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'TURN OFF DANGER SPEED CAMERAS'
11:00 - 15 April 2004
Driving campaigners have demanded an immediate halt to all speed camera operations until in-depth research into their impact on drivers has been carried out. Pressure group Safe Speed said its on-going poll of driver habits shows that when near speed cameras, which are supposed to be positioned at accident blackspots, motorists spend too much time watching their speedometers.
The group has been asking visitors to its website how many times they would check their speed, assuming they were approaching a speed camera on a straight, single carriageway road with a 50mph limit, if the camera was positioned 100 yards before a crossroads.
In the eight-second period it would take to drive through the speed camera area at 50mph, 46 per cent of the poll respondents said they would check their speedo three times. Some 17 per cent said they would check it four times and 10 per cent claimed they would do it five times or more.
With speedo checks taking about a second, the average driver may actually be spending 40 per cent of his total time in the 'danger zone' looking at his or her speedometer, the group said.
Safe Speed founder Paul Smith said: "We have long been worried about drivers concentrating on the speedo when they should be looking at the road ahead, but the results we are getting in our survey are a real shock. It is astonishing to think that the authorities embarked on our large-scale speed camera programme without carrying out proper research.
"Safe Speed certainly does not claim that these early results are definitive, but they may well be an indication of a large and dangerous road safety problem. Safe Speed demands an immediate cessation of all speed camera operations until these clear and obvious dangers have been quantified and analysed."
Avon, Somerset and Gloucestershire Safety Camera Partnership said it was not necessary for drivers to look at their speedometers so often.
Spokesman Dave Gollicker said: "You can drive without having to look at your speedo every five seconds. How many of us have done our driving tests and have made sure we do not go over the speed limit?"
The Safe Speed survey is being carried out at
www.safespeed.org.uk