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Speed cameras – a
necessary evil or no good to mankind?
In October 2008 Swindon announced that they
had made a decision to scrap the fixed point speed cameras that previously
caught speeding motorists in over eighty different locations.
This controversial move
has sparked debate across the country, with some condemning the decision
and others supporting it. By November 2008 it was reported that
Portsmouth, Walsall and Birmingham were all considering echoing
Swindon’s actions, but will the removal of the speed cameras spell
disaster on the roads?
Statistics:
2002 saw the introduction of Safety Cameras in the Swindon, and the
statistics say that the numbers of road-related fatalities has fallen
noticeably since then. The number of people killed or seriously injured on
the county's roads saw a drop of 5%, with a 33% drop for child fatalities.
This drop is obviously
desired, but was it caused by the speed camera? Statistics
again would say not; there were still seventy fatalities on Swindon's
streets in 2007-08 and that seems to be proof that although the percentage
of deaths has gone down, it has not fixed the problem completely.
Money:
The money from fined motorists caught
speeding goes directly to the HM Treasury; neither the police nor local
councils profit from the cameras, yet it costs a council like Portsmouth
£380,000 a year of public money for six fixed speed cameras.
This exorbitant
cost was the motivation behind Swindon’s decision, but is it fair
to accuse them of saving money over saving lives? If the cameras truly
don’t work then the obvious answer is no - so long as Swindon puts their
savings towards finding other traffic calming measures that do work.
The motoring public:
Speed cameras are generally
only a solution for the short patch of road the monitor as a lot of
speeding drivers simply slow down to pass them and very often speed back
up again afterwards. When the cameras do catch a car speeding then it is
likely that the driver won’t even realise until the fine arrives in the
post some two weeks after; and because the driver has achieved distance
from the offense, both literately and figuratively, the fine does very
little to raise awareness of the danger of going too fast.
Instead of raising
awareness the cameras have bred a feeling of animosity in the motoring
community, and have alienated the public against road safety efforts. The
general consensus amongst car drivers is that the government is trying to
‘catch them out’ in order to make money rather than reduce speed
related fatalities.
Ultimately, because the
public sees the cameras as ‘the enemy’, they will never be effective
in helping repeat offenders see the error of their ways.
The fear of being
caught:
It’s true that most people who know that there is a camera will slow
down for the camera and speed up afterwards, but what if a driver is on an
unfamiliar road? The warning sign for a speed camera is often enough to
make people check their speed and slow down regardless of whether there is
actually a camera or not.
Although not as
preferable as people keeping to the speed limit of their own accord, the
fact that drivers are frightened to speed on roads that might have a
camera is a lesser evil than speeding and causing an accident. By removing
the cameras Swindon is removing the ‘fear’, and might end up seeing a
lot more speed limits broken than they anticipate.
In the end we simply have to face the fact that speed cameras will not
stop crashes completely ; only we as the motoring public can do that by
facing up to our responsibilities and becoming better drivers.
As Tony Simcock,
driving instructor and director of The Big Red L Company in Kent
commented, “Speed cameras have helped raise
the awareness that ‘Inappropriate Speed Kills’; however, unless
motorists across the UK begin to drive in a way that significantly reduces
the risks to our children, to other road users and to themselves, we will
always be faced with government initiatives that are blanket measures that
appear out of place or heavy handed.”
He
continues, “I do a lot of driving, I try to stick to speed limits, have
never been caught speeding, I am very rarely late for a meeting and have
never been involved in an injury accident – is that coincidence, or good
driving?”
© The Big Red L
Company 2008 |
