Police in Rome have a device to identify and fine people who ignore the double white lines that prohibit overtaking.

It comprises three video cameras coupled to sensors under the road surface. When the sensors detect a car crossing the white lines, the cameras catch the number plate. Traffic police then check the film to make sure that an offence has been committed and start an automatic process to fine the car’s owner and impose three licence points.

The sorpasso-metro has been set up on a key section of the 20-mile Via del Mare, which takes Romans to the beach resort of Ostia. It has one of the highest accident rates in Italy.

The Rome province is the first in Italy to put the sorpasso-metro officially into action, but the system is being tested on 30 other roads since last year and could soon be installed elsewhere on other key Rome traffic arteries. Their presence will be indicated by road signs.

Via The Times.

Meanwhile, Scotland-based Cheetah Advanced Technologies has developed an in-car device that would send motorists spoken warnings about road hazards as they approach troublespots.

Messages would be sent by radar from roadside beacons to all vehicles heading towards an accident, breakdown or roadworks. The equipment could also alert drivers to speed cameras ahead, and remind them of speed limits, as well as issue a wide range of road safety information, such as warnings of ice, fog or flooding.

Beacons could also be fitted to emergency vehicles so that police cars, fire engines and ambulances could clear a path ahead.

Via Scotsman.