A turret radar installed Thursday February 10 at the exit of Lacarre in the town of Bustince-Iriberry, was simply sawed in two during the night of Sunday February 13 to Monday February 14. The surveillance object supposed to flash vehicles above 80 km/h only lived three days.
32,000 turret radar
From the top of its four meters, the new generation radar could analyze dozens of vehicles at the same time, detect those who call while driving or who are not wearing their seat belts. Located just behind a hill, the camera since the beginning of the week scans the sky, its head in the mud. An object that costs around 32,000 euros to the State.
Residents on site claim to have seen nothing, heard nothing. No regrets for a radar located behind a hill which aroused the incomprehension even the mistrust of many regulars of the D933, qualifying the object of “money pump”. Even if “When you have children or dogs, it’s quite useful to calm the ardor of some.”
A few hundred meters further on, there is another radar, but educational, which “works much less well” to slow down speeds, admits the mayor of Lacarre. A turret radar at the entrance to the town, it would be very useful so many people “drive fast”, well above 50km/h regret Yvan and Christine, who worry every morning when their schoolchildren walk along the departmental road in the grass to go catch the bus, a few meters from the trucks that go straight ahead.
In Bustince-Iriberry, where the radar was cut, Mayor Henry Inchauspesaw in the distance from his home the radar settling, then being deprived of a head on Monday February 14. “Of course it made the installation of the radar talk. People asked me questions. Why does it appeal? Because once again, it is the people who go to work who are going to be trapped having to hand over the wallet.”
The chosen one never understood why the prefecture installed the turret radar at this precise location. “I’ve been mayor for 23-24 years. I don’t remember seeing any accidents there.”
The gendarmerie inspected the damage on Tuesday February 15. Contacted, the Pyrénées-Atlantiques prefecture was unable to answer our questions at the time of writing this article. We therefore do not know if this radar was functional or if it was a decoy, like one out of four turret radars installed on French territory.