The General Directorate of Traffic (DGT) has ordered 15 mobile radars with pre-installation devices from the Tradesegur company, for which it will pay a total of 1,179,750 euros. This means that each unit has a price of no less than 78,650 euros. These devices will serve the agents of the Traffic Group of the Civil Guard to control the speed both while moving inside a vehicle and at a fixed point using a tripod.
According to the Servimedia news agency, its acquisition aims to “replace the dynamic cinemometers that have become inoperative due to obsolescence or irreparable breakdowns.” Although the award of this order was made on April 4, the announcement was published today in the Official State Gazette.
The speedometer is a device capable of detecting the speed at which vehicles circulating through its control area are traveling. Although it can measure it very precisely, it applies a margin of error before fining a driver for exceeding the maximum limits established on the monitored road. Its function is to identify excess speeds reliably and document them. Each radar must include a sensor, camera and processing unit, as well as a flash system, mechanical mounts, tripod and tablet computer.
Likewise, they must detect the presence of vehicles that cross the measurement area that covers the traffic lanes in both directions (away and approach) simultaneously or individually and up to six traffic lanes. They will be classified between light and heavy, which may be subject to different maximum permitted speed limits.
Mobile speedometers have the advantage that – in addition to their functionality in static mode either on a vehicle or on a tripod – they allow their dynamic use, especially on roads with a high concentration of vehicles, such as highways or highways, where the location of other types of radars can be a danger, so they can complement those that are placed in cabins or porches.
Excessive speed is one of the concurrent factors in fatal traffic accidents in our country. For this reason, and given the poor accident data in our country, the DGT announced in early January its plan to install 150 additional fixed radars over three years. Of them, more than half will be placed in 2024, mostly on conventional roads because they account for seven out of every ten fatal accidents. Likewise, a good part will be stretch because they are the most effective.
These speedometers have a device that reads the vehicle license plate at the beginning of the controlled section and another does the same at the end. Based on the time it took the vehicle to pass through both points, the system calculates the average speed at which it traveled. If it exceeds the maximum allowed -removing the margin of error applied-, the driver will be penalized for having exceeded the speed.