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The case for speed cameras destroyed in a flash

By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 29/09/2006)

A review of the Government's speed cameras policy was demanded yesterday after official statistics showed that only five per cent of crashes are caused by drivers breaking the speed limit.

Drivers who let their attention wander cause more than six times as many accidents.

Campaigners seized on the figures and demanded: "In that case, why are there so many cameras?"

Paul Smith, of Safe Speed, which has led the campaign, said the Government's case for continuing to install cameras had been destroyed.

"Even those statistics are flawed, because they could include a joy-rider who is going at 100mph and no camera will ever stop him," he said. "They are spinning like tops to justify the camera programme."

Motoring groups called for a broader approach to road safety and a revaluation of the £95 million camera project.

Edmund King, the chief executive of the RAC Foundation, said: "The figures suggest that all drivers need to concentrate more on the road rather than on their phones, passengers, music, food, drinks, navigation systems and the clutter of signs."

Chris Grayling, the Tories' transport spokesman, called for greater use of police patrol cars, rather than cameras, to deal with the menace of "rogue drivers".

There are more than 5,400 camera sites in England and Wales, which raised £113 million in fines in 2004-5.

The Department of Transport insisted that, while driver error accounted for 66 per cent of accidents, motorists going too fast for the conditions, irrespective of the speed limit, accounted for 29 per cent of crashes.

The analysis rekindled the speed camera argument and raised questions over whether the Government would meet the road safety targets it had set itself. The figures showed that the number of people killed on the roads last year fell to 3,201, one per cent fewer than in the previous year. The 28,954 people seriously injured represented a seven per cent fall on 2004. The Government has said it wants the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads to be reduced to 40 per cent of the 1994-8 average by 2010.

Its figures, based on information sent to the Government by police forces, show that the tally has dropped by 33 per cent.

But analysis of hospital data sent to the Department of Health painted a very different picture, suggesting that the drop in the number of deaths had been minimal.

A study of the figures in the British Medical Journal said the gap between police and hospital data indicated that the Government was unlikely to meet its casualty reduction targets.

"It is hard to ascertain why there should be such a wide divergence in these figures," said one of the authors of the article, Mike Gill, professor of public health at Surrey University.

"There are two main contenders for the discrepancy in my view. First, there is an unintended effect of drink-drive legislation.

"While one cannot avoid police intervention when there is a fatality, when somebody is hurt it may be tempting to shuffle people off to casualty and keep schtum.

"Also, dedicated traffic patrols have been reduced and therefore there is less likely to be police intervention in all cases."

However, Prof Gill was reluctant to suggest that the study undercut the case for speed cameras.

"We don't know what the figures would have been otherwise," he said.

Andrew Howard, of the AA Motoring Trust, supported the Government's analysis and the speed camera programme. "Human beings make mistakes," he said. "So the only thing that can be done is to mitigate their impact and that means slowing the car down."

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

And that has worked so well up until now...!?

Idiot.

Do "motoring trusts" have to say where thier money comes from?

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

I've just been thinking about Mr Howard of the AA's quote again.



What utter, ignorant tosh. Either Mr Howard is a simpleton, or he is saying that all other road safety efforts such as NCAP etc. are superfluous and we should just keep going slower and slower.

Complete bilge. This person should be pilloried for such nonsense.

I was thinking the same thing:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9619

Maybe that's another one for the Honours list.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

From: Dr L
Sent: 29 September 2006
To: 'trust@theaa.com'
Subject: Bring back the red flag again !!!!

For the urgent attention of;
Andrew Howard, The AA Motoring Trust, Fanum House,
Basing View, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 4EA

Tel: 01256 493 016, Email: trust@theaa.com, http://www.aatrust.com/

According to the Daily Telegraph today, Friday, 29 September 2006, it says “The case for speed cameras destroyed in a flash”, By David Millward, Transport Correspondent (Filed: 29/09/2006)

It continues “A review of the Government's speed cameras policy was demanded yesterday after official statistics showed that only five per cent of crashes are caused by drivers breaking the speed limit.”

see;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... peed29.xml

In this article it says, “ANDREW HOWARD, of the AA Motoring Trust, supported the Government's analysis and the speed camera programme. ‘Human beings make mistakes,’ he said. ‘So the only thing that can be done is to mitigate their impact and that means slowing the car down’ ”

Well of course if cars only travelled at 3mph, the speed of a man walking in front of a car with a red flag, then it would no doubt reduce the casualties on our roads, apart from people with red flags being run over, but it would have a dreadful effect on our ability to move around efficiently.

It was always my understanding that the AA was there to support the rights and needs of motorists and if you now represent the attitude of the AA then I will seriously now reconsider my membership of that organisation, particularly given its cost.

If I may suggest, what you should be giving your attention and support to is how to see that motorists get the help and support they need to achieve safer driving and avoid making mistakes when travelling at a reasonable and sensible speed for the prevailing conditions.

It is now quite clear that speeding is not anything like the significant contributor to road casualties that the police and government propaganda have been making out. The consequence of which has been to focus attention on the wrong issue, with speed cameras and all the misery they cause, rather than on the other 95% of the causes of road casualties.

As everyone very well knows, the police and Casualty Reduction Partnerships have mostly been using speed cameras as a scam to get money from perfectly safe motorists going about their business as lawfully as they can. They have then been using warped and distorted data and analysis to try to justify their claims and their existence. I have now complained to the Advertising Standard Authority about my local Casualty Reduction Partnership who have been making quite outrageous and deceitful claims about the year on year reduction in road casualties, by a factor of three, which even their own dubious data does not support.

It is about time you recognised where your responsibilities are, which is to help stop the government war against motorists and to support the motorist in getting more sensible road safety policies introduced which focus on the more important issues and stops the dogma of the speed cameras.

Dr L

Well done Dr L !!

I'm going to do likewise.

Good !!!

I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

We should also all now write to Steve Ladyman and our MPs to say it is about time the stupidity of the speed camera dogma was ended. It is about time Steve Ladyman stood down for someone with more sensible road policing policies.

I wrote a letter to my MP following the BMJ articla and received a very bland response from Ladyman.

Will send this later today, if anyone has any comments or suggestions please fell free to make them:


Dear MP,

An answer (for what it was worth) did eventually arrive but it did nothing to address the points raised. I presume you would have received a copy.

Given the news of the last couple of days where it has been clearly shown that the whole speed camera policy is fundamentally flawed I would ask again that Jessica would please revisit this issue on my behalf and I would hope this time to receive a substantive reply as to why this policy based on clearly flawed science and statistics is allowed to continue.

It comes to something when even BRAKE the well known anti-speeding campaign group start issuing statements that make no mention of speeding but say:


"Brake implores drivers to give their full attention to the road."


With so many drivers spending a disproportionate amount of time analysing their speedometer, watching out for yellow boxes hidden behind shrubbery and looking for vans on overpasses up to a kilometer away it is hardly surprising to hear that driver inattention is the biggest cause of accidents on our roads.

It is time to get back to education of all road users and away from the failed speed camera policy started in the early 1990’s. To people have died as a result of this and it must stop now.

It was also with sadness that I noted the rise in cyclist’s deaths. With the terrible accident that cost five lives in one incident near Abergele in January, it is worth raising the point that if the officers who attended the earlier accident had had road safety at the forefront of there mind they would have at the very least put up signs warning of the black ice if not closed the road, those 5 lives would not have been lost.

It will be much harder to brush this under the carpet with such a huge amount of adverse press coverage this time around.

Interestingly one Chief Constable knew that the 33% figure was a lie and was not scared to stand up and state it:


Chief Constable of Durham, Paul Garvin. The Daily Telegraph, 7th December 2003 wrote:

“I actually believe in casualty reduction and trying to make the roads safer but, having looked at the accident statistics in this area, we find that if you break down the 1,900 collisions we have each year only three per cent involve cars that are exceeding the speed limit. Just 60 accidents per year involve vehicles exceeding the speed limit.”

“You then need to look at causes of these 60 accidents. Speed may be a factor in the background but the actual cause of the accident invariably is drink-driving or drug-driving. Drug-taking is becoming more of a problem. In 40 per cent of fatal road accidents in this area one or more of the people involved have drugs in their system.”

His views have been entirely vindicated by this years figures as far as the percentages are concerned. Of course it is obvious that the manipulated figures the police are producing to allow them to meet the government set targets for the total number of accidents can no longer by relied upon.

I look forward to hearing from you and Jessica in the near future.

I was a bit worried at the implication of one or two bits of your letter, particularly the (unintentional I'm sure) pointing of the finger at the first-on-scene policeman at the bike crash. I took the opportunity to make a quick few OPNs while I was at it. Remember though it is your letter. Feel free to ignore any or all of my suggestions.



*OPN = Obligatory Pedantic Nitpick/s/ing.

Nice touch Roger, will get it sent