Implementing a speed camera stretch in the Leopold II tunnel, as Brussels Secretary of State for Road Safety Bianca Debaets (CD&V) wishes, while tunnel refurbishment work is underway and the memorandum of understanding submitted to the police zone by the region is "incomplete" or even "illegible", is completely premature," said Philippe Pivin (MR), Deputy Mayor of Koekelberg. Beyond the above arguments, Mr Pivin informed the Belga agency that he was opposed to the signing of this memorandum of understanding as the Secretary of State committed to a financial intervention of 50,000 euros for the benefit of the zone - which will have to devote police personnel to the device - no evaluation currently makes it possible to evaluate what numbers of personnel should be mobilised there.
According to Philippe Pivin, a letter was sent to Mrs Debaets for this purpose last March, but the comments of the latter in the media suggest that she is continuing her project as if nothing had happened. In addition, the mayor added, the cameras are positioned to check the vehicles by means of the front plates for visibility issues. According to Mr. Pivin, this situation is likely to provoke winning appeals to the courts.
In addition, Brussels Prévention has issued, to no avail so far, the desire to make the device compatible with ANPR technology for automatic plate number recognition, which makes it possible to instantaneously detect vehicles which are no longer suitable for technical checks or which belong to people that have been tagged for investigation.
Philippe Pivin announced that he would ensure that the police zone, which is competent to carry out these activities, places the verbalisation pointer at 70km/h when the device is operational, which is currently not the case at all.
The Brussels Times
