Safe Speed Forums

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/lond ... 20Standard

New threat to speed cameras in staff crisis

By David Williams Motoring Editor, Evening Standard

14 February 2005

Plans to expand London's speed camera scheme are under threat because of a staffing crisis.

Speed trap bosses had aimed to erect up to 180 new cameras at blackspots. They claimed this would stop more than 40 deaths and serious injuries in the capital each year.

They also planned to lower "trigger" speeds at which cameras flash. But an unexpected Government ban on Safety Camera Partnerships taking on staff - London was to employ 30 new officials - is said to have left the plans in tatters.

Campaigners also say proposals to cut speeding fines from £60 to £40 threaten the London Safety Camera Partnership's financial viability.

Jenny Jones, London Assembly Green Party member, said the staff embargo "seriously undermined" the partnership. She said: "The Government might generate good headlines by going soft on speeding but these plans mean dozens of Londoners will be dead or seriously injured at the end of this year."

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

180 cameras will stop 40 deaths or serious injuries a year?

That sounds like an admission that at least 140 are being sited solely for revenue raising purposes.

How does putting a camera up stop death or serious injury? If someone is driving dangerously then they need stopping there and then, not getting letter throught the post weeks later.




Does that mean people from outside of London are expendable?

This raises an important question with regard to general compliance with the speed limits vs. revenue recieved.

Compliance to the speed limits must be increasing , self preservation for those of us who drive for a living on unfamiliar routes being one key factor. Assuming the RATE of new camera instalation is now falling, then revenues have to start falling. To maintain the staffing of the partnerships, they have no choice but to lower the trigger levels to maintain revenue as time moves on.

How do you think the partnerships would answer this hypothesis in the light of the newspaper article above?

Safe Speed has issued two PRs today on the staff expansion ban:

At 10:29am:

PR165: The beginning of the end for camera partnerships?

News: for immediate release

The Evening Standard today contains: "But an unexpected Government ban
on Safety Camera Partnerships taking on staff". Safe Speed demands to
know the reason for the ban.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) asks: "Is this the beginning of the end at
last? Have they finally realised that the greedy camera partnerships
are out of control and are making the roads more dangerous? Have they
finally realised that speed camera side effects exceed their potential
benefits?"

Safe Speed notes that two sets of figures will be available to the
government about now:

* Road casualty figures for 2004 (available to the Public in June)

* Results from the study of the 4th year of the hypothecation scheme.
(publication date not known)

<ends>

Notes for editors:
=================

The evening Standard article is available here:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/lond ... 20Standard

If anything is known about this sudden recruitment ban, we want to
hear about it! Please call 01862 832000.

***

and at 13:49:

PR166: DfT say camera partnership staffing review required

News: for immediate release

The DfT confirmed today that a ban on increasing staff numbers has
been issued to all camera partnerships in England and Wales. Safe
Speed hopes this is the beginning of the end of greedy and dangerous
speed camera enforcement.

The DfT spokesperson said: "It was deemed to be prudent to prevent
further increases in staff pending a review. The review will start in
April on a by-partnership basis. Letters have been sent to each
partnership."

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said: "For
years we have been pointing out that speed cameras are making the
roads more dangerous. I hope and pray that this unexpected move is the
dawning of realisation at the DfT that all it not well with the failed
speed camera programme."

"With Notices of prosecution issued last year exceeding 3.1 million
and an increase in road deaths (up to 3,508) It should be extremely
obvious to everyone that speed camera policy is not making the roads
safer. In fact our most careful analysis indicates that speed cameras
are making the roads significantly more dangerous as the process of
driving is dumbed down and drivers have become paranoid for fear
of their licences."

Safe Speed calls for an immediate end to speed camera use on British
roads and an urgent return to the proven policies that gave us the
safest roads in the world in the first place.

<ends>

Notes for editors:
==================

3.1 million NIPs in 2003-4 from camera partnership accounts recently
issued by the DfT.

1.89 million fixed penalty notices paid.

An unknown number of fines went to court.

1.89 million is NOT the total!

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

Paul, is this something you've seen yet?

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 35316.hcsp

No - it wasn't something I'd seen, thanks.

I note it was published 14th February.

Nice to know I've got them on the back foot.

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

This always confuses me. The supporters of speed cameras claim 75% of the general public love them, but also claim that the government fails to install more of them for fear of alienating the general public .

Paul,

Have you ever questioned any of the supporters groups about this apparent paradox in their press releases? If so what was their answer?


Dave

They claim that 180 cameras would save 40 KSIs, or in other words that each camera is worth a saving of 0.22 KSI/year.

With at least 6000 cameras on our roads, 6000 x 0.22 = 1320 KSIs prevented per year by cameras.

So, lets turn that on its head. What they are saying is that without Speed cameras, KSIs would have increased by 1320 a year??

This is of course totally at odds with the general trends over the the last 20 years!

I for one have had more than enough of their totally unjustified spin!

Russ

I had a 'lightbulb' moment over this issue two days after reading about it. Ultimately I reckon it boils down to the government wanting to be able to 'abort' the speed camera partnerships if they have to, with minimal overheads.

The partnerships finding themselves with a surplus could spend it on more equipment, but this would be seen as wasteful if it cannot be deployed or serviced properly, plus it leaves the problem of what to spend the surplus on in the following year.

Employing more staff, however, puts an ongoing amount on to the operational costs that is easier to manage, and is seen to be politically 'good' (after all - reducing unemployment is a noble cause).

However, recent changes to employment law and employee's rights introduced by the Labour Party have made getting rid of staff at short notice more difficult without having to (considerably) recompense the redundant employee.

Yep - this might just be the beginning of the end!

The bit I liked was



Seems the DfT are wising up and are preparing to distance themselves from the unsubstantiated statistics. That thin ice is getting mighty thin.

Max

_________________
Tailgaters - Please Pass
You have an Accident to go to!

The different ways in which partnerships phrase their claims is mind boggling - they can:

- Compare one year to the previous (or parts of a year, eg. "the first three months of 2004...")
- Compare a year to a three year baseline average
- Compare a year to the previous three/five year averages

And then all of these can be claimed for either a single camera, all cameras, a city or the whole area in which they operate, depending on what looks good.

There is therefore a lot of material to "bury the bad news" under.

Gareth

Yes, we recall Steve Callaghan proudly claiming the Cumbria Fatals total for 1st quarter 2004 was 26% down on 2003.

The thread was deleted mysteriously shortly after it was pointed out, by the same measure, fatals for 4th quarter 2004 were 25 compared to 5!!

With a 3 year baseline period for KSI's, even a 5 year old could work out the only true measure after scam start up is 3 years again, not a cherry picked 6 months, 3 months etc... The 3 year base period will inevitably have a good quarter, a bad quarter, bad month....

There was no mystery about it. Although the evidence is now locked away out of public scrutiny, there are plenty eye witnesses to the fact that JJ went on record stating that Kevin Tea deleted the threads manually, despite Steve Callaghan claiming previously, when questioned about the missing embarassing threads, that they had timed out and been deleted automatically.

Steve did of course claim later on that he had only said he thought they'd timed out, and that everything he ever says is true.......