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Don’t switch off safety cameras, urges speed death daughter
by Darren Devine, Western Mail - Apr 6 2011

THE daughter of a woman killed by a speeding motorist, says Wales must avoid repeating English experiments that have seen safety cameras scrapped.

Louise Curry, whose mother Carol Gajda was killed by farmer John Richards when he was travelling at speeds of up to 95mph, said turning off cameras would lead to more deaths and injuries on Welsh roads.

In England, moves to get rid of cameras in Oxfordshire appear to have backfired. New figures showed the number of road deaths rocketed by 50% in the first six months after the devices were scrapped in July 2010.
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Oxfordshire’s cameras have now been turned back on.

Go Safe, the Wales Road Casualty Reduction Partnership, say the number of accidents where people were killed or seriously injured at fixed camera sites here has fallen by 62% from 939 to 356.

Similarly, at mobile sites it is claimed the number of incidents resulting in deaths or serious injuries has fallen from 239 to 83 – a drop of 65% since cameras were introduced.

In both cases the figures compare deaths and serious injuries in 2009 with those that occurred over a three-year average before cameras were used.

Mother-of-two Miss Curry, 29, from Pencoed, Bridgend, said: “They should be left on – particularly outside schools as well.”
Miss Curry, who with partner Gareth Davies has a daughter Kacey, three, and son Josh, seven, added: “I’ve got a school on the corner from me where my kids go and the traffic there is horrendous. They speed up and down and go up on top of kerbs.”

Millionaire farmer Richards, who was jailed in 2007 for causing death by dangerous driving, was changing lanes at up to 95mph when his Range Rover collided with Mrs Gajda’s Rover on the M4 near Porthcawl.
Following the crash, Richards stopped briefly and gave his details to another motorist before driving on to catch a ferry.

Hospital housekeeper Miss Curry said the death of her 48-year-old mother had a devastating impact on her family life.
She said: “My son realised she had gone and the only thing I could say to him was that she had gone in the sky to be a star.”

The Association of British Drivers said the evidence from Oxfordshire, Swindon and Avon and Somerset, where cameras have also been turned off, proves cameras should be abandoned in Wales.
However, although the overall number of deaths on Oxfordshire’s roads rose from 12 to 18 following the switch-off, the impact appeared minimal at the actual fixed camera sites.
Meanwhile, the number of slight injuries increased from 55 to 70, although there was no increase in serious injuries or fatalities.

ABD spokesman Hugh Bladon said: “Where these cameras have been removed, it’s not had any detrimental effect whatsoever.
“They should be turned off everywhere because there are very, very few places where a camera is of any use whatsoever.”

Susan Storch, chair of Road Safety Wales, said safety cameras remain a vital tool in cutting deaths and injuries on roads here.
“They’re a tool in the road safety tool box that we can use to bring about casualty reduction as well as road safety awareness and we stick by that.”

The Assembly Government announced up to £4m in funding for Go Safe at the end of last week.
The partnership suggests there were 23 fewer casualties from collisions involving young drivers in 2009, with the numbers dropping to 538 from 561 in 2008.

Transport Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones said: “The use of safety camera technology has contributed significantly to the success that has been achieved in road casualty reduction over the past decade.”