Safe Speed Forums

Only 1 in 20 crashes due to speed

Speed cameras should be scrapped Per cent of all accidents after new figures showed drivers who ignore the limit were responsible for just five per cent of accidents, campaigners said yesterday.

More crashes were caused by sudden braking and twice as many by slippery roads, Government figures revealed.

The main cause of accidents was actually drivers' inattention, which was behind nearly a third of accidents.

A spokesman for campaign group Motorists Against Detection said the Department for Transport (DfT) figures proved cameras were there to make money rather than save lives.

'This proves the Government has been lying to us about how effective speed cameras are in preventing accidents,' the spokesman added.

'Only one in twenty crashes is caused by going over the limit, which is far less than they want us to think.'

But the report for 2005 shows speed was a factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents.

And those crashes involving speeding were more than twice as likely to result in at least one death as those that did not.

A DfT spokesman said: 'Speed cameras are there to save lives and numerous studies have proved this.

'The fact that exceeding the speed limit is responsible for five per cent of crashes isn't the issue – speed is.'

Elsewhere, the report revealed that Britain's roads are slightly safer with 3,201 people killed between 2004 and 2005, a one per cent fall.

The number of people seriously injured fell seven per cent to 28,945 and total casualties fell three per cent to 271,017.

Encouragingly, accidents involving drink-driving saw a three per cent reduction in deaths to 560.

A spokesman for road rescue firm The RAC said: 'As long as speed cameras are placed in reasonable places on a particularly dangerous stretch of road we welcome them.

'If they are put in place to simply generate profit we oppose them.'

"La la la, I'm not listening"