Cameras capable of catching motorists who speed or drive through a red light are being installed in two locations in Lancashire.
The infra-red cameras will be installed at traffic light-controlled locations - the A59 County Road in Ormskirk and the point where the main route meets Hayfield Road, reports LancsLive.
Lancashire County Council has already said that if they work well they could be expanded to other areas under its control.
Its cabinet was told that the same kit had been used in Blackburn with Darwen and was capturing as many as 70 offences a day on a regular basis.
The meeting also heard that the cameras could be easily installed, as they don't require any underground cabling and therefore can be put in place without digging up the road.
That also meant that cameras could be moved around easily.
Conservative cabinet member for highways and transport, Charlie Edwards, said that if the Ormskirk trial is successful, he would like to see the deterrent extended to other “suitable locations”.
Motorists who are caught will receive fixed penalty notices for failing to stop at red lights or speeding through on green.
However, the hope amongst highways bosses is that the cameras will promote safer driving.
Citing the “devastating” toll of deaths and serious injuries amongst children, in particular, on Lancashire’s roads, County Cllr Edwards said that it was something that “we really must do everything we possibly can do to address”.
The latest data shows that there are 33.8 fatalities or serious injuries per 100,000 youngsters in the county, compared to an England average of 18.
The Labour opposition group welcomed the deployment of the new cameras, with deputy leader Lorraine Beavers raising the possibility of them being installed by default on all new traffic lights in the county – and funding the retrofitting of existing lights via the fines that the infra-red kit will generate.
Labour group leader Azhar Ali said he hoped that “habits will change” when drivers learn that their traffic light technique is coming under scrutiny.
Cabinet member for health and wellbeing, Michael Green, said he believed that all councillors would have “examples [of] where we could put this to good use in the future”.
He added: “It’s a good scheme to tackle an issue which is important to our residents – speeding traffic is often raised as a concern and it’s nice that we are looking at new ways to tackle that.”
The Ormskirk cameras are being funded in part by the Lancashire Road Safety Partnership after accident data from the junctions where they are to be installed revealed a number of casualties as a result of red-light running.
Lancashire County Council will cover the remainder of the cost, but the overall bill was discussed in a behind-closed-doors part of the meeting.
Cabinet members approved a waiver to the usual procurement rules to allow the authority to buy directly from the only supplier of this type of infra-red system that is Home Office-approved, Jenoptik Limited.
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