Safety camera vans now enforcing mobile phone and seat belt offences

The Kent & Medway Safety Camera Partnership's camera vans will be enforcing mobile phone and seat belt offences on a permanent basis, as well as speeding motorists, from 5 October.

Camera operators will trigger the LTI/2020 DVD camera system when they see these offences being committed at camera sites, and a Notice of Intended Prosecution will be sent to the registered keeper of the vehicle (this is also the case if a passenger is seen not wearing a seat belt). The registered keeper will then have to name the person committing the offence if it was not themselves.  

The penalties are as follows:

• Speed: 3 penalty points and £60 fine
• Mobile phone: 3 penalty points and £60 fine
• Seat belt: £60 fine

Anyone exempt from wearing a seat belt will be able to state this on receipt of the NIP and will not receive the fine.  

Ian Procter, Chairman of the Kent & Medway Safety Camera Partnership, said: "Our camera operators witness offences other than speeding being committed at camera sites. Safety cameras are positioned where people have been killed or seriously injured, so by reducing the number of offences at these sites we hope to lower casualties even further."

Roadside surveys carried out in Kent showed that one in ten motorists were not wearing a seat belt, and around one per cent of drivers were using a mobile phone (the actual figure is likely to be higher).

Chief Inspector Roscoe Walford of Kent Police said: "This activity is in addition to the enforcement already carried out by Kent Police Officers, which itself has doubled in the last two years. There are four main factors that contribute to collisions that end with serious consequences - speeding, being distracted (for example talking on the telephone), not wearing a seat belt and drink driving. The use of camera vans will help address three out of these four factors."

FACTS:

• When driving and talking on a mobile phone you are as distracted as if you were just above the drink drive limit.

• You are twice as likely to die in a crash if you do not wear a seatbelt.

• A yellow fixed camera is where three or more people have been killed or seriously injured over a 1.5km stretch in the three years before the camera went in.

• Where you see the black and white signs but no camera, it is warning you that a safety camera van may be enforcing.   These sites are where at least one person has been killed or seriously injured.

• Camera vans also operate at fixed sites.

• Independent market research found that 89 per cent of Kent and Medway residents support safety cameras enforcing mobile phone and seatbelt offences as well as speed.

Boards at camera sites will be erected from 7 September to give motorists advanced warning of the enforcement activity, and more information is available on the Partnership's website www.kmscp.org.

Kent County Council's educational campaigns on seatbelts and mobile phones can be found at www.kentroadsafety.info.