Police have called to tender for a new speed camera system

We must have observed or practiced this habit ourselves - reducing the speed to highway limits just before a speed camera and then accelerating once passing the camera. But the same tactics will still earn you a ticket if the new speed enforcement system goes live.

According to Today Online, the local Police have called for tender for an 'average speed enforcement system'. The new system will measure average speeds of vehicles over a distance. According to tender documents the new system will undergo trials along the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) and Changi Coast Road. 

The system is not new as several states in Australia have already implemented similar systems since 2001. In New South Wales alone, there are 25 point-to-point speed cameras installed at various highways that specifically targets heavy vehicles. 

While the system sounds sci-fi, the mathematics is really elementary. The speed camera records the time for a vehicle to travel between two points to calculate its average speed.

The call for tender for the new system comes at a time when the number of speeding offences over the past three years have risen. Between the first 11 months last year, the Traffic Police booked nearly 225,000 motorists for speeding related offences; while in 2011, the figure was 255,500 for the whole year.