In eight federal states there was lightning on the side of the road more often than usual on Friday: the police have been monitoring compliance with speed limits with increased speed controls since 6 a.m. In Bavaria alone, according to the Ministry of the Interior, 2,000 police officers and municipal employees are active at up to 1,500 measuring points.
In total, thousands of speed traps can be expected throughout Germany by early Saturday morning. A balance sheet should only be drawn in the coming days. Hamburg, for example, announced results for Monday, Bavaria for Saturday.
The speed camera marathon to combat speeding on the roads took place for the first time in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2012 and has also been held in other federal states since 2013. Since 2015, other countries in Europe have also joined in – internationally the campaign is organized as so-called Speedweek.
“Our checks primarily take place where the risk of accidents due to driving too fast is greatest or where people often drive too fast,” said Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU). “In urban areas these are especially streets in front of schools and kindergartens, and outside of urban areas these are mainly country roads, as a disproportionate number of serious traffic accidents occur there due to excessive speed.”
A quarter of all traffic deaths in Bavaria are due to high speed, said Herrmann. In Saxony-Anhalt, where increased speed checks also took place on Friday, the rate is even a third.
Last year, 8,690 speeding offenders were caught in Bavaria – even though the measuring points had been announced beforehand, as the Interior Ministry announced. The highest value was achieved by a driver on a state road near Freising: he was measured at 155 kilometers per hour instead of the permitted 60