Campaign condemns 'constant vigil'

Speed limits not safety-oriented. says Safe Speed

By PH Staff / Thursday, 21 July 2005 / Loading comments

Constant vigilance required

Road safety campaign Safe Speed has issued a statement condemning "the constant vigil on speed" that drivers must maintain. It said this attention is being misdirected by "a wholly unjustified obsession with one particular and rather insignificant factor, not for safety reasons but in order to comply with the law."

Paul Smith, founder of the campaign said: "We have been unable to identify any other law where simple compliance requires constant vigilance. This alone is a warning sign that speed limits are unlike other laws -- there's a risk that too much enforcement will remove attention from something more important. And of course that's exactly what's happening."

Smith said: "We get quite a few emails from people who have acquired nine licence points. They describe their driving experience as paranoid. We can't understand why anyone would be foolish enough to think that such paranoia makes good drivers. And it's just the same for all of us, only less so."

Last year, Safe Speed revealed that speeding is involved in under four per cent of all road crashes, and that number includes many behaviours far removed from normal responsible motoring. Examples include speeding drunks, speeding joyriders, and nutters racing on the highway.

Smith said: "Speed cameras are wasting precious driver attention and making the roads more dangerous. The DfT appears to be waking up to the facts. How much longer do we have to wait until the infernal devices are removed from our roads and drivers can end their needless vigil?"