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Are cameras moving out of the picture?
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Speed cameras are widely criticised for being unfair and inaccurate, but are there better ways to improve road safety?
Words: Guy Sheppard The relentless spread of speed cameras across the UK road network may have reached a turning point. After almost doubling in number since 2000, Swindon Borough Council has now decided to review its £400,000-a-year funding of them, arguing there could be better ways to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the roads.
Its leader, councillor Roderick Bluh, says: "It's about time there was a proper debate about this. Just because they exist does not mean they are a panacea for good practice."
This stance will strike a chord with drivers who suspect that the speeds recorded are inaccurate. Some have used their tachographs to prove they were actually travelling within the speed limit.
Joseph Kotrie-Monson, a lawyer specialising in motoring offences, says hand-held laser speed cameras are the least reliable. "If people are prepared to spend money on technical expertise and the right legal representation then I find 80-90% of cases are winnable."
A more common complaint is that cameras single out infringements that are too minor to warrant fines and penalty points on a driving licence.
Paul Beard, head of road safety and traffic management for Surrey Police, has researched the issue of lorry accidents since 2000 in his area. "Exceeding the speed limit was not a factor in any fatal road traffic collisions involving large goods vehicles," he says.
Transport lawyer Anton Balkitis argues that lorry drivers caught on speed cameras are often those that fail to see the camera, or were genuinely unaware that they were speeding. -There is a general view that cameras are unfair and a money-making scheme and that may be right. Drivers like to complain, but understandably so when their livelihood is at stake."
The experience of agency driver Ian Boyle, who was recorded doing 56mph on a 40mph stretch of the A303 in Wiltshire, highlights this sense of bitterness. "There was absolutely no risk or danger to anyone because it was 2am and there was no other vehicle in sight. It's indiscriminate in the way they catch people when a lot of the time it's unjustified.
Its leader Claire Armstrong believes that all speed cameras should be scrapped, arguing they encourage drivers to concentrate on the speedometer rather than the road ahead. Instead, there should be a combination of measures to tackle road safety, including more police patrolling the highways, engineering improvements to accident black spots and better quality cars.
Funding "Prior to having cameras in 1992, we had the safest roads in the world," says Armstrong. "What we have now is a levelling out of the (casualty) figures. They are not really falling as we would have seen if we'd kept to the previous policies."
However, research by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) says the steep decline in casualties before 1990 was due to new seatbelt regulations and better car design. Since 1990, the use of mobile phones while driving has boosted accident rates.
At Swindon's traffic black spots, where the high level of serious accidents prompted camera installations, the average number of people killed or seriously injured has fallen from 19 a year to just six.
But Bluh describes cameras as a blunt instrument for slowing drivers down, believing that ripple road surfaces and speed-activated signs, which warn drivers when they are exceeding the speed limit, are probably more effective. "A major study for the Department for Transport showed that speed-activated signs are up to nine times more effective in slowing traffic and they cost a fraction of what speed cameras do."
Conservative-controlled Swindon's argument is also about the way speed cameras are now funded. Before April
Ai 2007, fines went directly to the
local safety camera partnerships of police and local authorities, but the Government stopped this following claims cameras were being operated to raise money rather than for road safety.
Instead, the DfT has allocated £110m-a-year for road safety grants with all the fines, which totalled 1104m last year, going into a central fund. This is then allocated to local authorities to spend, although most continue to do s through the safety partnerships.
Although more money is now being given out in grants than is coming in as fines, Bluh claims the Government will reduce its spending on road safety over the next few years and then divert the blame on to councils.
Need for training
Operators and trade associations agree that the use of cameras is sometimes mismanaged, but there is little appetite for removing them altogether.
Stuart Joyce, fleet manager of Kent-based Alan Firmin, says: "They need to be in positions where they're there for a reason, such as accident black spots or places with a lot of speeding. In some cases I believe they're there simply to raise money from fines."
Cluys Rampley, the Road Haulage Association manager for infrastructure, comments: "They have their place but they need to be very visible and people do need to know what the speed limit is in the area. The biggest problem people have is distinguishing between 30 and 40mph speed limit zones."
The experience of .TW Suckling suggests training could play more of a role in reducing speeding. General manager Mick Smith says fewer than 10 of its 180 drivers are caught by cameras every year. "Our drivers go through refresher training on a two-yearly basis. It covers defensive driving, general driving awareness and conduct on the road. It would be nice to think that the training helps to T5 keep them out of trouble."
g Last year's change in funding for road safety has created more freedom to choose options such as training. Dan Campsall, communications manager for Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership, says that under the old rules, almost all the money had to be spent on speed enforcement with only a fraction going on education about speeding.
His partnership employs a team of six police officers who work with local authority staff doing roadside checks and educating any speeding offenders. "Those who are just over the limit may be given the option of speaking to a road safety officer," explains Campsall.
This sort of approach would appeal to Safe Speed because it helps drivers understand why their driving is potentially dangerous. As Boyle points out: "You can be driving too fast for the conditions, due to such factors as the weather, road surface or road width. A policeman can determine everything from basic speed to dangerous driving."
Changing attitudes
Another idea that the Thames Valley partnership has expanded over the past year is to offer courses in safe driving in lieu of a fine and penalty points on the licence. The course costs offenders E741 each but Campsall says feedback has been very positive.
"We've been doing some work with the University of Reading. it identified that after six months there was certainly a change in attitude for those who went on the course. They were more likely than those who received and paid a fine to be positively disposed to complying with speed limits and enforcement" Perhaps a more varied approach to reducing speeding could help remove some of the hostility towards cameras. But hopes of banishing them for good seem far-fetched.
As PACTS says: "Speed cameras have proven to be an extremely successful element of an integrated speed management strategy. and studies have consistently shown that deaths and serious injuries have been reduced by more than a third at speed camera sites." •