Spain Uses Helicopters to Catch Speeding Drivers, Will UK Follow?

Spain's forth airborne radar detector has launched this weekend, with the fifth due in a matter of weeks. With the summer season is well and truly underway, the launch coincided with an anticipated 3.5 million trips on the roads of Spain, .

The Pegasus helicopters cover the main road networks of

• Galicia
• Castilla y León
• Asturias
• Cantabria
• Andalucía
• The east coast

According to the DGT the aim is to control the speed on the mainly conventional roads.

The equipment on board the helicopter works with pinpoint accuracy, and is capable of not only videoing traffic violations as they happen, it can record the speed, registration details and even the identity of the vehicle occupants. They do this using a panoramic camera for tracking and a second for detailing such things as the number plate. The equipment is able to monitor speeds of up to 360 kilometers per hour.

The first Pegasus equipped helicopter launched back in March of 2013, since that date 2,064 drivers have been reported during the 672 hours of flight, during which time 13,458 vehicles have been checked. The accuracy of Pegasus was brought into question recently in terms of the margin of error calculations, but most vehicles caught speeding by the helicopter are recorded at more than 30 kilometers per hour above the permitted speed on the road in question. The worst drivers clocked during that time were a motorist traveling at 232 kilometers per hour on a 120limited stretch of motorway, and a driver clocked at 195 kilometers per hour on a conventional road with a limit of 90.

Question is how long before the UK start using this technology to catch its speeders?

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