When planning a road trip abroad, one aspect that can often catch drivers by surprise is the presence of traffic enforcement cameras. These cameras, designed to enhance road safety by monitoring speed limits and traffic signals, are more prevalent in some countries than others.
DiscoverCars.com has created a ranking of the countries with the most traffic enforcement cameras, resulting in a list of 20 locations around the world, measuring both the number of speed cameras and the number of red light cameras.
The country with the highest number of traffic enforcement cameras was Brazil, with 1170 red light cameras and 14210 speed cameras. Brazil’s total of 15,380 is over 1000 more than any other country on the list.
Brazil has over a million miles of roads, with plenty of the roads here being unpaved, making road safety more important than ever as these surfaces can be difficult to drive on.
Italy came in second place on the ranking, with 2321 cameras tracking drivers’ behaviour at traffic lights, and 8104 speed cameras adding up to a total of 10425.
The fine for speeding rises based on how far above the speed limit a driver was going – and visitors are not exempt from penalties, as they can be banned from driving in Italy.
Next, the United States has 3974 red light cameras and 4001 measuring their speed, coming to a total of 7975. As such a massive country, it makes sense that you will see differences in speed limits and other traffic regulations across different states.
The United Kingdom is the country with the fourth-highest number of traffic enforcement cameras. It has 811 red light cameras and 4004 speed cameras: a total of 4815. Speeding is the most common traffic offense committed in the UK.
In fifth place, Germany has 408 red light cameras, and, like the UK, has a much higher number of speed cameras at 3869. This adds up to 4277 traffic cameras.
While 70% of the country’s famous Autobahns do not have a speed limit, traffic regulations are still strict here, to keep road users safe.
There are 720 red light cameras in France compared to 2969 speed cameras, giving a total of 3689. France uses variable speed limits that are based on the weather: in heavy fog, the speed limit is always 31 mph regardless of the type of road.
The UAE has 482 cameras to detect drivers running red lights and 2109 speed cameras, for a total of 2591 traffic enforcement devices. The UAE has some of the highest speed limits in the world, with drivers able to go as fast as 99 mph on the Abu Dhabi-Al Ain highway.
Interestingly Sweden does not use red light cameras, so the total of 2487 cameras only includes those that monitor speed.
In 2011, the city of Stockholm temporarily experimented with a fun scheme to limit speeding – a speed camera was introduced that fined everyone going above the speed limit and entered all those going below the limit into a lottery to win the amount raised by the fine!
Spain has 377 red light cameras, compared to 1598 speed cameras, giving a total of 1975. In Spain, some traffic lights can detect speeding, and will respond by automatically shifting to a red light, slowing down any speeding drivers without issuing a fine straight away.
Lastly in the top 10, Turkey has 70 red light cameras and 1427 speed cameras, coming to a total of 1497.
In 2022, some of Turkey’s highways increased the speed limit to 87 mph, the highest limit in the country – previously, the fastest you could drive had been 75 mph.
Aleksandrs Buraks, Head of Growth at DiscoverCars.com, said, “We were very interested to see the range of countries in these results. While larger countries with higher populations are in many cases the locations with the most cameras monitoring drivers, it was a little surprising to see smaller countries in the top 20 as well. For example the United Kingdom ranked as the country with the fourth highest number of speed cameras and red light cameras – only one place behind the United States which is about 40 times its size!
“Another feature of the results that we noticed was most countries have more speed cameras than red light cameras, but others buck the trend. Australia has 335 red light cameras compared to 264 devices to check drivers’ speed. However, Canada has an even more extreme result, with 774 red light cameras and 279 speed cameras. We wonder if some of those red light cameras might be pulling double duty, checking speed or other aspects of drivers’ behaviour on the roads as well.”
