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DEATHS ON ROAD CUT BY SPEED CAMERAS
2,000 lives saved in year
By Bob Roberts, Deputy Political Editor

SPEED cameras are saving more than 2,000 lives a year on the roads, it was revealed yesterday.

Transport Department figures showed 3,201 people were killed in crashes in Britain in 2005 - the lowest since records began in 1926 and well down on the 5,217 in 1990, when speed cameras came in.

Kevin Clinton, head of road safety at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said: "There is no doubt, unpopular as they are, safety cameras have made a huge difference."

Brigitte Chaudry, who founded the campaign group Roadpeace after her son died in an accident,said: "There is a direct link between cameras and the reduction of deaths. We cannot understand why people have the audacity to object to them enforcing the law - it is like burglars objecting to CCTV so they can break into houses."

But a survey showed there is still massive public resistance to cameras - only one in eight support them as a way of promoting safe driving. Andrew Blowers, boss of insurance firm Swiftcover.com, which carried out the study, said: "They have emerged as the scourge of the motorist. Drivers are frustrated by their ineffective use."

The Department for Transport figures showed 141 children died on the roads last year, 15 per cent down on 2004. The number of cyclists killed rose by 10 per cent to 148, the highest since 1999. There was a slight rise in the number of driver deaths - up four to 1,675.

New laws on child car seats coming in this September are expected to cut casualties still further. All children under 12 will have to use proper child seats, not adult safety belts. Road Safety Minister Stephen Ladyman said: "Most people make sure children use some kind of restraint. But it is vitally important to use the right one and not an adult belt before the child is big enough."

bob.roberts@mirror.co.uk

<boggle> Where do they find these people?

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I sent him this:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: False and misleading claims
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:37:26 +0100
From: Paul Smith <psmith@safespeed.org.uk>
Organization: Safe Speed
To: bob.roberts@mirror.co.uk

Hi Bob,

It appears that you wrote in the Mirror:

"SPEED cameras are saving more than 2,000 lives a year on the roads, it was
revealed yesterday."

Which is demonstrably and wildly wrong. For a start the first trials of speed
cameras were in 1992, and no significant use took place on UK roads until
1993. The official deaths figures are as follows:

1990 5217
1991 4568
1992 4229
1993 3814
1994 3650
1995 3621
1996 3598
1997 3599
1998 3421
1999 3423
2000 3409
2001 3450
2002 3431
2003 3508
2004 3221
2005 3201

You will note that road deaths fell by almost a thousand over TWO years before
speed cameras were used (5217-4229 = 988) but have only fallen by about a
thousand (4229-3201 = 1028) in the THIRTEEN years since.

We know very well some of the major factors that have contribute to improved
road safety. They include:

- safer vehicles
- road engineering treatments (think black spots and bypasses)
- improved post crash emergency care

Unfortunately for the proponents of cameras, these factors alone, and allowing
for growth of traffic, are sufficient to have lead to road death reductions
continuing as before to bring the current toll to under 2,000 per annum. In
fact, anyone standing in 1993 and looking at road safety trends would have
predicted 'road deaths under 2,000 a year' by 2005.

Far from doing well, we're now 1,200 lives per year behind target. My research
indicates that 'Policy' is to blame.

Having spent thousands of hours studying 'how road safety works' in fine
detail, I was so concerned about what I found that I gave up well paid work to
campaign full time for 'improved road safety values'. I founded and now run
the Safe Speed road safety campaign.

I hope there will be an opportunity to inform your readers that your headline
was not only incorrect, but also quite impossible.

I'm on 01862 893030.

--
Best Regards,
Paul Smith
Safe Speed

web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk
---------------------------------
promoting intelligent road safety

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It's not perfect but I find it easier to look at a graph.



Better Title no real change in road deaths snice 1993

_________________
Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Lancashire death figures were reported in tonight's Lancs Evening Post - 93 in 2005, up from 58 in 2004.

2004 was an unusually good year whereas 2005 is much more in line with the long term trend. Strangely enough last year the Lancashire Pratnership for Road Safety shouted from the rooftops about the "reduction" and how it "proved" Scams were working...

I can't wait to hear this year how they will explain away the "increase" - I guess their silence will be very very loud

For the record Lanc$shire is one of the Scam capitals - 293 fixed sites at the last count, 6 Talivans, 2 Scam bikes

_________________
That's how Nazi Germany started. They'll be burning books next. (Brian Noble, Wigan coach - updated 20/4/06!!).