Rutland police launch high-tech speed camera van at Rutland …

A new high-tech and super accurate speed camera able to read car number plates at more than 500m went on show at Rutland County Show on Sunday.

The brand new Ford Transit van is the latest in a fleet of high-tech vans equipped with the latest camera equipment including infrared cameras that can see even on the darkest of nights.

Speaking at the Rutland County Show, camera enforcement officer, Jonathan Clarkson said: “This vehicle is all-wheel drive so that gives us the benefit of going just about anywhere in terms of accessibility in the autumn or winter for roadside locations.

“It has a camera mounted on the roof, which is 360 degrees and infrared so again, that can detect vehicles in the colder, darker months and in the dark giving much more clarity to our photographic evidence of people when then speed.”

Demonstrating the distances at which the new cameras can read a vehicle number place, camera enforcement officer, Clive Surrell, added: “The tolerance in Rutland – before the camera is activated – is ten per cent, plus 2mph, so, if somebody is speeding in a 50mph zone, the camera is activated at 57mph (50mph plus 10% = 5mph, plus 2mph = 57mph).”

Rutland camera enforcement officer Jonathan Clarkson

The new van joins an existing fleet of five others and they will be out and about patrolling Rutland roads, in particular the seasonal motorcycle routes such as the A6003 between Oakham and Caldecott, as well as the core routes running through the county from this week onwards.

Rutland camera enforcement officer Clive Surrell

Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Police and Crime Commissioner, Rupert Matthews (Con), who was also at Rutland County Show, added: “Obviously we are there to catch and prosecute people who decided to speed. But the real purpose of these new vehicles and the publicity we are giving them around the high-tech contained within, is to discourage people from speeding in the first place. If we achieve that, then these vehicles have served part of their purpose.”