Scameras cause deaths: police chief

'Intelligence not cameras', say Durham's traffpols

By PH Staff / Friday, 1 July 2005 / Loading comments

More of these required, perhaps

Speed cameras cause accidents and their deployment should be frozen, said Durham's chief constable Paul Garvin yesterday, because they cause fatal road accidents. He said forces around the country should curb their reliance on speed cameras, according to a report in a local newspaper, and rely instead on "intelligence-led traffic policing".

The county has no fixed speed cameras and was the only county in the north-east to experience a fall in the number of fatal road accidents during 2004. Garvin said that an excess of fixed cameras can damage police efforts to reduce dangerous driving, remarks he supported with yesterday's DfT road death statistics for 2004 (see link below for report), which show that the number of people killed on roads in the county fell by 10 in the last year.

Instead, said Garvin, intelligence-led traffic policing was the only way forward. While clearly not content with a figure of 32 dead from road accidents last year, a spokesman said that the policy of "focusing on poor driving and criminal driving rather than simply relying on speed cameras" was having an effect.