Watch out! Can you get a fine for braking before a speed camera?

Watch out! Can you get a fine for braking before a speed camera? The answer is yes, so if you’re one of those drivers who thinks that slowing down before a speed camera will save you from a hefty fine, you are completely mistaken. Besides earning a penalty, you should know that this is a very, very dangerous practice. Respect the speed limit of the road if you don’t want to get a few scares.

Pere Navarro, Director General of Traffic, has acknowledged that there are many more signs on the road network warning of the presence of speed cameras than actual speed cameras. Furthermore, one in every three radar boxes contains no device inside. Even if these statements are true, they will not prevent you from getting a hefty fine if you brake before a speed camera.

Pere Navarro stated a few months ago that “on the roads there are a third of empty radar boxes, and they have the same effect because the driver sees the box, receives the warning on the navigator and brakes.”

Braking before a speed camera carries a fine

As we have mentioned on occasion, the new Traffic and Road Safety Law, the detectors and jammers are prohibited. What remains legal are radar warning devices. These let you know the exact location of the speed cameras in the case of fixed radars, or the approximate location in the case of mobile ones. Having this information can lead many drivers to exceed the maximum permitted speed on the road and, once they know where the radar is, to press the brake pedal a few metres beforehand to avoid the fine.

To counter these practices, the Traffic Guardia Civil has developed anti-braking radars, or cascade radars. This means that several radars are installed at distances of several metres or kilometres apart. The driver therefore does not expect it, and when accelerating again, is caught by the new radar placed further on.

If the first radar is a few kilometres from the one detected by the warning device, the driver will have become complacent and will not have adjusted their speed. The same happens if the second radar is placed after the one detected. The driver will accelerate again thinking the danger has passed. The Traffic Regulations state that “except in cases of imminent danger, every driver, in order to considerably reduce the speed of their vehicle, must make sure that they can do so without risk to other drivers.”

Furthermore, “they shall be obliged to warn of this in advance in the manner foreseen in article 109 – by repeatedly operating the brake light – without doing so abruptly, so as not to create a risk of collision with the vehicles travelling behind theirs.”

The fine for failing to comply with the Regulations is 200 euros.