I am wondering exactly how the photo radar is able to catch motorcycles riders if they usually take a picture of the front of your bike? I'm sure they could easily in some cases take a picture of both sides of you also, but some are truly only forward facing. Is this some kind of loophole? Not that I have picked up any tickets here in Swiss driving, just wondering since I spent a lot of time on the scooter as of late.
The vast majority of the ones on La Côte get you from behind. I can only think of two that get you from the front. They are on the A1/A9 interchange at Lausanne, and I’m not certain those are ever activated as they are so obvious.
Most if the ones here are forward facing only so wouldn’t be able to catch motorcyclists if they were speeding.
There is a very lucrative one on the slip road to join the A5 which copped 27000 drivers and netted the canton over 2 million francs in less than a year.
The one in Neuchatel (it is btw a 40 km/h stretch !) has a camera which films to the back. It’s a Gatso T-Series in a Bredar single housing with a Mini-Slave-Cam to the back.
Fast motorcycles that are speeding are a negligible amount of vehicles, so it makes sense they don't necessarily spend a lot of money to change the radars which only take front-facing pictures. The new ones take both front and back however. They catch them with laser pistols on mountain passes to compensate.
The A1 motorway cameras are mounted in pairs, facing both directions. The flashes you see are nabbing people travelling in the opposite direction. If you look carefully at the road surface you can see where the sensors are buried, just a few meters after the camera.
I didn’t actually say that that specific one was forward facing only just that it was very lucrative. That’s one that isn’t but most of the others here are forward facing only.
I know it very well as I drive past it several times a day and have seen it flash multiple times.
We also witnessed scores of vehicles up the embankment and embedded in the crash barrier before the reduced the limit and installed the camera.
A lot of our son’s mates ride motorcycles and they know very well the cameras and what sort they are.
There is a mix, but many of the newer ones with lidar (laser) sensors (a small rounded dark-glass sensor usually located at about hip level) make two photos on a approach and two on depart.
I guess the police trade off the detection of motor cycles for the positive ID of 4-wheel vehicle drivers.