Safe Speed Forums

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=516241

Actual Text:

I HAVE repeatedly highlighted Cumbria’s awful road fatality record and the inability of speed cameras to bring about a reduction in the carnage.

It gives me no joy to read the retiring Chief Constable of Cumbria’s response to your interviewer that “in the last couple of years the number of people dying has increased” (Evening Mail, June 28).

It is amazing how often impending retirement or elevation to the House of Lords brings forth a refreshing bout of openness by those in public office.

Why hasn’t he shouted that fact to the government, the Association of Chief Police Officers and, not least, this county’s speed camera partnership?

All of them continue to bombard the public with misleading and inaccurate claims for the effectiveness of speed cameras when in fact they are failing, as the Chief Constable seems to be now admitting. Another recent report quoted Mr Callaghan, of the Cumbria camera partnership, who tells us proudly that they spent their time checking websites several times a day to catch wicked motorists who sought advice on speeding laws.

Their efforts might be amusing if no road users and pedestrians were being killed while they peered at their computer screens.