Filenews 18 November 2023
A system that recognizes vehicle registration plates has been installed at all roadblocks, in order to check what is moving in order to determine if drivers are involved in various illegalities.
According to a briefing of the Parliament by the Minister of Justice, in the context of smart policing, with the use of technology, the Police have installed in 147 police vehicles, a mobile registration plate recognition system for motor vehicles (A.N.P.R.).
Also, the system was installed at all the barricades controlled by the Republic of Cyprus, where vehicles pass between occupied and free areas. The system automatically records and recognizes vehicle registration plates and detects if any offenses arise in relation to the use of the vehicle (registration certificate, certificate of suitability, valid insurance document, stolen vehicles, etc.) or if issues arise in relation to the registered owner of the vehicle (pending arrest warrants, fine, etc.).
In addition, as mentioned, the GPS installation was extended to 588 vehicles of the Police and 123 of the Fire Brigade and there was a supply of 61 portable devices (41 to the Police and 20 to the Fire Brigade). The system allows the automatic positioning of vehicles for surveillance purposes of Police members and for coordination purposes in operations.
In addition to the 280,000 extrajudicial notices from the cameras, the Police this year until October 31, issued on a nationwide basis 52,761 out-of-court complaints for violation of the speed limit, 6,157 for failure to use a seat belt, 1,550 for failure to use a protective helmet, 6,094 for non-free hands while driving, 4,414 for driving under the influence of alcohol and 72,845 extrajudicial complaints for various other traffic offences.
Regarding modern road policing that aims to detect other criminal offences besides road policing, for the period between 1/1/2023-31/10/2023, the Police made 1,409 complaints for offences arising from road policing policy. In the corresponding period of 2022, it made 1,424 complaints.
According to Police statistics, by the end of October 2023, 23.52% of fatalities in fatal road collisions did not wear a seat belt, while for the corresponding period of 2022, the percentage of fatalities who did not wear belts was 64.28%.
At the same time, 58.33% of fatalities in fatal road collisions until the end of October 2022, did not wear a protective helmet, while until the end of October 2023, none of the motorcyclist drivers/passengers violated the legislation on the use of helmets.
