Safe Speed Forums

Partnership Aims for a Slower Surrey

A Safety Camara Partnership aimed at reducing road death in Surrey will launch next month if plans are given the green light by the government. The sceme between Surrey Police, Surrey Magistrates' Courts and the Highways Agency will be headed by a team from Surrey County Council and will look to build on on Surrey's Success in casualty reduction, by continuing to drive down the number of deaths and serious injuries on the County's roads.

The Safety Camera partnership, which will oversea the management of speed cameras and red light cameras in Surrey, will embark on a countywide awareness campaign to raise drivers awareness of the consequences of driving too fast. It aims to build on the success of work already being carried out by County Council Road Safety Officers and Surrey Police.

The County Council Executive Committee and Surrey Police Authority approved plans to form a Safety Camera partnership earlier this year. If approved by the DfT the project will aim to be up and running by Apr 05.

For more info call Andrea Murrey 020 8541 8954 or email enquiries@safecam.org

When contacting the scamera partnership to voice your objection consider raising the following questions and points:

Points:

Speeding is a primary cause in less than 5% of accidents in the UK (that figure also includes joy riders, the unlicensed and professional criminals on the run), focussing on speed enforcement wont address the vast majority of accident causes.

Improving road safety is about increasing our awareness of road hazards and driving appropriately. Embarking on a campaign to make people drive slower will create a county of paraniod speedo watchers who beleive as long as they stick to the limit they are safe.

Campaigns like 'what's the hurrey in surrey' and community speed watch do nothing to improve road safety. It's not speeding that is the issue its inappropriate speed, which can often be within the limit. Driving too slowly can be as dangerous as driving too fast.

Many roads in surrey are incorrectly signed to comply with the traffic order. Their is a risk of drivers being reported when they have not actually broken the law. The police are currently aware of this and tend not to enforce unenforcable limits.

With the council now taking responsibilty for setting and enforcing speed limits we've already seen a massive reduction of speed limits in rural surrey (with no safety benefit only accident displacement at best), we run the risk of the partnership deliberately setting low speed limits just to increase revenue.

The govt. own report shows that Mobile speed cameras are neither effective at reducing accidents or speed and have no safety contribution to make. The same report also shows that vehicle activated speed limit reminder sign are 3 times more effective and reducing speeds.

questions:

How many of surrey's casualties of the last few years have actually been caused by speeding?

How many new cameras and mobile sites will be installed?

Will any existing cameras be removed?

Will the camera partnership observe ACPO guidelines with regard to speed limit enforcement? (10%+2 and not randomly targetting vehicles).

Have the Council canvassed public opinion regarding support for cameras?

Will the Council now abondon other successful schemes such as bikesafe in favour of speed enforcement?

Why is the partnership aiming for a Slower Surrey instead of a Safer Surrey?

My letter enclosed - feel free to re-use, Paul, you may regonsise some of your work reused from the highlands campaign.

Andrea Murrey
Surrey Speed Camera Partnership
Surrey County Council
County Hall
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey
KT1 2DY


Creation of a Speed Camera Partnership

Dear Andrea,

I am extremely concerned that Surrey is creating a speed camera partnership and am convinced that the wide spread rollout of speed cameras and the over simplified ‘Speed Kills’ policy are making road safety worse. This is not helped by new initiatives such as: ‘what’s the hurry in surrey’ that help to shift driver’s attention from road hazards to ‘speedo’ watching. It also sends a message to drivers that ‘they are safe as long as I stick to the limit’. Having spent a considerable amount time as an advanced riding instructor, IAM observer, and lately BikeSafe Instructor, I am well aware that speeding is a primary factor in only a very small minority of accidents. Inappropriate speed is the issue, which can be driving too slowly as well as driving too fast and is often well within the posted limit.

In the past Surrey Police have recognised this and have adopted sensible approaches to road safety. However, in recent years, Surrey has embarked on a systematic speed reduction campaign with no safety benefit in sight and little effective road user consultation. Are we now planning a speed camera partnership to rigidly enforce limits that no longer represent the maximum safe speed for the road?

There are clear and dangerous side effects of mushrooming speed camera installations instead of carrying out genuine road safety initiatives. The case for speed cameras depends on over-simplified thinking (i.e. the faster we go the more accidents we have), which is clearly flawed.

I would like to close by leaving you with some questions to consider, when planning your new partnership.

1. What percentage of road accidents in Surrey are caused or contributed to by vehicles exceeding a posted speed limit?
2. What evidence do you have that speed cameras save lives (rather than displace accidents as seems to be the trend)?
3. Why exactly have we (nationally) lost the previous long established beneficial trend in the fatal accident rate since speed cameras were introduced?
4. What are the possible, probable and actual negative side effects of high levels of speed limit enforcement?
5. Are these side effects larger or smaller than the potential or theoretical benefits?
6. What exactly do you believe are the likely effects of the proposed partnership on the Police / public relationship?
7. It is often claimed that cameras will “change driver behaviour”. After ten years of cameras, can you produce any evidence that this has happened positively?

Please note I plan to follow these up on 2nd January 2005, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act.

Got a prompt and detailed response from the scamerati. Lots of claims that inappropriate speed causes accidents (no arguement there, it's just tha cameras can't detect this) and that cameras are just part of a strategy to improve road safety...

Kinda got the impression they were prepared for the anti-camera debate.

Sadly though


27 new speed cameras in 2005
19 new red light cameras

refered me to the standard 40% report - I of course will be pointing out that the same report showed no safety improvement for red light cameras.