Safe Speed Forums

City takes top 3 speeding roads in county
By Hugh Morris Thursday, July 21, 2011 - 10:07 AM

IF YOU don’t want to get caught speeding, stay out of Cambridge city.

Hills RoadHills Road

The top three roads in the county for the number of people caught speeding last year are all in Cambridge and amount to a staggering 4,644 drivers.

Victoria Avenue, which runs alongside Midsummer Common, leads the way with 1,850 people clocked speeding between April 2010 and April this year, followed closely by Barnwell Road to the east of the city with 1,542 people caught, then the long Hills Road with 1,252 drivers.
Despite 53 fixed cameras and two mobile enforcement units across Cambridgeshire, the city still notched up the most fines for speeding this year.

Last year, too, Cambridge roads Elizabeth Way, Milton Road and Victoria Avenue were the top three in the county where the most number of drivers were clocked by speed cameras.

Clinton Hale is the manager of the county’s Safety Camera Unit. He said: “It is more about the driver not being able to read the road.
“If the road is straight and wide they think they can just blast down it. The environment could suggest to the driver the speed limit is higher than 30.
“They might have been driving for 50 years and forgotten how to read a road.”
He said, because of this, most speeding offences are simple mistakes.
For example, Barnwell Road used to have a 40mph limit but is now 30mph which may be a reason behind so many offences.
Mr Hale said people might use Barnwell Road as a ‘rat run’ to escape some of the traffic of Cambridge’s ring road.

The number of people caught speeding across the county has risen 12.1 per cent from 2009-10 to 33,054 which gives a bleak picture of offences across the county.
“We want to bring people’s speed down - we can’t stop collisions and injuries but we can stop people being killed if they drive slower,” said Mr Hale.
He said continuous education must be provided to make sure drivers are aware of the consequences of speeding. That was one of the reasons why drivers were now being given the option of a fine or going on a speed awareness course.
“There may well be technical advancements in the future which will slow cars down ahead of cameras but what it comes down to is people realising that a few miles per hour could save a child’s life,” he said.

Educating drivers is a much-used method when it comes to speeding but Mr Hale lamented people still do not see speeding as a real crime.

Around the county volunteer Speedwatches are being set up to prevent speeding on individual streets. Brunswick and North Kite residents’ association was the first in Cambridge.

Chairman John Lawton said: “We have seen rather too many drivers who seem to be unaware that the speed limit is 20mph not 30mph in this road.”

Mr Lawton said he is in contact with other residents’ associations in the city with a view to rolling out Community Speedwatch to other areas of Cambridge.

Clinton Hale is the manager of the county’s Safety Camera Unit. He said: “It is more about the driver not being able to read the road.
“If the road is straight and wide they think they can just blast down it. The environment could suggest to the driver the speed limit is higher than 30.
“They might have been driving for 50 years and forgotten how to read a road.”
He said, because of this, most speeding offences are simple mistakes.
For example, Barnwell Road used to have a 40mph limit but is now 30mph which may be a reason behind so many offences.

“If the road is straight and wide they think they can just blast down it. The environment could suggest to the driver the speed limit is higher than 30.
“They might have been driving for 50 years and forgotten how to read a road.”

About as likely as a man from mars, winning the lootery in UK tonight.