OAP ordered to tear down ‘distracting’ £40 fake speed camera
(despite it replacing real one!)
FED up with drivers speeding past his house at up to 90mph, Mike Lacey took drastic action.
The pensioner built a fake speed camera for £40 and attached it to his home – after the council removed the real one.
But the 72- year- old’s enterprising efforts to deter reckless motorists have now come skidding to a halt.
The council has told him to take his ‘speed camera’ down because he does not have planning permission.
Highways England, which looks after motorways and A-roads, also said it could distract drivers on the 50mph stretch of the A1 in Beeston, Bedfordshire. The grandfather of six is refusing
‘They’ll have to prosecute me’
to comply, having recently clocked a car at 90mph. Mr Lacey, a retired engineer, made a yellow dummy camera from drainpipes after the real camera near his home was taken away earlier this year.
He also regularly stands outside his house with a radar gun he bought online in the US, which is designed to measure the speed of baseballs. He said nine out of ten drivers are going over the 50mph limit. Now Bedfordshire County Council has ordered him to dismantle the camera. ‘I will take it down as soon as I get some form of speed control reinstated on the A1,’ he told The Sun. ‘Until that time they can forget it. They are going to have to prosecute me.’
The RAC said Mr Lacey’s drastic action ‘sounds like a heartfelt cry for help.’ A spokesman for Highways England said: ‘ We cannot support the use of dummy cameras like this and have raised it with the council.’ A police spokesman said: ‘Officers patrol the area regularly and take action against motorists who do not observe speed restrictions.’
Mr Lacey is not the only homeowner to have resorted to building a fake speed camera to crack down on reckless drivers. One resident of the village of Clows Top in Worcestershire created one for £25 out of a drainpipe and a mirrored beer mat and erected it in his front garden. And in 2014 two fake cameras set up in Wiltshire were stolen.
Mr Lacey’s fake speed camera might only be made of drain pipes, but it has emerged that only around half of genuine cameras are turned on.
Figures released by 36 police forces last year show that just 1,486 of 2,838 cameras are active.
Councils are being urged to restrict 20mph zones as Department for Transport figures showed 86 per cent of drivers broke the limit last year. It is thought the zones are too widespread and are being ignored as a result.
Howard Cox, of motoring group FairFuelUK, said 20mph zones were ‘spreading like a virus’ and told councils to use ‘common sense’ and restrict them to areas such as schools and hospitals.