Cambridgeshire: 3D Help To Unblock Roads

29 December 2011, 06:00

The Government have announced today they've chosen Cambridgeshire Police as one of the areas to benefit from new 3D Crash Site Scanners.

It's part of a £2.7m deal, where along with Cambridgeshire, 26 other police forces will get 3D laser scanning technology.

The technology saves time by quickly making a 3D image of the whole crash site, rather than investigators painstakingly surveying multiple sections of a scene.

This digital image of the site can then be viewed on a computer screen remotely, allowing investigators to take measurements of where vehicles are in relation to each other and examine other important evidence.

Roads Minister Mike Penning told Heart: "There is nothing more frustrating than being stuck in a traffic jam for hours on end. But even worse than that is the shocking £1bn cost of those lost hours for our economy. That is why we are determined to improve the clear-up of accidents so we can get our motorways reopened as quickly as possible.

Today's £2.7m funding award will see 3D laser scanners rolled out quickly where they are needed most. This will benefit drivers by reducing incident clear up times by 39 minutes on average.''

In 2010, there were more than 18,000 full or partial motorway closures, lasting a total of more than 20,000 hours.

Assistant Chief Constable Sean White, of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said: "We welcome enormously this important funding opportunity.  It will make a very important contribution to properly investigating fatal and life-changing collisions while always being mindful of the level of economic and other disruption that closures of the strategic road network inevitably cause.''