Police ‘should not hide’ while carrying out speed checks

Police “should not hide” while carrying out speed checks, according to spokesman Christos Andreou.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) on Thursday, he said “the instructions are clear. They should not be hidden, and the reason is clear. Our aim is not to prosecute, but to prevent.”

He added that drivers should be stopped when they are caught speeding and informed of their offence and the time at which they were caught.

Exceptions to this ruling can be made “if the police are in danger or if stopping the vehicle is likely to cause an accident.” In these cases, police should take the registration number of the vehicle, he said.

This practice can not always be applied, however, according to Jason Senekkis of the Centre of excellence in risk and decision sciences (Cerides).

He told CNA that the police’s speed recording technology “is not all up to date with the latest technology”, and that it can sometimes only measure speeds at a certain distance, meaning that police do not have enough time to stop drivers who they catch speeding.

To solve this issue, he suggested that speed checks be made from bridges or points on the sides of motorways and separate police teams further down the road can stop the offending drivers.

Additionally, he pointed out that when drivers are aware of the location of speed cameras, some drivers “go 150 or 160 kilometres per hour, see the lights [of police cars] in the distance, slow down, and then go fast again.”

He said that in these cases, warning of the existence of a speed camera is not enough.

“In other countries they announce that there will be cameras operating, but not exactly where the cameras will be”, he said.

However, Transport Minister Alexis Vafeadis poured cold water on the idea of secretly placing mobile speed cameras on roads.

“We aren’t setting ambushes … We shouldn’t take things to the extreme”, he said.

He also said there was no possibility of criminalising the act of flashing lights at oncoming traffic to warn of speed cameras, saying it would be very difficult to prove such a thing had taken place.

“There is no such provision. I also contacted the police, there are no reports about the signals drivers make to each other”, he said.