The £5m Speed Trap on 'Britain's Most Baffling Road'

by Stephan Kinsella
Jun. 01, 2011

The Daily Mail online’s article Revealed: The £5m raised by one camera on Britain's most baffling road (May 29, 2011) reports that “Motorists have been fined a staggering £5 million for driving down a quiet residential street which has been dubbed 'Britain's most baffling road'.”

More than 41,000 drivers have been hit with penalties after a council erected nine signs that confuse everyone who enters the road, and a CCTV camera.

Most confusing is the rule that bans motorists from driving one way down the street in the morning and then from going in the opposite direction in the afternoon.

Last night campaigners accused the Labour-controlled Camden Council in North London of using motorists as a 'cash cow' to help boost Town Hall coffers.

It’s obviously a speedtrap designed to soak the public for more money: “Paul Pearson, a parking campaigner who runs the Penalty Charge Notice website, said: 'It's absolutely staggering. This is highway robbery. It's one of most profitable cameras in the country -- and it's in a residential street.” And of course, this is done with the aid of Britain’s notorious privacy-sapping Big Brother-controlled network of spy cameras.

The article notes that until a few years ago “access to Grafton Road in Kentish Town was restricted by a hydraulic bollard and a set of traffic lights that showed either red or green, depending on the position of the bollard.” But then this was abolished, and signs and cameras installed instead. Now, “Drivers are now confronted with nine signs, the set of defunct traffic lights and the sunken bollard,” leading to mass confusion and 800 “violations” a month--41,237 over the last 5 years, on this quiet residential street. As one driver noted: “The signs are so small and numerous you have to slam on your brakes to see them, by which time you've been flashed. I bet everyone going down it the first time receives a ticket. I'm certain it's deliberate.”

Sure it’s deliberate. Just like the income tax is deliberate.