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• Smile for the Camera: Drivers in Yerevan to be recorded for violations

With all this stuff readily welcome, I wonder whose the Security Dream company is??? Foreign investment??? Where from??? \ Anynone knows the answers?...

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Months ago the traffic police started the installation process of cameras that would help to watch and regulate road traffic in Yerevan – a project implemented with the assistance of Security Dream company founded in June, 2011, with which the police has a 25-year contract.

Chief of traffic police Arsen Galstyan told ArmeniaNow in an interview that the pilot stage of the project has been completed and 15 speed cameras have been installed in the avenues of Yerevan (Myasnikyan, Tbilisyan, Arshakunyats, Atcharyan, Sevan, etc ) to track violations, and 10 surveillance cameras (CCTV cameras) at ten crossroads of the capital (Komitas-Vagharsyan, Baghramyan-Proshyan, Mashtots-Amiryan, Khanjyan-Tigran Mets, etc.). Starting January 15 a center for registering the violations will open in the administrative building of the traffic police.

According to the chief of traffic police, this system is first of all in the interest of drivers, and will also cut down traffic police officer-driver communication as a corruption preventive measure.

“I am convinced that the system will have its positive effect in decreasing the number of road accidents. This is not so much punitive, but more of a preventive measure. Drivers aware of the device that will record their violation, will be more cautious and will refrain from break traffic rules,” says Galstyan, adding that warning signs will be placed to point to the cameras.

Director of Security Dream company Vahagn Aghanikyan told ArmeniaNow that the violation registry center will have a professionally trained staff.

Screens installed in the center receive the information from all cameras, inspectors watching these special CCTV screens will spot and identify violations, report it to police officers and, correspondingly, a protocol will be drawn up.

“The cameras spot vehicles on a 100-meter distance. In case of violation we will have a 40-sec-long video footage – 20 seconds before and 20 after the violation, as well as photos (screenshots), which become material evidence,” says Aghanikyan.

A fine will be mailed to the trespasser, and payment will be done by transfer on the bank account specified in the notice.

The head of Security Dream says that the company is obliged by contract to make 9.8 euro million investment in 2011-2017 to develop the system.

Seventy percent of the money from fines will go to Security Dream, a local company with foreign investments, until the investment is reimbursed, and then a new contract will be signed with new terms, says Aghanikyan adding that during the six years of the current contract, the system will be enhanced and will have a total of 185 speed cameras in the streets of Yerevan and cross-country highways, as well as surveillance cameras at 90 crossroads.

Eduard Hovhannisyan, in charge of Achilles center for protection of drivers’ rights NGO, although welcoming the introduction of the system, believes that certain controversies in the law might cause inconveniences.

“Although in this case it will be not the traffic police officer’s verbal assertion that a violation has occurred, but a recorded evidence proving it, a driver might disagree with that proof because there are certain subtleties in the law, such as 'if the driver cannot break before the line, s/he can cross it' and points like this, in which cases the 'cannot' part can be told only by the driver, so this is already an issue for potential controversy,” Hovhannisyan told ArmeniaNow.

Although the cameras are not on yet, the mere presence of them seems to be inconveniencing drivers even at this point.

“This is the last thing we needed. We were driving with no worries minding our own business. And, now what? What if my violation was conditioned by another bad driver’s actions, but the camera did not register that, and as a result I would be the one responsible for that violation,” says 56-year-old driver David Asatryan.