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Road camera fines hit £6.8m record
BRIAN BRADY
THE amount of cash raised in fines from Scotland's network of speed and red-light cameras has rocketed from £500,000 to almost £7m in just five years, according to new figures.
The statistics also reveal differences across Scotland, with some areas generating more than £25,000 a year per camera while others record only £7,500.
The officials managing the network of cameras seized on the figures as evidence that Scotland's crackdown on bad driving was working.
But campaigners against the expanding network of cameras said the breakdown proved that motorists faced a "postcode lottery" - and that some partnerships were concentrating on the most "profitable" locations to maximise their revenue.
Figures from the seven "safety camera partnerships" - collaborations between police, councils and the Scottish Executive - reveal that the number of their cameras on the country's roads has increased from just 29 in 2001 to more than 500 today. The revenue generated has leapt from the £449,680 pulled in from fines in Strathclyde in 2001 to £6,809,963 collected across Scotland last year.
But the figures also revealed huge differences in the amounts raked in by partnerships in different parts of the country. The Dumfries & Galloway Partnership, using mobile units at just 37 "hot-spots", managed to impose fines of £941,280 - an average of £25,440 from each camera during the year.
Fife, which operates mobile units at 48 sites, clocked up barely a third of the total collected by Dumfries & Galloway, at an average of less than £7,500 per camera. The 547 speeding cameras and red-light cameras across Scotland collected an average of about £13,000 each.
The Executive claimed the blitz on speeding had helped to cut road deaths caused by excessive speed. The death toll from speeding fell below 30 last year - less than 10% of those killed on Scotland's roads. The total number of deaths on Scotland's roads also fell last year, by 7% to 286, the lowest since 1952.
But a series of critics who have become exasperated by the spread of the cameras insisted the relatively low number of deaths caused by speeding proved that road-safety partnerships were concentrating on the wrong issues.
Paul Smith, the founder of the Glasgow-based pressure group SafeSpeed, said the authorities had consistently overestimated the problems caused by speeding - and the improvements brought about by the massive expansion in the network of roadside cameras.
"Speed cameras are designed to make money, not for the government but for the companies who manufacture them," he said. "The speed camera programme has failed to improve road safety. In fact, it could cause more problems by encouraging motorists travelling at speed to slow down rapidly when they approach cameras."
SafeSpeed claims the Executive should follow Westminster's lead in passing responsibility for cameras down to local authorities. Smith added: "They know speed cameras have been a disaster. Now they would rather save face than save lives."
A spokesman for the Dumfries & Galloway Safety Camera Partnership said it had to cover the third largest region in Scotland, and "a unique road network which includes two major arterial routes, the A75 and A74(M)".
He added: "Due to the number of proven crash locations on these routes the partnership had a high presence on these two roads. This, coupled with the volume of motorists using these routes on a daily basis contributes directly to the number of offences detected by Dumfries & Galloway Safety Camera Partnership.
"We are committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads through education, encouragement and enforcement."
Andy Jones, manager of the Fife Safety Camera Partnership, said all decisions on where to site cameras were "intelligence-led". He added: "We analyse collision and speed data, and community and partner intelligence to direct our resources to where they are required.
"In terms of value for money, one fatal collision costs the wider community in excess of £1m; our operation costs less than half a million pounds per year."
Young male drivers remain the most likely to be involved in accidents. The number of drivers involved in accidents was four per 1,000 of the population, compared to 9.4 per 1,000 for men aged 17-22. There was also a rise in motorcycle injuries, up 10% to 1,082 last year.
An Executive spokesman said: "The fact the number of fatalities caused by speed has dropped to 10% is an indication that speed cameras are working."
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