Offending drivers get creative to avoid traffic camera fines

Only three months after the first phase of the installation of traffic cameras, some motorists found in violation of road safety rules have already found creative ways to avoid paying their fines.

According to a report published by daily Politis on Monday, traffic police officers face problems when it comes to locating offenders.

Some of them are reportedly registered with the wrong address on the road transport department system, in order to avoid receiving notices of fines at home, which need to then be collected at the post office.

Others, in turn, choose to ignore phone calls from the road transport department urging them to pay their fines or even refuse to acknowledge they were driving the car, regardless of the evidence presented to them.

Any traffic fine must be paid within 30 days otherwise it rises by half and must be paid within 45 days. If it is not paid by then, the case will be sent to court.

Four fixed cameras have been installed in Nicosia and police are also using four mobile cameras, the first phase of the plan that will eventually see 110 cameras across the island in a renewed push to stem the bloodshed on the roads.

“They cannot hide forever,” a road transport department official told Politis referring to offenders who refuse to settle their fines.

“We have enough tools and databases at our disposal to eventually identify them.”

Mobile camera units typically record speeding violations while the fixed units also pick up passing the line at a red light, speeding, not wearing a helmet and parking on yellow lines.

The contract for the cameras includes 90 fixed units in 30 locations around the island as well as 20 mobile cameras which police will determine their location and operating hours on a daily basis.

Since cameras became operative on January 1, officials have registered a sharp decrease in the number of offences, going from 1,800 daily fines issued to around 900.