Wednesday 1st February 2006

Camera guidance is 'a blunder'

Speed camera site rules are wrong: campaign

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Why is this here?

The Department for Transport (DfT) yesterday published new rules for speed camera partnerships. And, according to road safety campaign Safe Speed, they're still wrong.

That's because, said the campaign, sites where it is officially dangerous to speed are still excluded from consideration as potential camera locations.

Safe Speed said that it first revealed the so-called 'rules blunder' in January 2004. The DfT selects sites where responsible motorists are speeding and excludes sites where no responsible motorists are speeding. Because of this, cameras don't enforce speed limits in, say, narrow village high streets, where they would catch the occasional nutter. They only enforce in places where driving in excess of the speed limit is seen by drivers as safe and appropriate.

It is this that causes the widespread perception that speed cameras are in the wrong places, said Safe Speed.

Campaign founder Paul Smith said: "The incompetence and mismanagement behind the speed camera programme is breathtaking. They have misused speed cameras to the point that public confidence has evaporated.

"This blunder ensures that the misuse will continue. Cameras may only be placed only placed where routine speeding is safe. The continual confusion between safe behaviour and legal behaviour is misdirecting everyone's road safety efforts. We must encourage safe behaviours rather than those that are merely legal.

"The speed camera programme is to road safety what a hammer is to clock repair -- it's blunt and heavy and does far more harm than good. "The only answer now is to remove all speed cameras from UK roads, and rebuild road safety based on psychologically effective policies.

"Appendix H of the 4th year report (published December 15th 2005 by DfT) suggests that speed camera effectiveness has been overestimated by 400 per cent, and even that has not considered the wide ranging deadly side effects. When the side effects are eventually evaluated it will become clear how many people are dying due to the fatally flawed policy."

^{Image courtesy www.speedcam.co.uk}

[pistnbroke]

Perhaps the camera partnerships do not look deeply enough at the various dangers and they think the odd 60 in a village is not so bad as a lot of 60's on a 40mph road.

But more likely their thought is that there is no point in siting a cash cow where it will make less money. The fact is that cash is more important than safety to our present administration.

When you look at the various dis-jointed ideas and remarks made it becomes obvious that a lot of people who appear to have little knowledge of the art of driving are at the root of our policing. Even fully grown policemen have put forward the biggest load of rubbish which obviously stems from these poorly thought out ideas.

Just remember a judge has decreed that 149mph is not necessarily dangerous driving. This is not the view of your average bobby though.

When they realise that it is not speed that kills, but bad driving - we will start to get somewhere. But as there are now too few coppers on the road to police in this manner - they will never admit it!

Remember BAD DRIVING KILLS!