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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... dents.html

The £1m-a-year motorway speed camera that is causing accidents
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:37 AM on 07th January 2009

Comments (115) Add to My Stories
Since the camera, like this one, appeared the number of accidents has risen by a quarter
A motorway speed camera which has increased the number of crashes and injuries at its site is revealed today as the most profitable in Britain.

It is estimated to catch up to 500 drivers a day, generating nearly £1million a year in fines.

Yet accidents have risen by a quarter and casualties have almost doubled since the Gatso camera was installed on the M11 at its junction with the North Circular A406 near Woodford, Essex.

Police said crashes happened because motorists slowed down ahead of the camera and then speeded up once they were clear of it.

Campaigners demanded the scrapping of the camera and accused the authorities of using the devices to raise cash rather than save lives.

The camera, jointly run by Essex Council, the police and the Highways Agency, is on the southbound M11 where the road narrows from three lanes to two and the speed limit drops from 70mph to 50mph.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws show that in the five years before the camera was put up, there were 13 accidents and 14 casualties. In the following five years, the number of accidents rose to 16 and casualties to 24.

Motoring campaigner Paul Pearson said: 'The undisputed fact is that no lives have been saved by this camera.'


More...How spectre of negative equity stalks thousands who brought cars with hire purchases

A Highways Agency spokesman said: 'The accident data does not show a pattern of accidents which would be consistent with the camera itself being a factor.'

Mr Pearson, who runs the website PenaltyChargeNotice.co.uk, said: 'What may well be one of the most profitable speed cameras in the country is actually causing accidents and injuries and yet Essex Police are refusing to remove it.
'In February 2008 we witnessed the aftermath of a three-car pile-up immediately in front of the camera. It was obvious that it was the camera that caused the accident because cars were having to reduce speed and merge and then of course some motorists slam on their brakes when they pass the camera.'
Mr Pearson said he had written to Essex police and his MP, warning them the camera was causing accidents.

HAVE YOUR SAY...
SPEED TRAPS CAUSE MORE ACCIDENTS THAN THEY PREVENT
So many speed cameras are there for money-making purposes and not to prevent accidents. They encourage sudden braking and force drivers to focus on spotting them rather than other hazards.
welshrarebits TELL US WHAT YOU THINK An Essex police spokesman said motorists were causing the accidents.
'People are slowing down for the cameras and then speeding up again. This in turn causes the collisions,' he said.
'They shouldn't be speeding up. They should stick to the speed limit.
'The camera is there to reduce collisions and to reduce congestion into the nearby A406.'
Department for Transport figures reveal that just three per cent of car accidents are caused by drivers exceeding the speed limit.
But nationally around two million motorists a year are hit with speeding fines and a £60 fixed penalty from around 6,000 cameras.
Speed cameras already face the axe from a Tory council which has condemned them as a 'blatant tax on the motorist'. They plan to scrap £400,000 a year funding for the speed-traps and to pull out of the Government's speed camera partnership scheme.

Ministers predict a boom in new-generation digital 'average speed cameras' which track a vehicle over many miles and work out its average speed over the distance. This puts a stop to drivers reducing their speed as they pass a camera, only to accelerate again a short distance down the road.

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nigel_bytes

So hold on, a camera is installed and accidents go up, its not consistent with the camera being a factor, yet a camera is installed and accidents a km away go down and it is proof of the resounding success of cameras everywhere.

There is some cake-eating going on!

_________________
Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Local media reports on this blackspot suggest the way the road has been engineeered - reducing to two lanes from 3 and the two laner being 50 mph and 70 mph in the immediate 3 lane is a strong factor in the prime causes of the accidents here. :scratchchhin: The camera may not be helping if folk take eyes off road at a crucial second to double check they are at 50 mph.


Surely the solution would be to reduce the speed limit to 60 mph one mile from this road narrowing .. and more signage - even graduated "dragon line markings" indicating that a bottleneck is being approached with the 50 mph being introduced a half mile before this road narrowing. None evident the last time I drove down that way.


Perhaps even a HCSO car with flashing lights on the hard shoulder - which was what we used to do once upon a time - in the "good old days" - and still do when we consider a very urgent need to do so.

Accidents appear to be caused by the daft engineering and not speed per se. Thus the Highways Agency should be looking at how to reduce the risk potential as a speed cam does not seem to be doing that much... and if it is earning that much cash - it does not seem to be making folk slow down either . I suspect then that those pinged were perhaps marginally above the limit and not "blatting" given the high revenue alleged.

Given that there is data on the accident rate still at this site - as the cam folk are saying that the camera is not a factor in the accidents - then this seems to indicate that the camera is perhaps pinging low infringements and that the road's lay-out may well be a significant prime cause.

I think the locals and road safety groups then should be campaigning to re-engineer the road - and I think signs and a strong paint job.. plus reducing the limit gradually on approach form sa - mile/mile half away may well help improve the carnage.

And given there is data with the cam - and if the KSI stats improve and the scam earns less as a result of the road engineering - then the cam cannot be held to be the "saviour" and thus more useable as provable "quasi-"peer reviewed" evidence .

As it stands from the press article as published here - there appears to be little evidence that this camera works at all in either of its "jobs".

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

The A442 by us, (Telford) was "re-engineered" in 2006 because they were moaning that there was about 20 casualties a year on it. It was a 1970's built dual with 70MPH limit. It now has a 60MPH limit, goes from dual to single to dual every few hundred yards and guess what? The casualty rate has gone up. So there is 1/2 million pounds or so of wasted cash and more injuries. So what do they propose to do now? Put specs cameras on it. Will the casualty rate go down or up? My money's not on them going down!

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

For my sins I'm currently commuting regularly on the M11.

The junction in question is a nightmare and a prime example of poor engineering.

The Camera is sheer lunacy.

This is a rather interesting topic and one that I'm keenly interested in.
As can be seen by the origional post and the subsequent replies, there
are many many people who fiercly oppose Speed Cameras; dare I suggest
perhaps more because of the amount of revenue they generate than the
accidents the Speed Cameras allegedly create.

OK, here goes...
Speed Cameras do not cause accidents.
Drivers cause accidents.

If a motorist is driving responsibly with due care and attention, there is
no way Speed Camera's can be blamed for accidents.
A motorist must drive at a safe distance from the car in front enabling him/her,
at a moments notice, to hit the brakes safely without causing a collision with
the car in front.

Incidentally, I would also suggest speed is a major factor in these so-called Speed Camera accidents.

If we are driving along a road/motoway and the driver in front has to slam on the brakes because
a cow saunters out from a nearby field, resulting in us crashing into the car in front because we were
too slow in applying our own brakes, the cow, like the Speed Camera, will be responsible for the crash......!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skyliner
http://www.SpeedingFinesUK.com

Another wind-up merchant.

Skyliner.

You've come to the right place if you're interested in this topic.

While the cameras do indeed create revenue (for SCPs anyway), for many of us it is not the fundamental reason why we're against them.

Drivers do indeed cause accidents, as do other road user groups, such as pedestrians and cyclists. A big problem here is the shift of responsibility onto one road user group, focussed in one area, based on one proxy of driving behaviour (and a bad proxy at that). Another problem is the reason for that shift of responsibility.


The official government statistics, the data within gleaned from professional accident investigators, show otherwise.

As you can see, 'speeding', in terms of speed cameras could act upon, isn't that big of a problem.

For me, the bigger problem is the hugely over-exaggerated claims of the effectiveness of speed cameras (usually by those who benefit from the revenue). They are hailed as reducing accidents by very impressive amounts, but when you scratch beneath the surface you realise all isn’t as claimed. To understanding this, you could start by reading about Regression to the Mean. There are other effects which must be considered, we can discuss those later when need be.


That’s a bit of a glib example, it’s not one I would use anyway.

However, the other side of the coin is much more accepted and prevalent: if another unrelated safety measure, such as a pedestrian crossing, is installed within the defined site of a speed camera, the speed camera will be credited for the entire reduction of KSI at the site, even if the crossing had the only beneficial effect.

Our poor speed camera policy (and the spin surrounding it) has resulted with problems of poorly set speed limits which in turn resulted with problems of: driver arousal (a much bigger problem than speeding), disrespect of speed limits (needless frustration encouraging general non-compliance and unpredictable behaviour), erosion of the critical skill of driver judgement (becoming complacent on relying on the speed limit as the guide for speed) as well as needless distraction (already the biggest cause of accidents). The rise of such automated enforcement has inevitably resulted with a rise of a driving underclass (boy-racers, joyriders, the improperly registered etc); the shift away real from trafpol to these automated simplistic measures has aided this. Things are compounded by the downward spiral of speed limits.

The overall result of this is that our roads haven’t actually become any safer for nearly a decade (in terms of fatalities per net miles driven). If it wasn’t for the spin surrounding speed cameras and their effectiveness, I strongly believe we would have had a much better road safety policy.


I’ve barely touch the necessary issues. As you can see, road safety far more complicated than the simple message of ‘Speed cameras are great!’ – in fact, they’re anything but.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Hello Steve,

Thank you for your welcome, your responce, and my apologies for the delay in replying.

First of all I would draw your attention to the "Subject Heading" of this topic, which immediately caught my eye in the first instance....
"The £1m-a-year motorway speed camera that is causing accident"

I note with interest the "Subject Heading" focuses on the amount of alleged revenue generated by this camera,
rather than the amount of accidents the camera in question allegedly creates.
Even though that's a journalistic heading, I find it very telling.


(2)
You mentioned....
"The official government statistics, the data within gleaned from professional accident investigators, show otherwise."

I can also come up with a stastistic in defence of my belief....


"Speed is the biggest single contributory factor in road crashes, inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties every year. The relationship between speed and road crashes is straightforward: as speeds go up, the likelihood of crashes goes up, for any given set of road conditions. The reason is simple: increased vehicle speeds are not accompanied by increased thinking and reacting speeds. Because of this the distance needed for responding and braking increases with speed.

And as speeds go up, the severity of crashes goes up. Inappropriate speed choice - driving too fast for the conditions - is the major factor in up to a half of road crashes and contributes to many more.

Speed reductions cut casualties. The likelihood of crashes decreases as speeds are reduced. Although the relationship varies according to road conditions and average speeds, there is an association between speed reduction and crash reduction - every 1 mph reduction in speed reduction in crashes is accompanied by an average 5% decrease in crashes and a 7% decrease in fatalities.

A 10% drop in speeds resulted in a 40% drop in fatalities and serious injuries after speed cameras were introduced in West London.

Where 20 mph zones have been introduced and enforced, all casualties have fallen by around 60%.

Driver error is found to be a contributory cause in over 90% of accidents, and driving too fast is a driver error in judging what is safe." DETR, Road Safety Division, Speed Policy Review Discussion Paper, August 1999."


(3)
You say "That’s a bit of a glib example" in relation to part of my post.
Hmmmm, possibly, but it got the point across.


(4)
"quote" ‘Speed cameras are great!’ – in fact, they’re anything but. "end quote"

I myself never said I was for or against Speed Cameras.
My point is speeding kills.



We are all free to have our own belief, and you have responded eloquently.
I merely want my belief shown through the opportunity this subject created.

Cheers,
Skyliner.

No it doesn't. Crashing sometimes kills but speeding never does

Why do you believe that if someone does 35mph through a 30mph limit with open fields both sides that they will kill someone?

We would see far more improvement in road safety if we could get people to look further ahead and react sooner to potential hazards. How do I know many drivers don't look far enough ahead? Simple. If I follow them at night and they are happy driving on dark country roads with only dipped beam then they aren't looking far enough ahead, and lots of people do it. It is much harder for me to be sure during daytime but I doubt the results would be any different if I could measure it.

Pointlessly low speed limits and over zealous automated speed enforcement are not improving road safety.

Welcome Skyliner. We like calm and reasoned debate on here rather than the typical Internet forum ranting. I would just like to highlight some things you may not have picked up from your DETR quote.


You have to understand the agenda and mindset of the people who wrote this ten years ago at the height of promotion of speed cameras as a panacea for everything. You would, like any normal person read this to mean that out of all the causal factors of crashes, speed is the biggest. You would be wrong. These people divide causal factors into primary and contributory. Their claim thus ignores the primary causes attributed to crashes and concentrates on the secondary contributory factors.

Incidentally, don't you think "crashes" is a deliberately emotive word? Why not "accidents" like everyone else would say?


You see, they confirm this distinction here and also use the weasel words "up to" in their statement. You will also note that they do not confine themselves to speeds in excess of a posted limit which are the only speeds which cameras could detect. Later statistics actually show that speed in excess of the limit is a factor in only 5% to 7 % of accidents.


This is potentially nonsense as it implies that a 15mph reduction in speed would reduce fatalities to zero.


You will note that they have now changed the basis of their statements. Before it was numbers of crashes and deaths. Now it is KSIs (killed and seriously injured). This is typical of the obscure way that camera proponents put forward their statistics to muddy the waters.


Subsequent research has shown that injuries to pedestrians rise in 20mph zones as they take less care.


Note that to the casual reader the impression is given that 90% of accidents are caused by speeding. It doesn't actually say that though - it just implies it.

When reading about the subject of speed cameras, you need to be very careful that you understand just what is said as there are so many vested interests in promoting their use rather than tried and tested traditional methods of policing the roads.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Is it not true then, that the majority of "crashes" happen in urban areas, (which unless I am mistaken, have lower speed limits than motorways) Motorways are supposed to be the safest roads, are they not? So where does the increased speed leads to an increased liklihood of crashes, make sense, in this case then?

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Welcome Back slyliner. Don’t worry about the delayed reply, we’re not in the habit of forcing people to act faster than they should
You are of course free to express your belief, but others are also free to scrutinise those beliefs. Sorry for my detailed post but there’s a lot to address. Here goes..


That tells me is that the speed limit on the section of the road in question is set unreasonably low. To clarify: drivers were exceeding the limit and subsequently having a rate of accidents. The camera has been installed in an attempt to force compliance but has actually resulted with errant behaviour, likely due to factors such as panic breaking, frustration, fatigue etc. This case shows enforcement of what seems like one of the most unreasonably low limits (many 50 limits on motorways simply aren’t justifiable, in terms of speed and/or length) has lead to an unusually high accident rate, despite driving becoming safer overall.

This camera is a total failure. It is difficult to dismiss this case as a one-off because it is indeed the most active camera in Britain, hence its significance has many times the weighting compared to an average camera.


Actually, that has been disproved and quietly recanted. Later and more comprehensive reports state “Failed to look properly was the most frequently reported contributory factor” (dft_transstats_612594). Don’t forget, cameras can only act upon ‘exceeding the speed limit’ (and not very well at that) which is actually a minority chuck of the ‘speeding’ pie.


It’s nowhere near as simple as that. Driver fatigue accounts for more collisions than exceeding the speed limit (17% for all roads (dft_rdsafety_032139), greater for motorways, greater still during the small hours when the traffic flow is going to be the fastest). On many roads (usually those with unreasonably low limits and enforcement), going slower will inherently mean even less stimulating conditions; it will also mean being on the road for longer. These two coupled together gives a double whammy against the overly simplistic arguments of the speed/accident relationship.


Speed cameras can’t do anything about that.


One word: causality!

Is the cause and effect in this case as clear as it is implied, or are there other factors at work? For example, we know policy stipulated that cameras are installed in areas where there is a temporarily high level of accident rate, so you can expect a reduction afterwards regardless of whether cameras are installed (I gave you a link to the Regression To The Mean page, you have to read this in order to properly understand this critical argument). We also know cameras do force slower driver speeds – so what exactly was cause and effect in this case?

Then there are the other safety measures typically installed within defined camera sites, aiding or swamping any benefit from the cameras, or even reversing the negative benefit from them.
Then there is the classic ‘Hawthorne effect’ where a visible change will encourage a temporary improvement of behaviour.


That’s true, but driving too fast (let alone exceeding the sped limit) accounts for a surprisingly small portion of the 90% pie.


Speed cameras don’t saunter out from fields in the paths of traffic. However, just like the cow example, those within the limit can also suffer additional risk.


Inappropriate speed: certainly.
The key here is what speed is appropriate. What should be limits be set to?
Furthermore, how should they be enforced? Cameras allow the worst driver groups impunity (those with stolen or improperly registered or unidentifiable vehicles) to speed inappropriately. The wildly over-exaggerated claims of camera effectiveness has given us our ineffective road safety policy: displacement of trafpol instead of what should have been a better trafpol policy (including but not limited to cost recovering trafpol).

The cameras are causing and allowing these inappropriate killer speeds.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

It's not really a "statistic" though - just a series of statements. It's the kind of thing that if Safespeed were to publish it, we'd have plenty of people jumping down our throats demanding that we get it "peer reviewed". As ts the government talking, however, we're just expected to lap it up without question!

Importantly all the accident causation stats released some some years have shown absolutely that that speeding is NOT the biggest single contributory factor by some distance - not paying attention is - even if you take the most inclusive definition of "speeding" - ie both breaking the limit AND driving too fast for the conditions BELOW the limit. (The "excessive speed below the limit" factor is a much greater contributor than the "breaking the limit" factor)

_________________
I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Hi Skyliner and

There are many factors that cause accidents. Try checking out this page of our website. This explains why the 85% of drivers who regularly drove over the speed limit are actually the safer drivers. The ones who are excessively over and much slower tend to be the drivers that have more accidents in fact.

Driving is a matter of skill, knowledge, ability, experience(s), psychology and risk management. It is making sure that the driver has the responsible attitude to be 'fit for purpose'.

By understanding good research and correcting the 'core' or 'root' road problems, we are properly addressing and solving the vast majority of road safety problems.
The Current replacement of proper engineers setting the road design and speed limits in favour of Councillors who cannot possibly understand the whole set of issues which need to be properly and comprehensively addressed long before any speed limit is changed, or altered let alone enforced. Many Councillors employ a part time road safety consultant, but this is woefully inadequate.
The teams of engineers that we used to have gave us the safest roads in the World, now we are number 6 and this has been consistently dropping since cameras were introduced.

(btw to quote see HERE if you are still unsure just ask we do not bite )

_________________
Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

So hold on, a camera is installed and it can be shown that there were less crashes after, but that's down to chance?

A camera is installed and it can be shown that there were more crashes after, but that's the fault of the camera and not chance?

RTTM is based on a chance mechanism: due to the random nature of crashes we expect crashes to down at camera sites even if the camera had not been installed. The fact that crashes actually went up is a sign that something was clearly wrong with this site.
To clarify: any decrease of accident rate is more than likely to be due to RTTM (its not our fault if they don't account for it); any increase of accident rate is more than likely to be due to the scheme effect (the camera) over and above RTTM.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Hello again,

You all offer excellent quotes and theories to back up your beliefs, and quite rightly so.


"Speed Cameras"; again though, I have to say, do not cause accidents.
Drivers cause accidents.

Any driver involved in a crash/accident due to...... "The Speed Camera"
was not driving as he/she was driving throughout their Driving Test.

Those involved in the alledged "£1m-a-year motorway speed camera that is causing accidents" saga,
found themselves in that regrettable situation because they were driving too fast and too close
to the vehicle in front, resulting in them being unable to apply their brakes in sufficient time
to avoid hitting the vehicle in front.
That fact cannot be disputed.


<quote>Police said crashes happened because motorists slowed down ahead of the camera.<end quote>

Of course they did, that's what a Speed Camera is there for, to slow motorists down.
If you don't, wellllll, donate to the fund.


If we all drove (and should be driving) as we did during our Driving Test, not one of the driver's
involved in that story would have found themselves donating their hard earned cash to the "£1m-a-year" fund.

The vast majority (me included) let standards slip at some point after passing the driving Test.
That's the issue that needs to be addressed.
That's what needs to be drummed into us.
Not the "Speed Camera at fault" drummed into us..

Two years ago I was involved in one minor shunt with a vehicle in front.
The driver in front was blameless, I was in the wrong and quite correctly assumed the blame.
It wasn't in the vicinity of a Speed Camera, though if it was, and that's the reason the driver
slammed on his brakes, there is know way I could blame the Speed Camera.
Me suggesting such a thing would have been ludicrous.




News.

Vehicle leaves road, heads through garden and hits house.
Corner wall of house collapses; entire house has to be demolished.
Three occupants of the car killed.
A tragic tragic story from the news last week.
__________________________

Vehicle leaves road and hits tree. Occupant killed.
A tragic tragic story from the news last week.
__________________________

Car spins out of control and hits oncoming car head on.
Driver of other car killed.
A tragic tragic story from the news last week.
__________________________

Apart for the terrible and shocking sad loss of life of those poor souls,
there is another common denominator; all three cars were speeding.

Speed Kills.




Peace,
Skyliner.

More importantly, is there anything to counter the arguments we’ve made?


It’s not as simple as that. One can expect errant behaviour where a limit is unreasonably low, from both those above and below the limit.
Speed cameras (certainly in the £1m case) can have side effects; see this:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/sideeffects.pdf


Any driver involved in a crash/accident was not driving as he/she was driving throughout their Driving Test (speed camera or not).

Oh, it is possible to exceed the limit during the test and still pass it, many have done just that.

Last but not least: did you show your motorway driving skill during your driving test?


Ah, no, were they driving too fast or driving in excess of the limit? (there is a big difference between the two).

Also, did the type of accidents from before the camera was installed simply stop?


This means nothing! Not all accidents are a by-product of the camera policy, yours obviously wasn’t.
Would it be so ridiculous if more drivers were panic braking where a cameras is subsequently installed? If the rate of these shunts in the area where you had collided had then doubled after putting a speed camera there (all else equal), wouldn’t you then be inclined to look towards the camera?


It is likely that one of these were a result of exceeding the speed limit, but we don’t know if those who crashed into the house had taken action to evade detection (such as being improperly registered) or were simply joyriders.
AFAIK there are no reports of the other two cars exceeding the limit let alone going to fast for the conditions.

Also, there a statistical average of 56 RTA fatalities in a week, these mere 5 making the news probably aren’t representative of the others that week. Remember:




So if those are the case, why did this device (and the limit) that slowed down motorists result with more accidents instead of reducing them? (remember, they were going slower).

Did you read the RTTM link I gave you? You need to understand it to be able to understand the flip side of your 'speed vs collision' argument.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign