Safe Speed Forums

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 11:58 this morning:

PR264: Police federation hits out at speed cameras - again

news: for immediate release

In the latest of 'Police', the Police Federation hit out again against speed
camera policy.

Alan Gordon, vice chairman of the Police Federation dismissed
Government policy on roads policing as 'naive in the extreme' after
claims any officer can enforce traffic legislation. And said: "The
irresponsible siting of speed cameras for income generation has been a highly
effective means of eroding public support for the police. Their benefits are
strictly limited to speeding offences and do nothing to tackle the array of
other dangerous driving offences."

He added that the revenue should be ploughed back into policing and not more
cameras.

Safe Speed has long been concerned about the effect of speed cameras on the
Police / public relationship. But in August a freedom of information request
issued to the Home Office revealed that no research, nor even any discussion,
has been conducted regarding this vital issue.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "Damage to the Police / public relationship is
just one dangerous side effect of the speed camera programme. The government
has comprehensively failed to investigate the issues. They appear to have no
idea about the damage that is being done. Respect for the Police has been
nurtured over 150 years. Now it's being squandered daily. The government must
wake up and take a far broader view of its own policies. Speed cameras are bad
for safety and bad for policing"

<ends>


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

Page from Police magazine:
http://www.polfed.org/1205p8news.pdf

Home office reply to Safe Speed FoI:
(August 2005)
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/homeoffice001.gif

Last week we reported that the Institute of Advanced Motorists said that speed
cameras make road safety worse:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/108

See also our press briefing document (1,600 words) regarding official
announcements about major changes to the speed camera programme (expected
tomorrow):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR/message/112

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

We're getting there!

I did say the rank and file needed to rise up about this!!!!