Safe Speed Forums

End of the war on motorists? You'll be lucky
By Richard Littlejohn Last updated at 1:44 AM on 28th July 2010
Redundant: Thousands of speed cameras may be decommissioned

Thousands of speed cameras may be decommissioned because of government spending cuts.
Safety campaigners are already predicting the move will lead to carnage on the roads. Motoring organisations are hoping that it signifies the war on drivers is over.
Both are likely to be disappointed. There has never been any conclusive evidence that cameras have saved thousands of lives, as their more hysterical disciples maintain.
Independent research attributes just 7 per cent of accidents to excessive speed. In two of the four years after the first camera was installed in Britain in 1992, the casualty rate actually went up. Since then, it has remained fairly constant.

That is despite the number of cameras mushrooming to 6,000, bringing in £100 million a year in fixed penalties. Until three years ago, all of this went back to local 'safety partnerships' - self-perpetuating, self- financing job-creation schemes with a vested interest in fining as many motorists as possible.
Since then, proceeds have gone to the Treasury, which redistributed part of the loot to pay for the installation and running of the cameras. The new Government is now cutting that grant by 40 per cent, in line with spending reductions in other departments.

Today, Oxfordshire County Council will vote on whether to become the first authority to switch off all its cameras, in the face of bitter opposition from the Speed Kills lobby.
Other councils may have to follow suit, although the cameras will be left in place as a 'deterrent'. Frankly, there's little evidence that they have ever served as an effective deterrent, otherwise they wouldn't have raised a single penny in fines and road deaths would be close to zero.

In a perfect world, we'd take a chainsaw to most of these hideous blots on the landscape, but I wouldn't hold your breath.
Opponents of speed cameras are always depicted as selfish, swivel- eyed Mr Toads, Top Gear-addicted petrolheads who think they have the right to drive as fast as they like, wherever they like, and are hell-bent on mowing down children on school crossings.
Not even Jeremy Clarkson believes that. He's got kids, too.

For the record, I've never had a speeding ticket in my life. I despair at some of the dangerous driving I see around London - boy-racers in built-up areas, yummy mummies in 4x4s hurtling to their fitness classes with mobile phones glued to their ears.
I've no problem with cameras enforcing even lower speed limits around schools and shopping parades. But, as with everything else in Britain, all sense of proportion went out of the window years ago.

Speed cameras became an end in themselves, a cash cow for government - while delivering ever-diminishing returns in road safety.
They have evolved into a low-cost, but lucrative, substitute for proper policing, giving the new managerial breed of chief constables an excuse to reduce traffic patrols.
The best deterrent against dangerous driving is a manned police car. Cameras won't catch uninsured drivers, drunk-drivers, or drivers out of their head on drugs.
But forces have come to rely on speed cameras, just as coppers who ought to be out on the beat now spend their time gawping at fixed surveillance cameras.

CCTV evidence never seems to be admissible in court and its only purpose appears to be to supply an endless library of footage for low-rent TV reality shows like: Police, Camera, Action! and Slappers Go Mad On Malibu!
My other main objection to cameras is their prominent role in the punishment culture which blossomed under Labour.
The blanket one-fine-fits-all policy takes no account of road conditions, safe speed or time of day.

They are often deliberately sited to catch the maximum number of motorists, even where no danger exists; frequently disguised until pressure forced the Government to insist they were painted bright yellow; and left in situ at deserted roadworks with the sole intention of fining as many drivers as possible.
Speed cameras are the ultimate manifestation of Hi-Viz Jacket Britain, where all risk must be eliminated and everyone must be punished.

With luck, future generations will one day come to wonder about these strange yellow boxes on sticks dotted all over the country with the same curiosity we regard Stonehenge. What, exactly, were they for?
But if anyone thinks this is the beginning of the end of the war on drivers, I fear they are sadly mistaken.

TODAY'S POLL
Would Britain be better off with fewer speed cameras?
POLL RESULTS
* No19%
* Yes81%

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Councils will simply find other ways of milking motorists - like the 'temporary' camera in London's Victoria which is currently raking in £150,000 a week from drivers confused by contradictory notices around long-standing roadworks.
In Norfolk, one council has installed a camera to enforce an arbitrary 5mph speed limit at a rubbish tip.
Denied speeding fines, the authorities will simply open new fronts - such as making parking even more difficult and trebling fines for transgressors who linger on a yellow line for more than a few seconds; charging us for parking on our own driveways; and introducing exciting new 'eco' taxes and road tolls.

The 'safety partnership' emperors aren't going to vote themselves out of a job without a fight.
Happy motoring!