By REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME AND SECURITY EDITOR
Speed camera enforcement on smart motorways was secretly switched off two months ago due to a glitch that won't be properly fixed until next year, it has emerged.
The Daily Mail revealed on Monday how thousands of innocent motorists have wrongly been clocked for speeding due to a fault with every speed camera on smart motorways across the UK.
The glitch in variable speed cameras has resulted in wrongful prosecutions for almost five years.
Now it can be revealed that speed camera enforcement on those roads stopped on October 17 when police decided the data could no longer be relied on.
The National Police Chiefs Council then decided to drop all active speeding cases on smart motorways, axing more than 36,000 cases, with court dates and speed awareness courses cancelled by 22 police forces due to the risk that the data was wrong.
In total, 154 cameras are affected, which comprises all of the smart motorway cameras and a small number of variable speed cameras on A-roads around the country, such as the A14 from Huntingdon to Cambridge.
The Daily Mail revealed on Monday how thousands of innocent motorists have wrongly been clocked for speeding due to a fault with every speed camera on smart motorways across the UK. Pictured: The M25
The error has been found to occur on smart motorway variable speed cameras known as HADECS 3 (pictured), which are mounted on poles at the roadside and monitor up to five lanes of a motorway
That represents 38 per cent of the speed cameras on Britain's motorways and major A-roads.
Analysis by National Highways suggests that around 2,656 motorists have been wrongly clocked as a result of the error.
Over the weekend road bosses, ministers and police chiefs held urgent talks in the hope of switching the system back on in the coming days.
But it has emerged that National Highways still does not fully understand how the fault occurred and a permanent solution won't be found until next year.
In the meantime, when the camera enforcement system is switched back on, National Highways will have to provide daily updates to police on the times when they believe the camera system is not functioning properly.
Forces will then have to sift through their data to discover which vehicles have been incorrectly flashed and remove those cases from the prosecution system.
National Highways calculate that the fault impacts around 10 per cent of 4,500 miles of motorways and major A-roads that make up the Strategic Road Network, which accounts for around 2 per cent of the total road network in England.
Lawyers fear it could take months for motorists to have their records wiped.
Philip Somarakis, of Irwin Mitchell, said: 'Many of the drivers who have received penalty notices in error will rely on the use of their vehicle for work, or may need to drive to visit relatives to provide care.
'It's likely that some of those wrongly convicted may have faced a double punishment by being prosecuted for a speeding offence, and potentially faced further penalties via their employment – in the worst cases people may have lost their jobs for a crime they did not commit.'
If you have an 'active' prosecution for a variable speed limit offence from the HADECS camera system, police will be getting in contact to cancel this.
This will affect motorists waiting to attend court, who may have already elected to go on a speed awareness course or elected to pay a fine and accept penalty points after being caught on a variable speed camera.
Drivers will likely already have been contacted by a police force to advise that this has been cancelled.
If you have not yet been contacted and you are affected, you do not need to do anything, police will send out correspondence in due course.
If you have historically received a variable speed limit offence from the HADECS camera system since January 2021 and you have been wrongfully prosecuted, police will be contacting those affected in due course.
Policing is working with National Highways to identify and contact those affected.