http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... _1,00.html
Focus: More cash, less speed
Love them or loathe them, next year 600 speed cameras will record our every motoring indiscretion. But who says we need them, asks Richard Oakley
Violins would have been an appropriate accompaniment when Andrew Bartlett testified before a court in Exeter, England, last May. The 37-year-old painter/decorator had been caught by a speed camera doing 47mph in a 30mph zone. His penalty points exceeded 12 and he faced a six-month driving ban, but he had a heart-rending sob story for the judge.
If he couldn’t drive, he explained, he would lose his job. And if he was forced to get a different job, he wouldn’t be able to take his labrador to work and it would have go back to the rescue trust as it could not be left home alone. Oh, and his 81-year-old landlord would be “without a life”, because Bartlett drove him around.
It was particularly unjust, he said, that his livelihood and pet were being threatened by speed cameras, “just there to bring in revenue” on stretches of road where you could see for miles. “I am actually a more dangerous driver now, because every time I see the white lines warning of cameras, I panic,” he said.
The appeal was dismissed. Bartlett’s case did not involve “extreme hardship” and the judge said speed cameras were designed to deal with persistent motoring offenders . . . like Bartlett.
Every year in England and Wales more than 30,000 drivers are banned from driving, having accrued the maximum number of penalty points. About 5,000 speed cameras catch about 2.2m people annually and result in fines of €120m being paid in Britain. Many of those disqualified said they are hard-working, law-abiding folk unfairly snared by the Big Brother speed camera culture.
For Irish drivers this is a vision of the future. Currently there are 20 fixed-speed cameras in the entire country, with only three working at any time. Since penalty points were introduced in 2002, only 35 motorists have been disqualified for breaching the penalty point limit. Some 262 drivers have 10 points.
The number at risk of being banned will increase dramatically once transport authorities set up 600 fixed and mobile cameras next year, with some in every Irish county. Some will be easy to see, others will be used covertly.
Once in place, 11.1m checks will be carried out annually, which means every Irish driver will have their speed monitored at least six times a year. If they’re caught speeding each time, six two-point penalties (12 in total) will equal disqualification.
Far more money will be raised than it costs to run the system and the state’s take could be as much as €70m. The government, under pressure to tackle road deaths, says the cameras will reduce the rate of road accidents. Safety campaigners say they could save 50 lives a year and the public, they argue, will support them.
Indeed, there is no vocal opposition in Ireland ahead of the cameras’ introduction. But some British groups, who are campaigning to have cameras scrapped, say Ireland is about to make a big mistake.
So who should we believe?
PAUL SMITH describes speed cameras as “weapons of mass distraction” and “21st-century snake oil”. He said Ireland’s plan represents a “backward step”. The Scottish-based engineer turned road safety analyst is the founder of Safe Speed, an organisation campaigning against cameras. He claims they make roads more dangerous.
“In Britain we used to have police who would prosecute bad drivers when it was worth their while and lecture the rest of us. This was intelligent policing and we had a good safety record,” he said.
That regime has been replaced with “robotised policing”. “We have become a nation of speedo-watchers, who think all we have to do to be safe is drive below the limit,” he said.
“People are being prosecuted for going 7mph too fast having being caught by a camera outside a school which they passed at 4am. This doesn’t enforce a road safety message. Why would Ireland want to introduce a system that leads to this?” Road safety experts and the British government describe Smith’s theories as paranoid and inaccurate. They point to an independent review in June 2004 showing that 40% fewer people were killed or seriously injured at camera sites. But the Association of British Drivers claims the rate of decrease in road deaths in Britain has slowed since cameras were introduced.
There are also widespread concerns that police use cameras to “shoot fish in a barrel”. The Conservative party has promised a review of the system if it is returned to power. David Cameron, its leader, has expressed “a lot of sympathy” for those who see cameras “as moneymaking devices”.
The cameras in Ireland will be privately operated by companies paid a fixed fee with no financial incentive to catch more drivers. Smith is not impressed by this feature of the Irish system. “If the government is going to make money from it then it is going to be in a position to demand more checks, which in turn will catch more people,” he said.
A secretive British group, Motorists Against Detection (Mad) has claimed it has Irish operatives “primed and ready” to destroy as many cameras as they can from next year.
The group, labelled terrorists by police, have claimed responsibility for damaging more than 1,000 cameras in Britain since 2000. Some have been blown up, while others were attacked with angle grinders or covered in paint.
Mad believes Irish people are unlikely to be welcoming. “Cameras will spread like wildfire in Ireland if they aren’t opposed,” it warned, “and people are going to grow to hate them over there as much as they do here.”
SHOULD the scaremongering from Britain be taken seriously? “Absolutely not,” said Brian Farrell of the Road Safety Authority, who said a vocal anti-camera minority receives excessive media exposure. “Speed cameras save lives. The facts show this,” he argues.
“In Britain the reputation of speed cameras has suffered, but we are not about to copy the British example.”
Conor Faughnan of the AA agrees Britain has handled speed cameras badly and has a system that lacks transparency. He is satisfied the Irish government is not going to repeat those mistakes.
Last week details emerged of 400 “red zones” that will be targeted as priorities under Ireland’s camera regime. These are stretches of road, some up to 8km long, with the highest number of fatal crashes. Faughnan said they include the routes most people would recognise as dangerous.
“The gardai chose these on the basis of statistics and are now telling the public they will be the targeted areas. This shows that the intention is to use cameras as a safety device rather than electronic bounty hunters,” he said.
The British system is overseen by a series of local trusts and “some operate well” while others “are perceived not to”, Faughnan believes. “This has created a fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theorists.” But surely the British public is right to be concerned when it sees more revenue going to the government than it spends on safety? Recent reports revealed that Thames Valley police raised up to £3m (€4.5m) in fines, which it returned to the Treasury after the cost of running the cameras was recovered.
While campaigners make the obvious point that the money would stop rolling in if people didn’t speed, Faughnan vows that the AA in Ireland will work to ensure fairness.
“We have campaigned against the practice of putting speed traps in absurd locations and we will need to watch this. The new system also envisages 80% of detection to be covert and 20% overt. This balance will have to be watched and may need to be changed,” he said.
Experts have advised that less than 3% of speed checks should be on motorways and dual carriageways and there should be a balance between national and non-national roads. More checks should be carried out at weekends than on weekdays and between midnight and 3am, while up to 20% should be on trucks. “We will be trying to ensure this advice is followed,” Faughnan said.
Paddy Comyn of Car Buyers Guide believes that if speed cameras are going to be accepted, speed limits on Ireland’s roads need to be reviewed. “There are a number of roads where the limits are too low and gardai catch one motorist after another for speeding. This will have to change,” he said.
Faughnan said it was crucial that there is no link between the revenue raised from fines and the fees paid to private companies operating the cameras. “A contractor will be paid a set fee to do a set number of checks. So it doesn’t matter if he detects anyone speeding — there is no incentive for him to try and catch people unfairly,” he said.
“Sometimes people can be paranoid. I have heard all the arguments about speed cameras: they result in people driving badly, they cause clock watching and panic. The facts don’t support this. About 35 years ago parallel arguments were made about seatbelts. People said they would kill as many people as they saved and talked about drivers breaking their ribs. This was considered informed debate back then.”
Farrell rejected claims that cameras result in reduced policing on the roads. “Gardai will have more time to police other road offences,” he said.
The expectation is that the initial introductory period will be painful. The thing to remember, said Farrell, is that speed limits are not guides but maximum levels. “These cameras will be designed to stop people speeding, not to catch people speeding,” he said.
“If the system is introduced as planned, people will know if they are driving in an area where speed cameras are likely to be in use,” said Faughnan. “They will understand accident rates are high on the stretch of road in question. If the limit on that road makes sense and is displayed clearly, then they really have no argument when they are caught.”
Farrell predicted Irish people will soon see the benefits. “The most calls we are going to get is from people wanting cameras on roads near them,” he said.
Safety campaigners would argue that Bartlett, his dog and his landlord should have stayed within the speed limit. Irish drivers will have to do the same.
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