Safe Speed Forums

Safe Speed: Essential penalty points system 'broken' by speed camera madness - - Wednesday, 16 May 2007 12:09

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In news today from Swinton Insurance, driving licence points will no longer automatically contribute towards insurance premium calculation.

The Swinton PR includes: "Pointed drivers are no longer automatically penalised at Swinton as a result of the increase in the number of motorists now saddled with penalty points. And the move reflects a change in attitude by the insurance industry as the estimated number of pointed motorists tops 6 million."

Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, said: "Insurance companies are in the business of calculating risk to set their premiums. This announcement is all the proof we need to know that driving licence points no longer indicate risky drivers. The vast majority of licence points are for speeding offences detected by camera. Department for Transport's needless and ineffective obsession with speed cameras has therefore seriously damaged the penalty points system."

"Damage to the penalty points system is just one negative side effect of the speed camera programme. Safe Speed recently published a report listing 40 negative side effects."

"Clearly the Swinton announcement means that we are giving out fines and points to drivers at random. If we gave fines only to risky drivers then the risk would be clear in insurance company's crash statistics.

"The penalty points system has been of very significant importance to road safety."

"It just goes to prove that speed camera fines are pointless."