Over the last couple of years, the UK´s much hated speed cameras have come under attack by ´vigilante´ groups across the UK. Springing up in most towns and cities, the cameras are widely considered to be less of a deterrent to speeding, and more a way to line the pockets of local councils and the government.

In one of his newspaper columns in February, 2006, Jeremy Clarkson suggested that speed cameras might be “filled … with insulating foam that sets rock hard.”

And while it looks more like shaving foam than insulating foam, these photographs, taken by Paul Munnings on Ipswich Road just off the A12 into Colchester, shows that someone has obviously taken him seriously. The reasons for the attack are as yet unknown, though suspicion will point the finger at someone who has recently been ´done´ by the camera.

Although critics will be keen to point the finger in Mr Clarkson´s direction, he can hardly be held accountable - it´s not a new phenomenon after all, and this is unlikely to be the last we hear of ´foaming´ incidents. Back in 2003, a group of motorists called Motorists against Detection (MAD), claimed responsibility for vandalising around six speed cameras, costing around £100,000 to repair.

There were also reports of attacks on speed cameras in Leeds, where vandals turned the cameras around so they pointed into resident´s homes, and a gang in Shropshire attacked a camera with a power saw. Spreading north of the border, an angry motorist attacked a speed camera in Scotland, by pouring petrol on it and setting it on fire, in what was thought to be a ´revenge attack´.

However, no-one has really come close yet to the Swiss driver who attacked a Gatso camera last year with a pick-axe after it snapped him doing 50mph in a 30 zone. After smashing it off its stand, he then ran it over, drove up a mountain in the Swiss Alps and threw it off the top of a cliff - destroying the evidence as well as the camera.