Speed cameras in Helsinki region catch 10,000 drivers going too fast

Decline in drugged driving

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Police in the Helsinki region have handed out speeding fines to 10,000 drivers caught in the act by speed cameras. Most of those who were caught were driving slightly above the speed limit, but there were also several hundred of those who were in gross violation of the local limit.
      This means that speed cameras caught between 2,500 and 3,000 speeders each month in the early part of this year.
      Only just over 100 were exceeding the speed limit by more than 40 kilometres per hour. The most serious speeding and other gross violations of traffic rules - about 350 in all - earned the perpetrators an income-linked day fine. The rest got off with a flat fine.
     
The number of cases of driving while intoxicated increased in the first four months of the year by about ten per cent. In 2006 at the same time 753 drink drivers were caught, last year 800, and this year, 868.
      The number of motorists caught driving under the influence of illegal drugs declined by about 20 from last year. The number of those driving under the influence of drugs is about one-third of all those caught driving while intoxicated.
      “Just five years ago I would not have believed that their proportion would be that high. I might have guessed that it would have been between 15 and 20 per cent”, says Heikki Seppä of the Helsinki Police Department.
      “Now it seems that the number of those driving while on drugs is stabilising. A ceiling is also being reached in that respect.”
     
Two people have died in traffic accidents by the end of April. This is 50% less than in the two previous years.
      Injuries in traffic accidents numbered 175 in the January-April period. Only five of the injuries were serious: they included two drivers and three pedestrians.
      Safety for pedestrians and cyclists has been constantly improving, Seppä says. The number of injuries among drivers has also decreased in Helsinki traffic.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Traffic cameras to monitor Kaivokatu (12.12.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat