Lawyer wins against Section Control: Is the system illegal?

Lawyer wins against Section Control: Is the system illegal?

An explosive legal dispute is unfolding around speed measurements on the southern motorway in Austria. A committed Graz lawyer fought against a supposedly unjustified fine that he received due to an incorrect section control measurement. This technology measures the average speed of vehicles over specified sections. But the lawyer was convinced that the measuring system was installed in an improper location, which brought into question millions of dollars in unjustified penalties oe24.at reported. The lawyer was proven right before the Lower Austria Administrative Court and pointed out possible fundamental deficiencies in the setup of the measuring stations.

Data protection and legal challenges in Germany

On the other side of the border, the Section Control system in Germany is viewed critically. In Lower Saxony, the system, which had been in operation since 2018, was shut down due to new data protection requirements. The police reported that a technical retrofit would have been necessary, but the manufacturer Jenoptik will not carry out this. The team of ADAC points out that Section Control is not only used for speed control, but also for recording and registering license plates. If the speed limit is exceeded, an image of the driver is automatically created, similar to conventional speed camera systems.

Although the technology delivered positive results in terms of road safety in Lower Saxony, its use was controversial. The data was only stored temporarily and deleted immediately if no speeding violation was detected in order to take data protection requirements into account. In Austria, however, Section Control has been able to achieve successful results for many years, as the number of road deaths on controlled routes has been reduced by up to 50 percent - an indication of the effectiveness of the system, which is, however, always the subject of legal discussions.