AN average 51 motorists each week have been caught speeding by Greater Manchester’s most profitable speed camera, located on the A62 Oldham Road.

The camera, near Manchester city centre, has caught some 13,330 drivers and snapped up nearly £800,000 between 2006 and 2010.

Speed cameras around Greater Manchester have snared nearly 176,000 motorists over five years – raking in fines totalling £10.5m.

The latest data available shows that a total of over 45,000 people were caught speeding in the Greater Manchester area in 2010.

Over 19,000 of them paid fines and had their licences endorsed, while 22,000 completed a speed awareness course and 4,000 were dealt with at Court.

I had a client recently who was charged with speeding at 49 mph in a 30 limit.

He was surprised to be charged because he has a clean licence and is normally a careful driver. He said that he though the speed limit was actually 50.

We looked into the matter and found the camera involved. It was on the A435 Alcester Road Studley. The police website showed that out of 23104 camera enforcements (either speed awareness course, fixed penalty or court summons) in the Warwickshire area in 2010 6796 of them related to this camera! The next highest figure was just over 2000 for the camera on the other side of the road!!

Meaning that over a third of all drivers caught speeding  in Warwickshire were caught on that road. At a minimum of £60 a time that road earned the police over £500,000 a year! Not bad business eh?

Seems he wasn’t the only one confused by the speed, in fact as I sat in court listening to other cases 3 others were dealt with on that road. At least 1 other claimed he wasn’t aware of the speed limit……. you would think he would have known better. He was a local police officer!!!

Michael Thompson, a 64 year old pensioner with no previous convictions now finds himself a convicted criminal because he flashed his headlights to warn drivers of a speed trap up ahead.

Grimsby Magistrates convicted him of wilfully obstructing a policewoman in the execution of her duty and fined him a total of £440 including costs and ‘Victim surcharge’.

Many campaigners complain that the police are more interested in raising money than increasing road safety and this would appear to give some support to that point of view.

By flashing the other drivers he was not just warning them of a speed trap but causing them to slow down. Isn’t that the alleged purpose of a speed camera? So Mr Thompson has in fact joined forces with the police and helped them slow motorists down.

His ‘civic duty’ as he referred to is has cost him £440.

The next time I see kids about to spray paint on a wall I shall think twice about telling them to stop and instead wait until they have committed the crime so that the police can arrest them just in case I am accused of wilfully obstructing a police officer.