Greed cameras, not speed cameras
Discussion
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F01%2F11%2Fncam11.xml
'These are greed cameras, not speed cameras'
By David Bamber and David Harrison
(Filed: 11/01/2004)
A police officer who helped to set up the system that now allows forces to keep the profits from speed camera fines has accused the Government of deliberately trying to make money from motorists rather than prevent accidents.
Steve Walsh, a former constable with Staffordshire Police and a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers' team that oversaw the expansion of use of the cameras, said that many of them were being placed where there was little danger of accidents but a high chance of catching motorists.
The reason, he said, was that forces had been given income targets by the Government that forced them to concentrate on making money out of cameras, instead of using them to slow traffic.
Mr Walsh, the manager of Staffordshire Police's camera safety partnership from 1995 to 2001, said that many cameras were being deliberately placed on busy roads that were not accident blackspots.
"When I was running the system our aim was to ensure that speed limits were observed," he said. "But if you succeed in getting people to observe the speed limit then you produce no income.
"Forces were only allowed to join the 'cash for cameras' scheme if they signed up to increasing massively the numbers of tickets issued. It was not about road safety."
Mr Walsh, 49, of Porthill, Newcastle, retired last month after 30 years in the police. He said that he had decided to speak out because of his opposition to the changes, in 2001, that allowed police forces to retain most of the income from camera fines.
Mr Walsh is concerned that law-abiding citizens will turn against the police after being branded criminals because they have gone a few miles per hour over the limit.
Drivers caught out face a £60 fine and three points on their licence. Two million drivers were penalised last year, and in the year to March 2002 the eight forces piloting the "cash for cameras" scheme raised £17 million in fines, of which they gave £5 million to the Treasury.
"All of these people will now have a grudge against the police," said Mr Walsh. "In the past, speeders were stopped by identifiable officers and at least had a relationship with the human side of the police, not a machine."
Mr Walsh's views echo those of Paul Garvin, the chief constable of Durham Constabulary, who has refused to implement fixed speed cameras and has just one mobile camera in his entire area. Mr Garvin claims that statistics show that cameras do not reduce injuries or deaths.
A spokesman for Staffordshire Police rejected Mr Walsh's views. "Speed cameras do work," he said. "They have reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads where they are fitted in Staffordshire by 65 per cent since 1995."
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that speed cameras are being put on new roads, making a mockery of the Government's insistence that they be erected only at accident blackspots. Roads that opened with cameras already in place include a stretch of the A12 in London, the Batheaston bypass near Bath, the A370 into Weston-super-Mare and the A6 Clapham Bypass near Bedford.
Under Government guidelines, speed cameras should be erected only on sites where there have been "at least four fatal and serious collisions in the last three calendar years (not per annum)".
Motoring groups condemned the practice last night, saying it proved that cameras were being used to bring in money rather than improve road safety. Nigel Humphries, a spokesman for the Association of British Drivers, said: "These are greed cameras not speed cameras. A new road cannot, by definition, be an accident blackspot."
Campaigners say that 4,000 of the 5,000 cameras should be removed because they are not at accident blackspots. Kevin Delaney, a road safety spokesman at the RAC Foundation, said police forces were ignoring the Government's guidelines and "doing what they please".
Last month David Jamieson, the road safety minister, challenged anti-camera groups to provide evidence of cameras that did not meet the guidelines on accident blackspots, and promised to have them removed.
'These are greed cameras, not speed cameras'
By David Bamber and David Harrison
(Filed: 11/01/2004)
A police officer who helped to set up the system that now allows forces to keep the profits from speed camera fines has accused the Government of deliberately trying to make money from motorists rather than prevent accidents.
Steve Walsh, a former constable with Staffordshire Police and a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers' team that oversaw the expansion of use of the cameras, said that many of them were being placed where there was little danger of accidents but a high chance of catching motorists.
The reason, he said, was that forces had been given income targets by the Government that forced them to concentrate on making money out of cameras, instead of using them to slow traffic.
Mr Walsh, the manager of Staffordshire Police's camera safety partnership from 1995 to 2001, said that many cameras were being deliberately placed on busy roads that were not accident blackspots.
"When I was running the system our aim was to ensure that speed limits were observed," he said. "But if you succeed in getting people to observe the speed limit then you produce no income.
"Forces were only allowed to join the 'cash for cameras' scheme if they signed up to increasing massively the numbers of tickets issued. It was not about road safety."
Mr Walsh, 49, of Porthill, Newcastle, retired last month after 30 years in the police. He said that he had decided to speak out because of his opposition to the changes, in 2001, that allowed police forces to retain most of the income from camera fines.
Mr Walsh is concerned that law-abiding citizens will turn against the police after being branded criminals because they have gone a few miles per hour over the limit.
Drivers caught out face a £60 fine and three points on their licence. Two million drivers were penalised last year, and in the year to March 2002 the eight forces piloting the "cash for cameras" scheme raised £17 million in fines, of which they gave £5 million to the Treasury.
"All of these people will now have a grudge against the police," said Mr Walsh. "In the past, speeders were stopped by identifiable officers and at least had a relationship with the human side of the police, not a machine."
Mr Walsh's views echo those of Paul Garvin, the chief constable of Durham Constabulary, who has refused to implement fixed speed cameras and has just one mobile camera in his entire area. Mr Garvin claims that statistics show that cameras do not reduce injuries or deaths.
A spokesman for Staffordshire Police rejected Mr Walsh's views. "Speed cameras do work," he said. "They have reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads where they are fitted in Staffordshire by 65 per cent since 1995."
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that speed cameras are being put on new roads, making a mockery of the Government's insistence that they be erected only at accident blackspots. Roads that opened with cameras already in place include a stretch of the A12 in London, the Batheaston bypass near Bath, the A370 into Weston-super-Mare and the A6 Clapham Bypass near Bedford.
Under Government guidelines, speed cameras should be erected only on sites where there have been "at least four fatal and serious collisions in the last three calendar years (not per annum)".
Motoring groups condemned the practice last night, saying it proved that cameras were being used to bring in money rather than improve road safety. Nigel Humphries, a spokesman for the Association of British Drivers, said: "These are greed cameras not speed cameras. A new road cannot, by definition, be an accident blackspot."
Campaigners say that 4,000 of the 5,000 cameras should be removed because they are not at accident blackspots. Kevin Delaney, a road safety spokesman at the RAC Foundation, said police forces were ignoring the Government's guidelines and "doing what they please".
Last month David Jamieson, the road safety minister, challenged anti-camera groups to provide evidence of cameras that did not meet the guidelines on accident blackspots, and promised to have them removed.
More good news as far as it goes.
IMHO, we have now achieved the first goal of getting the press at large to start recognising the fallacy that is the over zealous use of speed cameras in the name of road safety.
The next step is to get something done about it. Any ideas on how to push things further in this manner? Perhaps if everyone who writes in to a publication to show their support for their viewpoint / point out the error in their ways, could include a pointer to the S.A.F.E.R website and encourage them to promote the petition?
>> Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 12th January 15:34
IMHO, we have now achieved the first goal of getting the press at large to start recognising the fallacy that is the over zealous use of speed cameras in the name of road safety.
The next step is to get something done about it. Any ideas on how to push things further in this manner? Perhaps if everyone who writes in to a publication to show their support for their viewpoint / point out the error in their ways, could include a pointer to the S.A.F.E.R website and encourage them to promote the petition?
>> Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 12th January 15:34
- StreakyA spokesman for Staffordshire Police rejected Mr Walsh's views. "Speed cameras do work," he said. "They have reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads where they are fitted in Staffordshire by 65 per cent since 1995."
I hate statements like that. Cameras may have a local effect, but where are the studies of traffic flows pre and post camera? Where's the analysis of accidents caused by traffic diverting to avoid the cameras? There's no point making one road safer if you're making another more dangerous, which is what's happening in my opinion. Local case in point - the A411 from Hunton Bridge (M25 J19) to Watford Town centre. Used to be a 40 limit, now a 30 with something like 8 cameras in about two miles. What happens? Traffic diverts onto the back streets, one of which has a school, college campus and nursing home on it - that road is now FAR more dicey than it ever was.
How many partnerships have shown increased fatalities recently? It can't be a coincidence, surely? Hertfordshire have this sickly "More is Less" slogan, implying more cameras equates to less deaths, yet deaths rose by 9 from 2001 to 2002. Do they pull the ad campaign? Do they review their position? Do they
, they just say they can't understand it and shrug their shoulders. In actual fact, given the increase in fatalities witnessed, would there be a case for the ASA? The claim is quite clearly not true, and it isn't just Hertfordshire experiencing the increase either.
It seems the more fatalities increase despite reducing total KSIs, the more entrenched these people are becoming. "Cameras save lives!" they scream, then shrug their shoulders when more people are killed, offering only more cameras as a solution. Are these people so brainwashed by the Speed Kills mantra that they can't see what's happening, or is it purely self interest?
>> Edited by hornet on Monday 12th January 16:05
I hate statements like that. Cameras may have a local effect, but where are the studies of traffic flows pre and post camera? Where's the analysis of accidents caused by traffic diverting to avoid the cameras? There's no point making one road safer if you're making another more dangerous, which is what's happening in my opinion. Local case in point - the A411 from Hunton Bridge (M25 J19) to Watford Town centre. Used to be a 40 limit, now a 30 with something like 8 cameras in about two miles. What happens? Traffic diverts onto the back streets, one of which has a school, college campus and nursing home on it - that road is now FAR more dicey than it ever was.
How many partnerships have shown increased fatalities recently? It can't be a coincidence, surely? Hertfordshire have this sickly "More is Less" slogan, implying more cameras equates to less deaths, yet deaths rose by 9 from 2001 to 2002. Do they pull the ad campaign? Do they review their position? Do they
, they just say they can't understand it and shrug their shoulders. In actual fact, given the increase in fatalities witnessed, would there be a case for the ASA? The claim is quite clearly not true, and it isn't just Hertfordshire experiencing the increase either. It seems the more fatalities increase despite reducing total KSIs, the more entrenched these people are becoming. "Cameras save lives!" they scream, then shrug their shoulders when more people are killed, offering only more cameras as a solution. Are these people so brainwashed by the Speed Kills mantra that they can't see what's happening, or is it purely self interest?
>> Edited by hornet on Monday 12th January 16:05
Or 'Mr Walsh' ouspoken comments are deeply hurtful to speed cameras, just because he is an ex trafpol and was involved with the placement of the cameras do not give him the right to abuse and issue these threats. These bully boy tactics are typical of er, people and I won't stand for it.
We have reams of statistics which anyone can see (just ask for the key to the locker under the stairs, it's in a jar of poison next to the nest of vipers in my underwear drawer at home, the address of which I can't divulge due to the Data Protection Act) These will prove beyond any lighthearted attempt that scam, er cameras do work and have so dramatically improved road death figures that there are signs of a population explosion in some of our more productive, er effective areas. The capital raised by these wonderful devices actually pays for my wages, which is nice, so leave us alone and stop trying to make us out to be bad'.
We have reams of statistics which anyone can see (just ask for the key to the locker under the stairs, it's in a jar of poison next to the nest of vipers in my underwear drawer at home, the address of which I can't divulge due to the Data Protection Act) These will prove beyond any lighthearted attempt that scam, er cameras do work and have so dramatically improved road death figures that there are signs of a population explosion in some of our more productive, er effective areas. The capital raised by these wonderful devices actually pays for my wages, which is nice, so leave us alone and stop trying to make us out to be bad'.
hornet said:
A spokesman for Staffordshire Police rejected Mr Walsh's views. "Speed cameras do work," he said. "They have reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured on roads where they are fitted in Staffordshire by 65 per cent since 1995."
'king hell - 65 percent they say. They must have the safest roads in the world there. Flippin' eck....imagine that - taking into account there have been on average 3000 deaths on the road for the last 5 years we are looking at around 136 in the Staffs area (22 police authority areas) - that means they had 60 deaths on the roads last year.....
My god thats impressive.... nothing to do with safer cars or airbags or better designed roads or gridlock in Staffs or the new A road there etc etc etc etc.....
Monkeys.....
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