Important! Hungarian police to utilise their secret weapon on motorways

Nagykapornak, Hungary. Photo: MTI

Drivers will have to be a little more careful from next year on as there will be more undercover supervisions on motorways. Since most drivers tend to drive more safely and more carefully when police see them, truck drivers can also expect more frequent checks done by unmarked police cars, apart from the already reported plans of using drones to detect violations.

At the end of last year, the police implemented a new technique to use unmarked cars to supervise, record and fine drivers. As autonavigator.hu previously reported, apart from the already well-known police cars, they worked with unmarked trucks equipped with cameras for the first time in December. The method proved to be so successful that they will integrate it into their system from next year.

The aforementioned first inspection on the motorway M5 can be regarded as their test run.

Ten policemen took part in the operation. One of them was dressed as a civilian sitting next to the truck driver, operating a camera and staying in contact with the others through a radio connection.

The rest of the team was in the police cars from which 5 were traditional ones and one unmarked, but equipped with distinguishing signs.

They started the supervision on the motorway M5 in Bács-Kiskun county in the direction of Szeged. On the appointed section of the road, there are four resting places where four police cars equipped with a lightbar had parked. The truck was driving on the motorway, and when the police officer dressed as a civilian saw a breach of the highway code, he alerted his colleague waiting in the regular-looking service car through a radio connection. Until further alert, this car was following 300-400 metres behind the unmarked truck. Two officers were sitting in this car, one driving and the other one operating the traffic enforcement camera. After taking another shot of the vehicle breaching a rule of the road, he was accompanied to the nearest parking space where he was given to the officers dressed in uniforms. Another recording was taken of the law breacher from the unmarked truck as well, which was then given to the officer in a uniform to take further action based on this information. The last police car with three police officers in it joined the inspection to help the documentation process.

Then the team turned around and continued their work on the other side of the road in the direction of Budapest. They parked their four cars in the resting spaces and inspected by following the same method. The undercover inspection lasted one and a half hours, not counting the orientation and the reports afterwards. 3 vehicles were stopped due to violating a rule. They were all foreigners, two of them from Romania and one from Bulgaria.

These violations are worth a 5000-50,000 forints (14-137 euros) fine if paid on the spot, all three of them were charged 30,000 forints (82euros) which they all paid by credit card through the POS system right on the site.

At the time of the operation, there was little traffic on that section of the motorway, so the three inspections done in one and a half hours is a standard number. Based on this rapid test, the undercover truck was successful, so starting from January they will implement it twice a month for a minimum of 4 hours, as they will continue using the unmarked civilian-like police cars, as well.