Mobile traffic cams now fitted in police cars

The police announced on Monday that their traffic units have been bolstered with on-board speed cameras for their patrol cars and picked 100 violations in two days.

The cameras in the patrol units will register the speed of drivers behind and ahead of the patrol cars, along with those moving in the opposite direction. It can operate both while the patrol cars are stationary or in motion.

The police praised the technology as further ensuring road safety, stating that the 100 violations registered within two days by the new system highlights the scale of the problem still plaguing the roads in Cyprus.

While it did not specify how many vehicles are fitted with the technology, it said that both cars clearly marked as police patrols and regular vehicles have been installed with the cameras.

Traffic cameras have proven to be a major hurdle for the authorities as a decades long delay in implementing their rollout only finally made progress late last year with the first phase of four fixed and four mobile units being introduced.

It has been a bumpy road however, as thousands of fines were issued per day amid confusion as to what exactly constituted violations, while mismatching data in the government databases further complicated matters.

More recently, police said they are looking to press charges against a number of individuals who pelted mobile traffic cameras with stones and issued threats online.