Safe Speed Forums

Speed limit cut will criminalise drivers I warn police chiefs
By Jason Lewis
WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT

SENIOR police officers are accusing the Government of imposing unfair lower national speed limits that will criminalise 600,000 more drivers every year. And they warn that lowering limits will most likely be seen as a money-making measure that will dramatically add to the two mfflion drivers already caught by speed cameras every year.

Speed limits on all A and B roads are being reviewed on Govern ment orders and lower speed limits are already being rolled out across the country.

But internal Whitehall docu ments obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal most police forces are opposed to the new limits.

The row comes after research showed only one in 20 road acci dents was caused by speeding.

The latest controversy centres on the Department For Trans port’s order that local authorities abandon the formula on which limitsare based — the top speed at which most responsible drivers would drive on a particular road.

Instead, the Government has told the authorities and speed- camera partnerships to analyse the average speed of all drivers to set new, usually lower, limits.

But according to DFT consultation documents, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) warned last year that the new system provided ‘a false picture’ and would ‘incur a built-in speed ing problem — giving police an impossible task’.

And the Police Federation said it would ‘lead to a lowering of limits which may not be fair and propor tionate for the road in question’.

South Yorkshire Police said it would ‘put 35 per cent more drivers into the speeding category and criminalise them’, and warned that it ‘raises the issue of limits used to raise revenue’.

Other forces said the ‘pressure on police to enforce will increase’ and that using average speeds did not ‘reflect the driving behaviour of the majority of drivers’.

The Metropolitan Police was one of the few forces to support the move. It said average speeds were ‘easier to understand’.

But last night a DFT spokesman denied police views had not been taken into account and a spokes man for ACPO confirmed it had
been party to the decision to send out the new instructions.

Chris Grayling, the Conservative transport spokesman, said: ‘The Government should be concen trating on the two million drivers without insurance, nearly a million unregistered cars on the road and cases of rogue drivers causing mayhem.

‘To effectively browbeat the police into accepting changes they are saying they don’t think will work or are right shows the Government has its priorities completely wrong.’

Meanwhile, new figures show that safety camera partnerships, which oversee local speed-camera networks, are now costing £95 mil lion a year to run.

Cash spent on wages, publicity, staff T-shirts. and even, in Essex, on a £7,500 plasma television, meant that, despite a high num ber of motorists being fined, some partnerships are barely breaking even.

•Last week we mistakenly reported that Cambridgeshire Constabulary was among forces using civilians to operate mobile speed cameras. In fact Cam bridgeshire continues to use police officers only. We apologise for the error.

Apparently in today's Mail on Sunday (p57 I believe) is an article saying that new proposed speed limit cuts will criminalise drivers in their hundreds of thousands - according to Police.

That's fine - the more drivers they criminalise, the sooner there will be a proper backlash against this...

Apparently the Met support it because average speeds "are easier to understand."

Call me cynical but if the people in charge of analysing speeds and setting limits are not capable of understanding the 85th perentile rule, then perhaps we should replace them with people who can?

Will the speed measuring equipment be obvious to motorists? If so we can expect the great majority of motorists mistake the equipment for a speed trap, panic brake and drive significantly below the speed limit as indicated by their over-reading speedo.

In what conditions will they measure the average driving speed for a road? Will the current limit for that road remain or will they derestrict it? (the latter is how the 85th percentile formula works)

To be honest Smeggy I think they’ve already been preparing for this, around where I live they’ve had those two black rubber wires crossing the roads everywhere, I take it that’s what they where using them for (I could be wrong mind you).

Approaching a roundabout? Back to NSL!