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The entire article:
Feeling lucky, Gatso?
The only reason for having speed cameras is to save lives. Strangely, they don’t do that
Recently I hosted a TV show of some kind, which meant spending a couple of hours in the studio laughing at Germans and Belgians.
It was all very jolly but plainly one member of the audience got completely the wrong idea because afterwards, in the green room, he thrust a sheaf of papers into my hand, and begged me to join his anti-EU movement.
Oh dear. I tease the Germans and the Belgians because, deep down, we get on. That’s the thing about teasing. You only do it to people you know and like. You can’t very well plonk yourself down on a train, turn to the complete stranger on your left and say, “My, you’re a fat bastard.”
Sure, the EU is a terrible mess, full of corruption, nonsense and waste. Of course it doesn’t work now, but to begin with neither did the United States of America. In fact they had to stage the bloodiest, most deadly war of all time to get that off the ground.
But one day, if we persevere, Europe can be a harmonious whole, full of the cleverest, most stylish, most wonderful people on earth. And the Turks.
This dream, however, was not shared by my new friend in the green room. His leaflets talked about how the EU flag will replace the Union Jack. What? Have you never seen Texan lone stars fluttering in the breeze over Houston or the Californian Bear in the streets of Sacramento? He also says we’ll lose the parliament at Westminster — which in its current state would be a cause for celebration, surely — and that we’ll end up living in a police state where you can go to prison for not measuring your boat properly.
Well pardon me for not running amok in the streets with a machinegun, but the thing is, matey boy, we’re already living in a police state way beyond anything even Orwell had in mind. Soon we will not be allowed to smoke in a public building and we may be obliged to spend some time doing bird if we don’t have an identity card. We can be prosecuted for thinking unpleasant thoughts about Muslims. What’s more we’re filmed wherever we go on CCTV cameras and if we break the speed limit, even slightly, a civil servant in a van will be on hand to record the event and send us a fine.
And to back him up there are 6,000 fixed speed cameras which, by law, have to be clearly visible. But in my experience the vast majority are not. They’re in bushes, or on the other side of blind bends. You don’t find this kind of thing in France or Spain or Portugal or Germany.
Because in continental Europe speed is seen as a useful tool. A device that speeds up commerce and improves the mind. Here it’s seen as a portal to the next life. And since a dead person can’t be taxed, fined and controlled, strenuous efforts are being made to stamp it out.
It’s widely suspected that speed cameras are in fact nothing more than government cash dispensers. Not so much Gatsos as Taxsos. But if you examine the figures you quickly discover this isn’t so.
If I were in charge of the speed camera sites I reckon I would need a team of six men and six small cars to cover the whole country. They’d simply tour the nation replacing the film, and then I’d need a couple of secretaries to send out the fines. Total annual cost: about £14.50.
But I’m not in charge. It’s a government project, so somehow, and I really can’t understand this, it actually costs them £91.8m a year. And because the revenue adds up to just £113.5m, the profit is just £21.7m. Simon Cowell pays more than that, all on his own, in income tax.
So if these cameras are not making money, then what’s the point? To save lives? Certainly that’s what we keep being told, but if you examine the figures this turns out to be nonsense as well.
In 1990, 5,217 people were killed on the roads. But bit by bit, in the days before the lunatics took over the asylum, this was reduced.
Better signposting, better street lighting, the breathalyser, seatbelts and, most of all, safer cars; all these things contributed to bringing the figure down so that by 1994 it was hovering around 3,650 a year.
That was nothing short of a miracle. I mean, we had 25m vehicles on the road, some of which were 40-ton trucks and some 200mph supercars. We had people who by their own admission had the co-ordination of a newborn foal and young men so full of testosterone it was coming out of their ears. We had pre-menstrual women, Albanian immigrants, sleepy salesmen, distracted school-run mums, coked up media luvvies, short men who thought the world was out to get them and me, in a tearing hurry to get home before the kids’ bedtime.
And all these people were doing 50, 60 or even 70mph on normal A roads, passing within 2ft of people going the other way. In rain, sleet, ice, bright sunshine, darkness. And despite this you stood a higher chance of being murdered than you did of dying at the wheel of your car. Around 3,600 deaths a year, from the 262 billion miles we covered. That should have been a massive cause for celebration.
But to the woolly headed loonies it was still too high. So along came the speed camera. And guess what happened? Well, so you have a clear picture I’ve made a little chart (see end of article) to show you what effect the speed camera had.
Statistically speaking the movements over the past 12 years have been so insignificant that small rises and small falls can be discounted. What we can see is that a 22-year decline in road deaths was brought to an abrupt halt by the introduction of the Gatso.
So, because it’s not raising money and it’s not saving lives, you might assume it’s pointless. Not if you’re a new Labourite it isn’t. Because what it does is give them control. They started out in life as socialists, and beneath those smooth suits and metropolitan haircuts they still are.
The funny thing is, though, that I have nothing against speed cameras. If they’re in the right place.
Most days, for instance, I drive through the small village of Woodstock in Oxfordshire. There’s a perfectly sensible 30mph speed limit, which at both ends of the built-up area is enforced by highly visible Gatso gate guardians. Good. They remind me to slow down, which makes life for the village’s old people and children a little bit safer.
But conversely I often drive down suburban dual carriageways where the speed cameras are not visible at all. Not in the background clutter of all the other health and safety roadside signs that have sprung up in recent years.
So I’m forced to drive with one eye on the speedo and another scanning the roadside, trying to spot the yellow boxes. This means I’m not concentrating on other traffic, or pedestrians. So for every life saved in Woodstock, God knows how many are being lost in suburbia.
And now we’ve got them on motorways as well. Which is just stupid. Because see one here and you are bound to brake. It’s a natural reaction, even if you’re only doing 50.
And sudden sharp braking on a motorway is like dropping a ton of ammonia into a bag of fertiliser. Someone, about half a mile back, is going to go through their windscreen.
And as they sail through the Pearly Gates I’m willing to bet they’d trade Tony Blair’s idea of a nation state for anything. Even the EU.
_________________ Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety
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