The number of radar cars entrusted to private companies will increase.

A fleet of 223 of these vehicles using an infrared flash not visible to users will be in service in eight regions by the end of 2021 to track speeding violations, Road Safety said in a statement on Wednesday.

Scheduled by an interministerial road safety committee in 2015, the testing of these cars began in April 2018 in the Eure region and at the beginning of January concerned 83 vehicles in Normandy, Brittany, Pays-de-la-Loire and Center-Val de Loire.

The system will now be gradually extended to the rest of France.

[Press release] Update on the outsourcing of radar car driving ➡ https://t.co/6VM9FIxEco pic.twitter.com/xq8XSgk0ku

- Road Safety (@RoutePlusSure) April 22, 2021

Four new regions concerned

Radar cars, for the most part of the sedan type, are unmarked, equipped with cameras placed on the front and rear decks in order to detect automatically and while they are in traffic, speeding, without visible flash.

They only circulate with a driver on board, while in those of the police, an official drives while another raises the maximum authorized speed.

"At the end of 2021, the fleet of externally driven radar cars will then be 223. It will be supplied by the conversion of vehicles currently driven by police or gendarmes," says Road Safety.

The authorities also indicate that four new regions are affected by the experiment, with controls "operational during the second half of 2021".

These are Grand-Est, Hauts-de-France, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté and Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

For the time being, Mobiom, Securitas, OTI France and GSR are the companies selected.

They are each in charge of two regions.

"Free up time for the police"

The objective of the device is to "free up time for the police" and "to enforce the speed limits".

For Chantal Perrichon, president of the League against road violence, “it is urgent, if we want to improve road safety in our country, to generalize throughout the national territory the deployment of these unmarked cars and stop doing experiments ”.

On the other hand, Pierre Chasseray, general delegate of 40 million motorists considers that “these radars are useless” because the drivers cannot stop the offenders.

"Road Safety's bias is to say that people in excess of speed, in the end, it is not dangerous because they agree to photograph them without flash, but they continue to let them drive", a he lambasted.

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  • Speeding

  • Radar

  • Car

  • Road safety

  • Automotive