Have you been caught out by the telltale flash of one of Swansea’s 55 speed cameras?
They’re dotted all over the city and you can see the location of each on the interactive map below.
The fines from the 264 speed cameras in South Wales are issued by GoSafe, which partners with 22 local authorities, four police forces and the Welsh Government as part of the Wales Road Casualty Reduction Partnership.
In 2017-18 the partnership pulled in more than £3.6m from Welsh drivers who were caught speeding, together with those who attended a speed awareness course.
In the UK, if you are caught speeding, you have to pay a £100 fine and will have 3 points added to your licence unless you’re given the option to attend a speed awareness course and take it up.
Every speed camera in Swansea is mapped here, click on the icons to see what type of camera it is and the speed limit on that road.
You can zoom in on the map by scrolling or use the + - icons in the bottom left of the map:
There are three main types of speed camera operating in Swansea.
Fixed Cameras (Orange on the map): The most common type of speed camera in Wales, they are also known as a ‘Gatso’ camera, because former Dutch racing driver Maurice Gatsonides invented them.
You can’t miss them (usually) because they’re painted yellow and will have checked marking painted on the road in front of them. The road markings are used to calculate the speed of the car based on how many of the marks the vehicle has travelled over between two photographs taken by the camera.
130 of GoSafe’s fixed cameras are “wet-film,” when the film runs out the camera stops operating. Another 26 are digital so can catch speeding drivers almost constantly.
The digital fixed cameras on Swansea’s Carmarthen Road are the exception to this rule because they haven’t worked since they were installed in June 2018 . They were installed as part of a £455,000 initiative by Swansea Council to improve road safety.
New plans for speed cameras:
Red-Light Cameras (Red on the map): Swansea has seven of these. They detect vehicles running red lights. GoSafe also operates “speed on green” cameras, which detect red-light runners as well as people who speed through lights that are on green. There are none of these in Swansea yet.
Mobile Cameras (Purple on the map): These are marked vans that are staffed by trained police officers. The officers track the speed of passing vehicles using a laser device that is linked to a digital DVD system. Some of the vans even still use VHS to record. The devices can track vehicles from 1,000 metres away.
