peanuts. Wonder if they would make allowances for people like me. Hope so else I need to get a stay at home job and that would surely lead to instant divorce
 

Jlq1969

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Argentina
those who want to raise spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cameras, and they can't slow it down. If you really want to slow down, with a few dollars, you can do it. Sometimes it is a real police car, sometimes not ...
 

Stantdm

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Jan 23, 2020
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Belle Fourche South Dakota
Where I live there are only patrolmen in cars. They set up with radar in spots where people tend to exceed the posted limit. I have no experience with these automatic cameras that get you coming or going. Thanks Checkwrecks for your explanation of that system. I did know about the cell phone tracking. We don't have a cell phone as we live in an area of the county where there is no cell service signal available so when we take a motorcycle trip we buy a tracfone.
 
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