Radar cars: will they be reported soon?

A group of deputies proposes to make radar cars more easily identifiable on the road by motorists.

Today, radar cars are present throughout the country, whether driven by representatives of the police or by employees of private companies. In fact, since 2018, driving this type of vehicle is no longer reserved for the Police or the Gendarmerie, and has been delegated to various companies. The goal is then to increase the time these vehicles are on the road, going from an average of 1h12 per day to 5h30 over the same period, thanks to a larger number of drivers. As a result, the number of PVs has also increased in three years, going from 0.46 per hour to 2.09. An undeniable efficiency that we owe among other things to the growing fleet, since no less than 450 radar cars will circulate in France by the end of the year, including 223 driven by private drivers. But if this device works so well, it is also because the cars used are almost impossible for motorists to detect.

In fact, apart from the fact that they have no distinctive signs, the list of models has continued to grow in recent years. We must therefore now be wary each time we cross the road of a Dacia Sandero, a Peugeot 308, a Renault Mégane or a Seat Leon or a Ford Focus. Suffice to say that going through the cracks is almost an impossible mission! A situation that in 2019 Emmanuel Barbe, the former interministerial delegate for Road Safety, welcomed “ all those who criticize the system actually fear its effectiveness. With that, we will really have to respect the limitations. And it bothers some “. And if there is any that disturbs precisely, it is the deputies at the origin of a bill aimed at making private radar cars more easily identifiable. For the few dozen elected officials who signed this project, better reporting these vehicles then made it possible to improve safety on the roads.

Better empower drivers

In the text just published, MEPs want to add an article to the Traffic Laws, stipulating that ” speed control vehicles are subject to specific signage to enable any driver to identify them with the naked eye in all circumstances ”. Concretely, this bill requires that radar cars are no longer trivialized but on the contrary are easily identifiable when they are in circulation. According to elected officials, this measure would improve road safety, while reducing the stress level of cars, then forced to always keep an eye on their speedometer. The text underlines in fact that ” for his safety, a driver has better things to do than to wonder if the car which he passes or which he passes is one vehicle among others or a camouflaged “radar on wheels” ” and ” this source of stress distracts him from objective number 1, namely to observe the environment in which he circulates, to anticipate any unforeseen event and to be ready to react. Not to mention that with the multiplication of radars and variations in speed limits, he must already pay (too) great attention to his speedometer ».

Unfortunately, this bill has little chance of success, while the government, on the contrary, wishes to increase the number of speed controls over the next few years, by increasing the number of radar cars. However, we welcome the initiative of these deputies, who then wish to make motorists more responsible, rather than sanctioning them without even being aware of it.