Here are the speed cameras that capture the most

The police handed out a total of 106,652 speeding tickets in the first half of 2023. Of those, 40,179 were caught by a speed camera. This is shown by figures that the police have produced for TT.

Keeping the speed limits is important for several reasons, says Eva Lundberg, national coordinator for traffic safety cameras at the Swedish Transport Administration.

– It is important both to reduce the risk of accidents and to reduce the consequences of accidents.

There are approximately 2,400 road safety cameras along the state roads. According to the Swedish Transport Administration’s estimate, the cameras annually save around 20 lives and save more than 70 people from being seriously injured in traffic.

“Very big effect”

The greatest number of speeders during the first half of this year were caught by the camera in the northbound direction in the Spark Tunnel on road E6.20 in Gothenburg: 228.

Southbound direction in the same tunnel is second on the list and third is a camera along road 100 in the Skanör-Höll nature reserve in Vellinge municipality.

– We see a very large effect from the traffic safety cameras. In Sweden, we have chosen to place them on stretches without a central guardrail where there has been low speed compliance, i.e. where the vast majority have driven too fast so that the average speed has been high on that stretch, says Eva Lundberg.

Photo: Anders Humlebo/TT

Photo: Anders Humlebo/TT

Something that is special for Sweden is that we have made the speed cameras very visible. The idea is not to punish the drivers, but the goal is to inform about here you have to follow the speed limits, says Aliaksei Laureshyn, docent in traffic safety at Lund University of Technology.

– We can save the person if the speeds are below 80 kilometers per hour, says Aliaksei Laureshyn.

Accelerators in tunnels

The cameras are located approximately five kilometers apart on the affected sections, and measurements have shown that only five percent drive over the speed limit at the cameras.

– We have also measured between the cameras in some places, because you can imagine that people increase speed after the camera, but the effect both starts a little before the camera in that we have a sign that warns of the camera – and also around 3- 4 kilometers after and then a new camera comes again, says Eva Lundberg.

Something that stands out in the statistics on speeding, both for the first half of this year and previous statistics, is that many people drive over the speed limit in the tunnels. The Swedish Transport Administration does not know for sure why.

– It is a completely different environment in the tunnels, there is a lot more traffic than in the countryside, there are several lanes, and the camera is not visible along the wall but sits up in the ceiling, so we cannot really compare the tunnel outcome with the outcome as we have in ordinary rural areas, says Eva Lundberg.

Empty cameras – myth

Right now, a test is underway with extra signs that inform about the cameras outside the Södra länken in Stockholm and digital signs in connection with the cameras inside the Norra länken in Stockholm. The Swedish Transport Administration will later evaluate whether they have any effect and, if so, which variant has the most effect.

A common misconception about traffic safety cameras is that there are empty camera boxes along the roads in Sweden.

– They haven’t been empty since 2007, but people still ask for it. Before 2007, the police took care of this entirely themselves and then they moved the cassette around, says Eva Lundberg.

Since the police and the Swedish Transport Administration started a joint project with the cameras, all camera boxes have a measuring cassette in each camera and it has a radar and a computer. The radar and computer register everyone who passes and the camera photographs vehicles that drive faster than the speed limit.