Ramsey Forty Foot speed cameras go live

AVERAGE speed cameras have been installed on the Forty Foot Road.

AVERAGE speed cameras have been installed on the Forty Foot Road.

The cameras along the riverside Forty Foot Bank road between Ramsey and Chatteris are now fully fitted, working and ready to record any vehicle which exceeds the speed limit.

Cambridgeshire County Council installed the cameras in a bid to cut accidents and reduce deaths and injuries.

The road has claimed several lives as drivers exceed the 50mph speed limit.

There have long been calls for enforcement cameras to get motorists to slow down.

This will be the first time average speed cameras have been used on a rural road next to a waterway. The new state of the art camera system was approved by Government in December 2009 and cost �350,000. The new technology means that the cameras don’t need the dedicated hard wired link between sites required by previous systems making it better for installing along the banks of rivers,

Councillor Mac McGuire, Cambridgeshire County Council’s cabinet member for highways, said he was “pleased that the cameras are now fully functional”.

He added: “Speed has been an element in many of the accidents on this stretch of road and these new generation cameras will play an important part in ensuring drivers keep to the speed limit and drive safely.”

The road has had a killer reputation for more than a decade.

In 2006, there were more deaths on the road in five weeks than there had been for the whole of the previous decade.

And some drivers have been caught travelling as fast as 100mph along the road - double the legal limit.