Safe Speed Forums

An "opinion" article. Emboldened text is mine. A comment that keeps cropping up is that a camera costs £30,000 but surely if it had "no film" (ie. had no camera) it wouldn't cost nearly as much to replace? Also if a camera is damaged the repairs come from the scamera partnerships, and it is well-known that the only money spent on road safety are self-publicising leaflets.

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1111562004

Attack on our safety
SPEED cameras have undoubtedly become a huge irritation to many drivers. While the cameras are only supposed to be placed at known accident blackspots, a lot of motorists take the cynical view that many cameras have been installed simply to raise money.

It is also often argued that speed cameras usually catch people who are only a few miles over the limit, and do not actually curb dangerous driving at all.

It is true that speeding motorists who know the locations of the cameras could easily slow down to avoid being caught and then just speed up again. Speed cameras would also do nothing to tackle drivers who are going too slowly, which can also be a hazard to other motorists.

But there is no getting away from the fact that most speed cameras will be needed because of safety concerns and will be slowing down traffic at some known blackspots. It is impossible to say how many lives they have saved since they were introduced.

And there is also no disputing that motorists should be sticking to the speed limit, regardless of how unfair people might think it is to be fined for going only a couple of miles an hour faster.

It cannot be for individuals to decide what is a safe way to drive on the roads. The law must be there to protect all road users, whether motorists, passengers, bus users, cyclists or pedestrians.

So there is absolutely no excuse for any motorist to take the law into their own hands by vandalising speed cameras.

Yet the attack on the speed camera on the A1 in East Lothian is just the latest in a spate of such incidents. Ironically one motorist who attacked a speed camera after he thought he had been fined was later told by police that it had no film.

Such criminal behaviour cannot be tolerated, and quite apart from the £30,000 cost to the taxpayer of replacing one of the cameras, any driver who destroys a speed camera could be putting other road users at risk.

Disabling one of the cameras could have serious consequences for other people using the road, particularly if it fails to warn people they are approaching a dangerous stretch of road.

There is a serious debate to be had about the increased use of speed cameras, their future role in the promotion of road safety and whether drivers are being unfairly targeted. Meanwhile, however, all motorists must respect that speed cameras are there to save lives, and anyone who tampers with the cameras should feel the full force of the law.