Speed cameras in Warrington which caught most speeding drivers

It comes after the Warrington Guardian submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to Cheshire Police relating to speed cameras in the town.

Between December 2021 and December 2022, the most activated camera caught more than 1,000 rule breaking motorists.

At the other end of the scale, one did not catch any.

As expected, the camera on the A49 Winwick Road, near to Tesco Extra and the junction with Owen Street, was the most activated.

This camera, located on the town’s busiest road, snapped 1,200 drivers breaking the 30mph speed limit.

The second most activated can be found on the A57 Liverpool Road in Great Sankey, because of which 889 drivers were caught.

The camera on the A574 Warrington Road in between Culcheth and Glazebury flashed 368 vehicles for breaking the speed limit, while the camera on the A49 Wilderspool Causeway was activated 265 times.

Winwick Road was home to Warrington's most activated speed camera. Picture: Google Maps

The A49 London Road in Appleton was the town’s second least triggered camera, snapping only 27 drivers last year, while the camera on the A57 Manchester Road in Woolston was not triggered at all in 2022.

Coronavirus lockdowns in 2021 meant that most cameras saw a rise in activations over the past 12 months.

Almost double the 637 drivers caught in 2021 were snapped speeding in 2022 on Winwick Road.

The Great Sankey camera saw a 563 per cent year-on-year increase from 134, while cameras on London Road and Wilderspool Causeway snared no speeding drivers at all in 2021.

The cameras on Manchester Road and Warrington Road were the only ones to bizarrely see activations fall in 2022 after flashing 12 and 377 times respectively in 2021.

According to the AA, speed cameras are an important tool in maintaining and improving road safety.

Its website says: “They keep drivers on their best behaviour and make roads safer. That means they should only be a burden for bad drivers.”

An LSE study showed that from 1992 to 2016, speed cameras reduced accidents by between 17 to 39 per cent.

The speed camera on Wilderspool Causeway. Picture: Google Maps

They reduced fatalities by between 58 and 68 per cent, and the effects were seen within 500 metres of the cameras.

Speed cameras record a vehicle’s speed by using detectors in the road or radar technology. If the camera detects speeding, it takes a digital image.

The image will catch the vehicle’s colour, type, make and registration plate. It may also capture the face of the driver, depending on the type of camera and which way it's facing.

They will also record the time and date of the offence, the speed you were travelling and the speed limit on the road.

Within two weeks of being caught, a notice of intended prosecution will be sent to the registered owner of the vehicle.

The minimum penalty for speeding is generally a £100 fine and three points on your licence.

However, this could be higher if you have gone over the speed limit by a lot. You can even get a court summons.

However, if it is a first offence and you do not have points on your licence, you could be offered a speed awareness course instead of penalty points.