Brussels' first average speed camera now operational

Watch your speed if you're driving from Brussels Airport or Nato into the city centre - the region's first average speed camera has just been activated on Boulevard Leopold III.

The system measures a vehicle's speed over a long stretch of road instead of at a fixed point, by recording the time taken to travel from the first speed camera to the second.

Drivers heading towards Meiser from Nato are measured over a distance of 663m. Heading away from the city, the cameras are placed 883m apart.

The limit on Boulevard Leopold III is 50kph, but speeding is frequent as the road is a dual carriageway connected to the Brussels ring. One driver was recently clocked at 161kph.

The new cameras were inaugurated on Friday at a ceremony attended by the Brussels secretary of state for road safety Bianca Debaets and the mayors of Schaerbeek and Evere.

"This type of speed camera can improve road safety and reduce noise," Debaets said. More average speed cameras are coming to Brussels - the next will be in the Stéphanie tunnel.