Bomber blows up speed camera
One of France's top-earning radars destroyed, but prefecture says site is accident blackspot and sets up mobile patrol
A BOMBER has blown up one of France's highest-earning speed cameras, on the A31 near Nancy.
The CRS autoroutière de Lorraine-Alsace said the bomb had destroyed the apparatus and blown its lid more than 10 metres away. They are investigating the blast and say the bomb was a home-made device built from agricultural products.
Newspaper Est Républicain reported the prefecture as saying the radar on the central reservation at Champigneulles would be replaced quickly by mobile vehicle-mounted speed cameras as the site was an accident blackspot.
The speed camera was installed in 2005 and the prefecture said accidents on the motorway from Luxembourg to Nancy had fallen from 41 in the previous four years to just five between 2006 and 2010. However, the figures revealed that one person died in both periods and that the number of injured had increased slightly - from three to four - between 2000-2004 and 2006-2010.
In 2010 a report on speed camera fines said the site at Champigneulles was one of the 10 most "productive" in the country. In 2009 it caught 87,721 drivers. The country's "best" camera, at Maxéville in Meurthe-et-Moselle, caught 158,901 speeders.
If caught, the bomber faces three years in prison and a €45,000 fine.
