News: For immediate release
 

Safe Speed is appalled by the cheap smear tactics employed recently by some road safety campaigners. Road safety is a subject for informed and intelligent debate based on hard facts and sound analysis.

Safe Speed challenges any or all of the vocal and professional speed camera proponents to an open debate in print or in the broadcast media. Paul Smith says: "The public deserves to hear the truth, and I am now in possession of sufficient facts to meet any challenge. Let's have it all out in the open. If I am wrong, let them prove that I am wrong." 

Safe Speed has expended more than 4,000 man hours investigating the overall effects of speed cameras (and the policies that support them) on UK road safety. The results are extremely disappointing for the speed camera supporters. The fatal accident rate (the most important road safety indicator of all) is showing by far its poorest performance in modern history. Fatal road accidents are now higher then they were in 1998 - and this despite lower traffic growth than previously. It all began to go wrong in 1993 when speed cameras were introduced.

We have had more than enough of vague claims, spin, lies, half-truths, bad science and personal slurs and now is the time for informed debate and hard facts. The speed camera proponents have had a gloss of claimed hard facts, but their supposed hard facts fail to stand scrutiny.

Consider these ten vital UK road safety questions that the authorities have failed to answer:

1) What's the evidence that speed cameras save lives?

2) What proportion of accidents are caused by speeding?

3) What proportion of excessive speed accidents take place entirely within the speed limit?

4) Can you give me any reference to research where the link between speed and driver concentration has been explored?

5) Why did North Wales Police only issue 3.6% of speeding tickets to under 25s, when in Northern Ireland (the BBC reports) 80% of excess speed accidents are caused by the under 25s?

6) Why does an important Transport Research Laboratory report contain outrageous logical fallacies that should be spotted by the average A level student?

7) Why have we lost the previous beneficial trend in the fatal accident rate since speed cameras were introduced?

8) Why do several very important government reports into speed camera effectiveness ignore the DfT's own advice about massive sources of statistical errors?

9) What are the possible, probable and actual negative road safety effects of high levels of speed limit enforcement?

10) If speed cameras work, why are excessive speed accidents increasing?

Safe Speed believes that the lack of adequate answers to these questions has allowed the government to pursue a misguided road safety policy based on automated speed enforcement.

Safe Speed believes that speed camera policy is a massive failure that makes the roads more dangerous, penalises safe drivers and damages law and order. The evidence is laid out on the web site for all to see and examine.

A web site honesty policy ensures that any misleading or incorrect fact can be challenged and corrected or removed. But Safe Speed has received no significant challenge despite more than 20,000 visitors each month.

Will any of the speed camera proponents accept the public challenge?

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Note for editors:

The ten questions above have all been asked in writing of top professionals working closely with road safety. Examples can be viewed on the following web pages:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/brake.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/brunstrom.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/nscl.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/trl.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/burbeck.html

Some serious analysis of the lies and distortions that have been used to support speed camera policy can be seen on the following web page:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/lie.html

We would be absolutely delighted to receive an acceptance of our challenge from any or all of the following:

Richard Brunstrom
Mary Williams
Susan Beck
David Begg or CfIT personnel
Robert Gifford or PACTS personnel
TRL personnel (especially Susan Sharland and Marie Taylor)
Any officers from speed camera partnerships 
Alastair Darling (or other DfT officials)
Personnel from T2000
Personnel from SSI
Senior police officers
etc.
 

About Safe Speed:
Safe Speed is the personal project of road safety campaigner and advanced motorist Paul Smith and argues for intelligent road safety policies based on individual driver responsibility. A return to the successful policies which gave us the safest roads in the world a decade before speed cameras would be a very good start. Paul is a professional engineer of 25 years' experience and can be contacted on:

01862 832000 and sometimes on 07799 045553

email: psmith@safespeed.org.uk
web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk