More speed cameras to be installed in Brussels

Each police zone in Brussels is due to get its own Lidar speed camera, road safety state secretary Bianca Debaets told Brussels city council on Monday.

The Lidar is a large mobile speed camera in a grey box, which uses light and radar to automate the entire process of speed detection and vehicle identification. The Brussels region currently possesses two and they circulate around the region according to the demand of each commune.

Said Debaets: “So as to increase and improve [speed] checks, we have found the means so that in the near future all police zones will have their own Lidar.”

But Brussels’ first-ever camera controlling the speed of cars as they enter and leave the Leopold II tunnel, will not be operational before the regional elections in 2019, admitted Debaets.

Installed in 2015 at a cost of €150,000, it has been blocked by Brussels city and the communes of Molenbeek and Koekelberg who have refused to sign an agreement authorising its use. They consider the timing inappropriate as renovation of the tunnel has just started and will continue for three years, reported RTBF.

For Debaets, it’s a question of road safety. She pointed out that the Leopold II tunnel was the most dangerous in Brussels with 50 accidents a year and almost half of all motorists using the tunnel driving in excess of the 50kph speed limit.

Photo: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga