July 1st, 2010: SPEEDING KILLS

The Road Safety Institute (I.O.AS.) “Panos Mylonas” in the framework of to its mission for the reduction of road accidents and the control of excessive and inappropriate speed that causes the 1/3 of the fatal road accidents, undertook the initiative to conduct a systematic program of speed monitoring and enforcement at the area of East Attica, in collaboration with the Traffic Police Department of Agia Paraskevi being in charge of that particular area.
The objective of the program is to record, process, statistically analyze and evaluate the speed monitoring systems of the passing vehicles. The hand-held mobile speed camera (MSSS: Mobile Speed Safety System) that the Traffic Police of Agia Paraskevi uses is of the latest technology and is equipped with an infrared camera. The system measures and analyzes the speed up to 3 simultaneously passing vehicles by 20 takes/second, records and dispatch with two different methods to the Traffic Police the photographs of the infringing vehicles which shows the license plate, the time of the infringement, the speed and the speed limit of the area.
The pilot program is effectively divided into three phases as follows:
During Phase 1 that lasted 3 weeks, the speed and the traffic were recorded at Spaton Avenue (which is the route in mind).
Phase 2 of the program lasted for 4 weeks and implemented at the Spaton Avenue. During this period ATCs (Automatic Traffic Counter) systems were recording the traffic and speed of the vehicles all day long and in five different sites.
At these specific sites, the Traffic Police was using the speed camera according to the protocol that was recommended and developed by an International Scientific Organization – TRL, Transport Research Laboratory of Great Britain.
During this Phase, RSI has recorded that the traffic load is 25.000 vehicles/per day in Spaton Avenue (Monday to Friday) and 21.000 vehicles/per day during the weekends. 5 % of these vehicles were motorcycles, 8% cargo vehicles and buses and 87% were cars. Taking into consideration that the speed limit at this particular road is 50 km/h, 3300 speed infringements were recorded (with an excess of 25km/h) and the Traffic Police sent out speed tickets to the offenders respectively. The average speed was 65 km/h and the maximum speed recorded was 160 km/h, while the 85% of the vehicles had a maximum speed of 78 km/h.
The highest speeds were observed between 21:00-05:00 hours, where there in no traffic and it is worth mentioning that in the direction from Spata to Marathonos Avenue, early in the morning, the V85 (speed that does not exceed the 85% of the passing vehicles) was above 100 km/h. The largest number of infringements that the system recorded, happened between 14:00-22:00 hours and were measured 489 which means that 61 infringements per hour, approximately 1 infringement per minute.
The study will be concluded with Phase 3 which will last for 4 weeks and during that time once again the speed and traffic will be recorded, with the difference that the Traffic Police has sent all the speed tickets to the offenders. The entire report and results of the pilot program will be available at the end of August, 2010.
It was quite shocking the fact that from a measurement that took place on December, 2010 at Marathonos Avenue, using a steady camera system similar to the hand-held camera, in only 2 days 740 speed infringements were recorded and the speed exceeded the 140km/h where the limit is 70km/h. It is noticeable that at the area of East Attica, where the two roads in observation by radars (fixed and mobile) belong, 64 fatal accidents occurred during 2009.
The Road Safety Institute I.O.AS. “Panos Mylonas” contributing significantly to the improvement of road safety and raising the awareness of the citizens in safe driving, remains a pioneer in the effort to present statistically reliable and comparable results. Our main goal is to continuously inform the drivers and offer the maximum aid to the Traffic Police for the protection of the citizens who uses the road system of our country.
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