Safe Speed Forums

The ultimate aim of the safety camera programme is to reduce casualties by ensuring compliance with speed limits and slow drivers down so that none are caught speeding. If this happens there will be a very significant further reduction in the number of people killed and injured on our roads.

Wait a minute - the DfT are affirming. Why would they? Is it part of a planned retreat?

To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I think it's very simple to dispel the "speed causes accidents" claim. Take this pdf from the Surrey Safety Camera Partnership website:
http://www.surrey-safecam.org/fe/fileup ... uage=e.pdf

In 36 months, there have been 7 serious or fatal collisions on this road.
They say that 70% of vehicles on that road exceed the speed limit.
Daily traffic is 11,403 vehicles.

That means in the 36 months, there were 12,486,285 vehicle journeys along the road, of which 8,740,399 were exceeding the speed limit. Even if every single one of the 7 serious or fatal collisions involved a speeding vehicle, this would only be one such collision every 1,248,628 vehicle journeys.
If 1,248,627 vehicles can break the speed limit and not have a serious or fatal collision for each one that does have such a collision, it seems to be an untenable view to claim that speeding along this road causes serious or fatal collisions.

Q8 What happens if the scheme is so successful that fewer people
speed and there is insufficient revenue to cover the extra camera costs?
If this happens there will be a very significant reduction in the number of
people killed and injured on our roads. This will save far more in medical and social costs, apart from the misery and suffering that will be saved, than the loss in revenue. The benefits of camera enforcement could thus be recovered from savings made elsewhere, and corresponding changes to camera funding arrangements could then be made. As compliance improves, camera use may be reviewed and scaled down as appropriate.

Q11 Will surplus revenue be made available to pay for other road
safety activity, such as traffic calming features and road safety
education?
No. Although legislation is drafted so that this might be allowable, it is not the Government’s intention to divert surplus revenue to other expenditure and all such revenue will be passed directly to the Consolidated Fund.

Q4 A TRL report has stated that only 7% of crashes are due to
excessive speed, whereas Government publicity says speed is a
contributory factor in about a third of all crashes. Why is the
Government so obsessed with speeding when it is bad driving that is
the real problem?
The TRL report 323 ‘A New System for Recording Contributory Factors in
Road Accidents’ is about contributory factors in accidents in the context of a new accident data recording system being brought into STATS 19. Speed as a contributory factor is shown in the report to occur in about 7% of accidents, whilst the Government normally quote about one third. This apparent disparity can be explained. Excessive speed as a causation factor may be coded for any one of the following reasons:
Excess speed for the limit
Excess speed for the vehicle (e.g. LGV)
Excess speed for the conditions
Although speed was not always shown as a factor in the trial schemes, which is what the report is about, speed is clearly a factor when the causes are shown as any of the following:
Sudden braking
Careless/reckless driving
Following too close
Behaviour – in a hurry
Loss of control of a vehicle
Poor overtaking, etc.
TRL has issued a statement in TRL News (September 2002) explaining that
its report No. 323 has been misunderstood. A more relevant report that
explains the speed - accident relationship is the Effects of Drivers' Speed on the Frequency of Road Accidents TRL Report No. 421.

The TRL report 323 ‘A New System for Recording Contributory Factors in Road Accidents’ is about contributory factors in accidents in the context of a new accident data recording system being brought into STATS 19. Speed as a contributory factor is shown in the report to occur in about 7% of accidents, whilst the Government normally quote about one third.