Tourist beware. Watch your speed in Spain.

A new speed campaign has been launched on the roads of Spain and the authorities targeting foreign drivers with their radar gun sights.

Plans to stop and fine tourists breaking the speed limit have been boosted by a new system. Each roadside camera can photograph number plates from any country. The picture is then shown to the driver on the spot, there is no escape.

"In 2009, 30 percent of offenders were foreign vehicles, and on some speed traps in the summer the figure exceeded 40 per cent. Here we have an alternative that enables us to show the driver the offence they have committed," explained
Frederico Fernandez, the deputy head of Spain’s
Dirección General de Tráfico.

The new speed cameras have been installed at four locations in regions where there is a high number of vehicles with foreign registration plates. The move has heightened the debate in Spain on whether speeding fines save lives or if it is just another way for the government to raise funds.


You could always get one of these ; )




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The law finally catches up with number plate fraudster

Justice has finally been served to a fraudster who ripped off a motorcyclist from a village near Burton more than a decade ago.

Mark Seabridge, 46, boasted to a friend as he flew off to a new life as a restaurant owner in Tenerife that he had conned someone out of 6,000 pounds for a private number plates, Stafford Crown Court heard.

The victim was Mark Sadler, from Wychnor, who had handed over a banker's draft for 6,000 pounds for the cherished registration M4RKS in 1999.

However, Anthony Johnston, prosecuting, told the court that all Mr Sadler got for his money was a pair of number plates, as Seabridge did not own the actual right to it.

It had been bought by someone else at auction.

Mr Sadler, who wanted to put the number plate on a motorbike, got his documentation returned and when he tried to contact Seabridge, he had disappeared.

Mr Johnston said Seabridge's partner had revealed the money was spent on living expenses in Tenerife.

Amanda O'Mara, defending, said Seabridge had subsequently lost his restaurant business on the Spanish island.

He was arrested when he came back to the UK in 2006 to be a prosecution witness in a trial.

However, he then went missing again until his recent arrest.

The court heard Seabridge had already served 37 days in custody, including a sentence for skipping bail following his arrest in 2006.

Seabridge, from Farnborough, Hampshire, admitted a charge of obtaining money by deception and was given a 12 week prison sentence, suspended for a year.

He was also ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid community work.

Judge Mark Eades told him: "This was a case of blatant fraud on Mr Sadler.

"You regarded it as a con to get money to feather your nest in Tenerife.

"If I was Mr Sadler, I would feel extremely aggrieved." Judge Eades also told Seabridge that he was lucky he was coming before the courts now, at a time when sentences are less severe than previously.

Referring to current sentencing guidelines, he told the defendant: "If you had come up for sentence in 1999, the notion of getting a four week sentence would have been laughed at."





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