5500 cases of speed limit violation detected in 24 hours

Police identified about 5500 cases of speed limit violation during a 24-hour long special drive across the country from Wednesday to Thursday.

The number is about 1500 higher compared to the number of previous year, said a press release issued by National Police Board on Friday.

“The number of speeding cases rose from just over 4,000 cases last year to around 5,500 within a twenty-four hour period,” said Chief Inspector of the Police Traffic Safety Centre Dennis Pasterstein.

The Police Traffic Safety Centre activated all 120 of the available automated surveillance cameras, and all of the police units’ 22 surveillance vehicles were on the move.

The police used more working time and hours of surveillance in this year’s speed-limit enforcement marathon than in the previous year.

Enforcement was particularly targeted at areas where accidents have occurred and speeding is a frequent problem. It was also targeted on the basis of feedback and speed surveillance requests received from members of the public.

The speed enforcement marathon attracted high media coverage. Chief Superintendent Kari Onninen of the National Police Board commented that neither wide-scale publicity nor information on the location of surveillance cameras could persuade some motorists to slow down.

“We will continue to provide high-profile publicity for many of our theme-based enforcement exercises. On the other hand, in order to raise the effectiveness of surveillance, we will also engage in enforcement without prior notice in order to reveal so-called hidden crime,” said Onninen.