About 600 motorists caught speeding every day since new
KPE opened
02 November 2007 2143 hrs (SST) 1343 hrs (GMT)
SINGAPORE: About 600 motorists are caught speeding on the
newly-opened Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) each day.
Cameras installed in the tunnel have captured 3,378 vehicles
travelling above the speed limit of 70 kilometres per hour since it
was opened a week ago.
The traffic police said this is cause for alarm because on average
10,000 speeding summons are issued in a month.
Many people do not know there are now digital speed cameras
operating 24 hours a day in the tunnel. And many motorists are not
fully aware that the speed limit in the tunnel is 70 kilometres per
hour, not 90 kilometres per hour as in some expressways.
"In many countries, speeds in tunnels are always lower than (those)
in open expressways. And in Mont Blanc where a serious accident
happened before, the speed limit is now 50km/h, much lower than the
70km/h that we have in the KPE tunnel," said Land Transport
Authority (LTA) s transportation chief engineer Chin Kian
Keong.
To guide motorists, the LTA has put up signages and road
markings.
"The figures are high because motorists are in fact speeding. They
are not travelling within the speed limit of 70 kilometres an hour.
They may also not be aware that there are cameras operating 24/7
Our aim at the end of the day is to bring the number to zero," said
Traffic Polices Deputy Superintendent Alvin Lee Fook Wing.
Those caught speeding in the KPE in its first week will receive
advisory letters or summons over the next few days.
An average of 21,000 vehicles travelled in the Kallang-Paya Lebar
Expressway tunnel on weekdays. And on the first weekend since it
opened, the number jumped to 25,000.
The Land Transport Authority said traffic along the three-kilometre
tunnel, which forms part of the 12-kilometre expressway, has been
smooth-flowing. - CNA/ac
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NEARLY 3,400 vehicles were caught exceeding the 70kmh speed limit
in the underground Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE) in the first
six days of its opening.
Of the lot, 45 cases exceeded 110kmh, and one vehicle - a sedan -
was clocked crossing 140kmh.
Their owners will be receiving either warning letters or summonses
from the Traffic Police.
The number of speedsters caught works out to a daily average of 563
- more than four times the number of speeding cases islandwide per
day.
This is partly because the tunnels have highly accurate digital
laser cameras - the first of their kind used here. They never run
out of film like the old models used on other expressways. And they
work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, unlike policemen carrying
laser cameras.
The other reason for the inordinately large number of cases is that
some motorists are still unaware of the new tunnels' 70kmh
limit.
Photographer Bryan Van Der Beek, 31, who reckoned he might have
gone faster than 70kmh, said: 'I honestly didn't see any sign,
maybe because I was looking at the tunnel itself. It was my first
time driving through it.'' Alvin Tan, 40, a company vice-president,
said he did not see any signs warning of the presence of speed
cameras. 'If the cameras are hidden and there are no signs, it's
entrapment,'' he said.
