Well the April figures are out.... and what an appalling tale they tell!!
Of course it's wrong to take a few statistics out of context and extrapolate that to the whole year - as Steve Callaghan found out to his dismay in 2004!
Dear All
I am the Safety CAmera Manager for Cumbria and have recently posted this on my Website Discussion Forum:
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Well I never.
Just done a quick Calculation and fatals are down 26% for the first third of the year compared with 2003. Isn't that marvellous.
And Serious Injuries down 44% compared to 2003
KSI's down 42% compared to 2003
For once I have to agree with our friend Mr Smith, KSI's, in particular SI's are doing strange things, but this sort of strange I can handle!
Perhaps I better call the BBC
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Now I have heard a lot of nonsense spoken about how speed cameras are making the situation regarding accidents worse. Mainly from folk who are sitting at their keyboard and typing whimsical ideas about safety om the road. Well up in Cumbria the major (even step)downward change in killed and serious injuries has occured just after the safety camera partnership started to operate speed cameras in the safety system.
This has been a partnership with the Council, The Highways Agency, The Magistrates Courts Service and Cumbria Constabulary.
The speed enforcement function is very much a pertnership between the Police and the Camera Team, supported by our other partners.
We are open and we welcome feedback and discourse with the public.
Every one of our detractors has been issued with a speeding ticket.
There is a mixture of those with and without tickets among our supporters.
We are looking to be making quite a difference here in Cumbria and it proves those postulating deskbound non-practitioners are just not right. I'm willing to bet most have speeding tickets.
Check out our figures on www.cumbriasafetycameras.org they look nothing like what has been proposed by your man from the RAC desk.
Happy and Safe Motoring to all
SteveC "
By Steve Callaghan in South Lakeland - on 22 May 2004 at 19:19