Dashcam

Police officers have adopted new technology by placing a brownie camera on the dashboard of a Triumph Herald police car. This is not quite capturing that Kodak moment but it illustrates a rise in the use of technology and in one click hopes to reduce traffic offences. Introduced in 1900 the first Kodak Brownie was a jute-board box and by the sixties it was owned by many. The Brownie series continued into the 1980s and remains the hardware icon of the popular happy snappy.

The Brownie camera was conceived and named after its inventor Frank A. Brownell who worked for Eastman-Kodak. The idea of speed limits came from the 1865 Locomotive Act but the 1930 Road Traffic Act was aimed more at the standard of driving. By the 1934 Transport Act speed limits were introduced for road safety along with road use regulation. Automated enforcement for police forces now includes speed cameras, average speed cameras, red-light enforcement, car dash-mounted automatic number plate recognition or ANPR and lead to many a FPN or fixed penalty notice. FPNs came from the 1960 Road Traffic and Road Improvements Act. Enforcement technology now faces the new challenge of the driverless car.