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£1.3m spent on speed cameras on Britain’s most dangerous road ... but NO drivers have been caught

By Eugene Henderson - Last updated at 1:24 PM on 4th March 2011

A road safety body's failure to read a map means no speeding drivers have been caught on the UK's deadliest road despite £1.3million of taxpayers' money being spent.

In a bid to cut the number of fatal motorbike crashes road on the notoriously windy 'Cat and Fiddle' road between Cheshire and Derbyshire, safety chiefs came up with a scheme to place cameras along the route to make sure drivers' average speeds remained within the 50mph limit.

But despite the huge amount of money spent on the project, catching drivers breaking the law has proved impossible as safety chiefs forgot that motorists can avoid the hi-tech camera system by moving to a side road and and rejoining the Cat and Fiddle about a mile further down the road.
Britain's deadliest road: Speed cameras on the 'Cat and Fiddle Road' between Cheshire and Derbyshire have failed to catch a single driver breaking the law despite £1.3m of taxpayers' money being spent

Britain's deadliest road: Speed cameras on the 'Cat and Fiddle Road' between Cheshire and Derbyshire have failed to catch a single driver breaking the law despite £1.3m of taxpayers' money being spent
Now it has emerged that with cash for the scheme in danger of being scrapped, not a single motorist has been prosecuted for speeding on a stretch of road that last July was again named as the UK's most deadly route.

The Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership only has enough money to keep it going until the end of this month after Cheshire East Council withdrew £600,000 of funding.
The A537 was named the most dangerous road in Britain by the Road Safety Foundation, with 34 fatal or serious crashes between 2006 and 2008.

The bill for the cameras is £800,000 but road safety measure including reducing the speed limit, installing high-friction surfacing, barriers and signs, widening the carriageway, and using mobile speed cameras means £500,000 had already been spent on the route.

However, motorists can avoid detection by switching onto 60mph limit Ankers Lane and rejoining the A537 further down the road.
Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership, who installed the system, planned to fix the problem before Christmas by installing an eighth camera and moving another.
But the move was shelved due to bad weather and the system is still being tested.

A spokesman for the road safety partnership said: 'We've needed to have a radical rethink on road safety spending across the partnership. We have set up a working group to discuss a way forward which will ensure that road safety continues to be a priority.

Deterrent? A speed camera system on the A537 has been beset by problems
‘Speed enforcement, including the use of speed cameras, will still be a part of our work.’

Over the last three years fatal and serious collisions on the road have risen by 127 per cent and its notoriety attracts bikers from across the country.Police records show most of the casualties are motorcyclists.
Last year a report by the Road Safety Foundation again named the A537 as most dangerous road in England, showing it is still a killer despite a host of speed reduction measures already in place while remaining a ‘must drive’ draw for bikers.

The new camera system was announced in January 2009 and installation began in February last year, but it soon ran into problems.
Despite claiming the row over the short cut was a ‘red herring’ road safety bosses were constantly unable to come up with a date when the troubled system would be up and running.

Last year Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership manager Lee Murphy admitted the flaw and said they were looking at it 'as an issue for us' and claimed ‘a couple of calculations needed to be made’.
But he did a U-turn and claimed the delays were nothing to do with any mistakes planners had made and said he could not disclose how the system would work for ‘operational reasons’.
‘The issue of the short cut was a red herring, there have been a number of factors involved in putting the start date back,’ he said.
A Cheshire East Council spokesman said: ‘The Cheshire Safer Roads partnership, in its current form, will end on March 31.
‘However, the safety of residents and visitors on the roads throughout the area remains a priority for all the partners.
‘As we move into the future, speed cameras will operate and be enforced across Cheshire East, including those on the Cat and Fiddle, and the partners will continue to work together to provide safer roads for everyone.’

Anthony Middleton, chairman of the Potteries-based Star Bikers group, said: ‘The A537 is a dangerous road. But you can understand bikers wanting to get an open run and choosing to avoid the cameras.
‘Bikers who use the road regularly are obviously aware of the cameras. At the same time it is not only about the safety of the bikers, it's also about the safety of other road users.’