19/08/2026
🚘 THE DRIVER WHO SLAMS THE BRAKES ON FOR A SPEED CAMERA
Have you ever noticed some drivers can be travelling perfectly happily at the correct speed limit, see a speed camera and suddenly react like that yellow box has personally jumped into the road holding a warrant for their arrest?
They’re doing 30 in a 30. Everything is legal. Nobody is being chased. Then they spot the camera and BANG — BRAKES. Suddenly we’re doing 17. Mate, you were already doing the speed limit. What exactly are you frightened of? Do you think the camera is going to look at 30 mph and say, “Ooooh, cutting it a bit fine there, Sebastian Vettel.”
Some of them brake so violently you’d think the camera had launched a surface-to-air missile. One minute I’m sitting comfortably, the next my handbag is in the footwell, my sunglasses have reached Newport and every loose object in the car has joined the RAF.
Then we approach the camera like we’re passing a sleeping Tyrannosaurus rex. Nobody speak. Nobody breathe. Don’t make eye contact with it. If we creep past slowly enough, perhaps the yellow box won’t notice the enormous car travelling directly underneath it.
I’ve seen people doing 27 in a 30 STILL brake. Twenty-seven becomes twenty-two. Twenty-two becomes eighteen. By the time we actually reach the camera I’ve aged four years, remortgaged the house and started receiving my pension.
At that speed the camera isn’t taking your photograph. It’s considering sending somebody out with a cup of tea and a defibrillator to check you’re all right.
And then comes the miracle.
The second they pass it…
WHOOSH.
Off they go like someone has fired them from a medieval trebuchet.
Apparently the entire understanding of the speed limit is:
Before it? Silverstone.
At the camera? Mobility scooter with a flat battery.
After it? Cape Canaveral.
Three… two… one… LAUNCH.
What exactly do people think is inside these cameras? A tiny police officer sitting in there with binoculars and a flask shouting, “HE LOOKED A BIT QUICK FROM HERE, DAI. GET HIM.”
And please don’t get me started on the people who brake for a camera on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD. Suddenly it’s the Eye of Sauron, monitoring every vehicle, every lane and possibly your council tax within a six-mile radius.
Speed cameras aren’t crocodiles. You don’t need to creep past them quietly hoping they don’t wake up. They’re not going to leap off the pole, attach themselves to your bonnet and drag you into a hedge.
Know the speed limit. Check your speed regularly. Drive smoothly and at an appropriate speed for the conditions. If you’re already travelling legally, seeing a speed camera shouldn’t trigger an emergency stop that rearranges everybody’s internal organs.
Because the speed limit doesn’t magically exist for twelve feet underneath a yellow box.
It applied before the camera and despite the Cape Canaveral launch some drivers perform afterwards…
IT STILL APPLIES AFTER THE CAMERA.
Sheena Ahmed
