Stealth cameras to catch M6 speeders

The Highways Agency says the new cameras, part of a £2.1 million national project, will be able to monitor all four lanes of the motorway – including the hard shoulder – from the overhead gantries.

Standing for Highways Agency Digital Enforcement Camera System, they patrol sections of motorway where the speed limit is variable and are becoming a familiar presence on some of the country's busiest roads.

However, due to them being grey in colour and less visible than other fixed cameras, it's easier for drivers to miss them.

Speed cameras have long been a blight for Black Country motorists.

As reported in the Express & Star last year, thousands of drivers were caught by mobile speed cameras.

Figures from November showed drivers had been caught 7,654 times in and close to the Black Country area.

One of the biggest hot spots for stings was on the A4040 Sandwell Road, close to West Bromwich Albion's Hawthorns stadium.

The southbound stretch alone saw 1,771 fines issued this year with 440 on the northbound stretch.

Manor Way, the Halesowen bypass, accounted for 1,285 fines, almost 10 times as much as in 2013.

Police have since been catching people going at 82mph in the 40mph zone.

However, due to funding cuts, more than 70 active cameras were switched off in April 2013 by the West Midlands Safety Partnership.

The decision was made after West Midlands Police said it could no longer afford the £1m a year running costs due to budget cuts.

Conventional cameras are trained on one lane. But there are calls for the grey camera housings to be painted yellow like the old fashioned Gatso speed cameras which are found on normal roads.

The cameras will be installed between junctions 10a for the M54 and 13 Stafford of the M6. The work is part of the £87.5m smart motorways project which will bring in variable speed limits and open the hard shoulder to traffic in busy times.

John Spellar, MP for Warley and a former transport minister, said: "When I was transport minister, I ordered that speed cameras should be painted a clearly visible yellow. The aim should be to adjust behaviour, not to catch out motorists.

"The police and Highways Agency should get their act together and stop fleecing the hard pressed motorists and should be told to return to painting cameras yellow."

The cameras, called the Hadecs3, will help enforce variable speed limits on motorways. But when the speed limit is at its normal 70mph they will not be switched off and can catch people going over the national speed limit.

The new cameras will be attached to the overhead gantries which house the variable speed limit signs and will be front and rear facing.

Hugh Bladon, of the Alliance of British Drivers, said: "The 70mph limit is not a speed that a lot of people bother to observe any more.

The amount of traffic that exceeds the 70mph limit is enormous.

"Most people are driving at 80mph on motorways and these are our safest roads in the country."

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said: "Variable speed limits on smart motorways are primarily there to smooth traffic flow, reduce congestion and make journeys more reliable.

"There are clear signs where cameras are in place and the new cameras are more visible than the previous versions."