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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... _1,00.html
Speed camera blitz ahead
By Ben Webster
Thousands more likely to be installed if the stringent rules governing their location are relaxed
MOTORISTS face the prospect of thousands more speed cameras after a government decision to consider relaxing the rules governing where the devices can be used.
The Department for Transport has agreed to review the rules after police chiefs said that many more fatal crashes would be prevented if they had greater flexibility on the location of cameras.
Under the rules, at least four collisions per kilometre involving death or injury must have happened in the previous three years before a fixed camera can be installed. For mobile cameras, it is two collisions. But even when a road has had the required number of collisions, police must also prove that at least 20 per cent of drivers are breaking the limit.
On Epping New Road, in Essex, three people have been killed and one person seriously injured in four separate crashes on a one-kilometre stretch of the road in less than two years, meaning that it easily meets the casualty criterion. But cameras cannot be installed because only 10 per cent of drivers break the limit.
Cameras are currently used at just under 6,000 sites in England and Wales. These are virtually all the sites that qualify under the existing rules. Police are being forced to reject more than 400 requests a month for cameras from communities blighted by speeding drivers.
A study by National Safety Cameras, the umbrella body for camera partnerships, found that 73 per cent of all requests for speed enforcement are turned down due to the rules.
Police have limited discretion to deploy cameras at “community concern” sites, which do not meet all the criteria. But these sites can only be covered for 15 per cent of the total time cameras are used.
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) is lobbying hard for the rules to be relaxed to allow forces to target thousands more sites. Ian Bell, Acpo’s speed camera liaison officer, said: “We want more flexibility in where we use cameras. The existing rules set the barrier too high and we have run out of sites where we can take action. People are slowing down for the cameras but the deaths are still happening elsewhere, where the rules prevent us from using cameras.”
Mr Bell said that the Government had been unable to produce any scientific evidence to justify the rule which bans cameras unless a certain proportion of drivers exceed the limit. A spokesman for the Department for Transport said: “The review will look at all the criteria for camera sites, including the number of cars exceeding the limit, the distance over which the casualties happen and the level and severity of injuries. Some they might want to leave unchanged and some they might want to change.”
He said Epping New Road had highlighted an issue to be addressed by the review panel, which will include officials from the department, Acpo representatives and local authority nominees.
Any changes would come into force in April next year. The panel will consider copying a new rule being introduced in Scotland, under which serious and slight injuries are allocated points which can be added together to justify using a mobile camera.
The new rule will result in a 5-10 per cent rise in the number of potential sites in Scotland.
Tim Yeo, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said drivers would be suspicious that the review would be completed only after the general election.
“The Government should be more honest about what its intentions are. The review must be transparent because many motorists suspect that cameras are more about raising revenue than saving lives.”
RULES OF THE ROAD
A site qualifies for fixed cameras only if all of the following apply:
* There have been at least four collisions involving death or serious injury per kilometre in the previous three years
* At least 20 per cent of drivers exceed speed limit
* At least 15 per cent of drivers exceed the Acpo enforcement threshold of 10 per cent plus 2mph above the limit (eg 68mph in a 60mph zone
* A road safety engineer has confirmed that no other cost-effective solution can be implemented
For mobile cameras, all the above apply, except two collisions are needed per km.
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