Phil’s Diary - [Blog @ http://www.philsdiary.net/]
Top Gear tonight as well as all the usual stuff touched on speed cameras. Their main point is that while the number of people caught speeding has increased (250,000 in 1997 to over a million in 2001), the number of road deaths has stayed constant (roughly 3000 per year, I think). So there is a big problem there. Obviously the cameras aren’t reducing the number of road-deaths. But are they stopping the numbers increasing?
Top Gear also pointed out that of 5000 speed cameras in use, only 14 are sited on the 150miles of most dangerous road in the UK. 10 roads were recently identified as being the most dangerous, with the highest number of accidents. Yet very few cameras are placed on those roads.
They also reiterated a point I made a long time ago, that although the cameras measure they don’t measure safety. That you can drive quite happily through one drugged up, unlicensed in a car that’s falling apart, paying no attention while talking on your mobile phone. And not be caught.
Finally they mentioned some research carried out by the Transport Research Laboratory. That found that only 7% of accidents are caused by excess speed. Not the 33% claimed by the government. Here’s some details of that from the ABD.
All in all they were pretty much saying the same as I have, that they’re raking in something like £75million a year from speed fines, that they have something they can point at and say “we’re reducing road deaths, we’re proactive”, and ignoring all sorts of glaring problems.
If you have a browse around the ABD site you’ll see lots of examples of these sorts of points. The ABD are pretty much in extreme opposition to most of the polices speed policies.
Here’s an article from The Times, which covers quite a few aspects, including the funding and organisational issues.
Posted by Phil on November 23, 2003 10:27 PM | Categories: Thoughts
Maybe the cameras in Belgium a better (yes we have them too) but here the number of accidents has gone down (just a litle bit).
Most cameras here are placed at trafic lights or dangerous corners, with hardly any on straight roads.
Posted by: sjon at November 24, 2003 2:22 PM