German authorities have decided to buy more speed cameras which look like camouflaged Panzer tanks due to their huge success catching traffic offenders.
The bizarre-looking speed traps are so successful that the south-western German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg decided to buy five more for a total of 650,000 EUR (555,050 GBP).
Spokesman Carsten Dehner of the Interior Ministry of Baden-Wuerttemberg said: “We successfully tested one installation for half a year.”
According to the State Interior Ministry, the camera was placed at roadworks on the A8 Motorway where some 800 drivers are caught daily.
One driver was caught speeding at 184 kph (114mph) at the stretch where only 80kph (50mph) is allowed.
When the mobile speed trap was deployed in the Filder area south of the state capital of Stuttgart it even managed to earn the authorities 200,000 EUR (170,799 GBP) in fines in just two weeks.
The state-of-the-art speed camera, which is made by Vitronic and officially called the “Enforcement Trailer”, has been compared by local media to a camouflaged Panzer tank which blends in with the street tiles, while others have compared it to a UFO.
Some newspapers have already dubbed the new war against speeding drivers a new blitzkrieg, an aptly chosen name given that the term of the infamous Nazi lightning war comes from the German word “blitzen”, which can also mean “taking a flash photo”.
The speed cameras have an armoured shell and an alarm system which should protect them against any act of vandalism.
Manufacturer Vitronic from the Hessian capital of Wiesbaden explained that authorities can “record the speed of all vehicles simultaneously over several lanes”.
The speed camera is so advanced it can even detect cars moving in both directions.
It transmits data wirelessly and can thus also be operated via a remote system without any cops needed to be deployed on site, which, according to the manufacturer “leads to a significant increase in efficiency”.
Other German states and cities have announced their own successes against speeding using the camera.
In the city of Mannheim alone the tank managed to catch 1,500 speeders in just over two weeks, netting the local authorities some 30,000 EUR (25,603 GBP).
The German speed camera tank has also spread to France where it is reportedly being used on roads in the French Riviera.
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Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
