Road safety experts issue joint statement in defence of safety cameras

source: http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/1152.html. Comments - some very long & detailed.

RoSPA and Road Safety GB have joined forces with other leading road safety organisations to voice concern about the switching-off of safety cameras.

To spark an informed debate, nine influential groups have put their names to a communiqué which unequivocally recognises safety cameras as an effective part of a much broader programme to save lives and reduce injuries on UK roads.

With many local authorities preparing to discuss cuts to their road safety budgets, it is feared decisions could be taken soon which may prove irreversible.

Before those decisions are taken, the communiqué’s co-signatories want to raise public awareness, demonstrate unity and feed the wider debate with facts.

The communique reads as follows:

We the undersigned agree that:

• Speed cameras help to save lives - an estimated 100 lives a year in the UK.

• Lives are saved by reducing speeding. Speeding significantly increases the risk of an accident happening; and also increases the severity of injuries in an accident.

• Cameras should continue to be used where casualty statistics show they are needed.

• Switching off cameras systematically would be close to creating a void in law enforcement on the road. Cameras currently account for 84 per cent of fixed penalty notices for speeding.

• Cuts might also threaten many speed awareness courses that give motorists an opportunity to learn about the dangers of driving too fast.

• While public spending needs to be cut, cuts must be justified by evidence. Cameras pay for themselves and currently make an important contribution to achieving compliance with the speed limit.

It is signed by:

• The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA): Tom Mullarkey MBE, Chief Executive

• The AA: Edmund King, President

• Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers (AIRSO): Graham Feest, Secretary

• CTC - the UK’s National Cyclists’ Organisation: Kevin Mayne, Chief Executive

• GEM Motoring Assist: David Williams MBE FIRSO, Chief Executive

• Institute of Road Safety Officers: Darren Divall, Chairman

• London Road Safety Council: Councillor Peter Herrington, Chairman

• Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS): Robert Gifford, Executive Director

• Road Safety GB: Alan Kennedy, Chairman

RoSPA has issued an evidence-based defence of speed cameras entitled: “Ten Reasons to Maintain Speed Camera Enforcement”. Click here to view the document.

Human Rights and Speed Enforcement

How dare drivers drive faster than the speed limit! What right do they have to endanger the lives of me, my family and friends? Why aren't all cars fitted with Speed Limitation Devices, by law? Why aren't all speed hidden or covert?

As Slowerderbyshire (via Independent, via Facebook) says:-

"Current government, police and council policies regarding the setting of speed limits and their subsequent enforcement contravene the Human Rights Act, 1998. The articles being contravened include the following: 

• Article 2 “right to life” 

• Article 3 “prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment” 

• Protocol 1, Article 1 “peaceful enjoyment of possessions”

In 2004 the Department of Transport stated:

• The government expects all drivers to observe all speed limits on all roads at all times (except for emergency vehicles)

The government permits the police the routine use of covert speed cameras to catch drivers speeding “excessively”

The handbook for Safety Camera Partnerships states: 

• All cameras must be highly visible (rule 5) 

• Fixed/mobile cameras may only be used at a site with a significant killed/seriously injured record (rule 7) 

So government guidelines for safety camera placement require a disproportionate number of deaths or serious injuries before a camera may be deployed! The visibility guidelines along with the requirement for a high number of deaths/serious injuries mean that Safety Camera Partnerships are effectively prevented from enforcing the limits to the maximum of their ability. 

The guidelines also require that drivers be warned of speed enforcement well in advance of the cameras and that the cameras be highly visible. Research shows that the number of accidents in the immediate vicinity of the cameras has decreased. This decrease has not been statistically significant away from the immediate vicinity of the cameras. Research shows that most drivers just slow down in the immediate vicinity of the cameras and then speed up to their normal driving speed away from the cameras.

Highly visible enforcement strategies act to remind road users that enforcement is present and potentially increases both the actual and the perceived risk of detection. Non-visible enforcement acts to increase road user's sense of uncertainty and to prevent them from adapting their speeding behaviour at specific times and locations when speeding enforcement is clearly being carried out.

6 Recommendations

The rules governing Safety Camera Partnerships should be enhanced to permit the following: 

• Permitted to use safety cameras both covertly as well as overtly. 

• The only requirement for speed enforcement should be a history of speeding at the location in question. 

• Time average speed cameras to be used in preference to highly visible localized spot cameras. 

• Permit the use of 30mph repeater signs where appropriate/effective e.g. on a main road through a village

Britain’s most senior traffic policeman is at war with the Government over road safety

Crabsallover notes the decision to terminate speed cameras in Oxford and is concerned about the possible reduction of use of speed cameras in Dorset. Do speed cameras save lives? What is the evidence?

Philip Pank Last updated August 9 2010 12:01AM source: The Times

Britain’s most senior traffic policeman is at war with the Government over road safety, claiming that a decision to cut funding for speed cameras will put lives at risk. In letters seen by The Times, Chief Constable Mick Giannasi has warned ministers of a rise in fatal road accidents as councils switch off speed cameras because they can no longer afford to operate them.

Mr Giannasi estimates that four out of five cameras will be obsolete within five years, adding that redundancies in back offices mean that enforcement is already being curtailed.

The Government has cut £38 million from this year’s road safety budget. 

Mr Giannasi, the chief constable of Gwent Police, heads the roads portfolio for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). He said that the

Government’s decision to cut 40 per cent of the road safety grant paid to local authorities, coupled with a pledge not to fund new fixed cameras, had provoked “unintended consequences for road safety” as councils take cameras out of service. 

“We have invested heavily in infrastructure. There is a danger that it is dwindling away. I think a vacuum has been created and people are reacting to that inappropriately,” he told The Times. “If nothing is put in place, speeds will rise and casualties will grow.” Driving standards will deteriorate, child road safety programmes will be hit and the education of offenders will cease, Mr Giannasi said.

The Treasury would also lose a “significant” revenue stream. Mr Giannasi has written two letters to Mike Penning, the road safety minister, setting out his concerns. In one he writes: “If this unacceptable situation is to be avoided, immediate action is essential . . . I cannot overstate the urgency of this situation and the potential damage that will be the consequence of inaction.”

Mr Giannasi insists there is no rift with the Government but he told The Times: “I think it is appropriate for me to say I am disappointed with the level of leadership.” In his reply, Mr Penning assured the police that “there is an important role for safety camera enforcement”.

In his first day in office, Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Transport, proclaimed “the end of the war on motorists” and promised to make good on a manifesto pledge to pull the plug on funds for new cameras. Oxfordshire became the first council to turn off its speed cameras last week, but a slew of other counties are contemplating similar moves. Northamptonshire has taken some cameras out of operation, Somerset plans to do the same, while at least three others — Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire and Wiltshire — have plans to pare back their networks. Devon and Cornwall are considering an end to speed cameras while Dorset and Norfolk are among regions to have put their cameras under review.

Road safety campaigners and motoring organisations insist that speed cameras slow traffic and save lives. 

The first speed cameras were trialled in Britain in 1992. A law passed in 1999 allowed local authorities to use the devices. Road deaths fell to a record low of 2,222 last year.

The cameras’ demise would signal “the return to the racetrack” for some drivers, according to one expert. Richard Allsop, professor of transport studies at University College London and a trustee of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), said: “The concerns are real, PACTS shares these concerns, and we support ACPO in drawing the new minister’s attention to the unintended consequences that could be severe if urgent thought is not given to avoiding them.” Professor Allsop said it would be “extremely serious” if the Government had not drafted a new road safety strategy by Christmas.

“If you let up, it will go into reverse,” Professor Allsop said, citing the Netherlands, which relaxed road safety programmes in the early 1990s, only to suffer a rise in road deaths. 

Since the development of the first fixed Gatso (brand of speed camera) speed cameras in the Netherlands, they have been installed across continental Europe. Their proliferation over the past decade reflects a consensus that the cameras are effective at slowing traffic and reducing road deaths. There is no sign yet of other countries following Britain’s lead in cutting back on the devices. On the contrary, some campaigners are pressing for a change in international law to allow drivers caught speeding abroad to face prosecution in their home countries. At present, automated speed camera fines cannot follow you home.

More than 6,000 speed cameras in Britain raise about £100 million each year. Money collected through £60 speeding fines goes to the Treasury, which in turn provides grants to local authorities. The Department for Transport leaves councils to set their own spending priorities.

Chief Constable Mick Giannasi is roads officer for the police chiefs

Huw Evans Agency