Spain has announced its intention to install 500 speed cameras throughout the country to add to the citations already issued by 200 marked and 130 unmarked police cars. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party government, elected with Al-Qaeda's Madrid bombings in 2004, will spend 55 million euros (US $67 million) to implement the plan.

A test in July showed that just 37 cameras could easily make up the initial investment in less than a month. Early results yielded 109,000 potential citations that would have brought in between 10 and 65 million euros (US $12 and $81 million) in revenue. Fines run between 92 and 602 euros (US $113 and $743), with a possible three month license suspension. Traditionally, drivers pulled over in Spain are made to pay police on the spot.

"We're going to have to take away thousands and thousands of driver licenses,'' Pere Navarro, director of Spain's traffic department, said at a televised press conference in Madrid last week.