There is an interesting article in todays Lancashire Evening Post:
quote:
A Waste of Time
Road deaths in Lancashire have shot up in the past year despite a huge increase in speed cameras.
The number of people killed on the county's highways increased by one third during 2003.
During the same period, Lancashire Road Safety Partnership stepped up its drive to install more than 300 roadside cameras in Lancashire.
The new figures mean Lancashire Police have failed in one of their key objectives – to cut the number of people killed on the roads.
They also throw a question mark over whether the speed camera initiative is working.
But police today insisted the legion of fixed cameras were working despite the rise in deaths.
Chief Insp Val Prince said: "We have not had any people killed or seriously injured at camera sites.
"The road speed at camera sites reducing and if road speed reduces you get less collisions and if there are any collisions they are far less serious. Lower speed collisions cause less damage and injury, that is one of the realisations behind the speed camera initiative to get people to conform to the speed limit.
"In the areas where we have got cameras we have got reductions in casualties, reductions in collisions and people are travelling slower."
The figures show that between January and December last year there were 84 fatal crashes in which 88 people died.
Fatal
There were a further 807 serious crashes in which 932 people were seriously injured. In all there was a total of 5,109 crashes in which 7,343 people were injured. This compares with 2002 in which there were 62 fatal crashes in which 66 people died.
During that period, there were 874 serious crashes in which 1,009 people were seriously injured with the total number at 5,773 crashes and 8,261 injured people. Lancashire has more fixed cameras than any other county in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Last year, the Evening Post revealed 200,000 speeding tickets had been issued from cameras in Lancashire – the equivalent of one-in- five of the county's adult population.
Critics claim the reliance on fixed speed cameras fails to tackle the problems of dangerous and erratic driving.
Ch Insp Prince said: "Unfortunately about 75% of fatals last year were down to what I call poor driving, speeding, using a mobile phone, drink-driving and generally not paying enough attention."
Andrew Howard, head of road safety for the AA Motoring Trust, said: "Sometimes there are increases in death rates and we don't know why. We see a reduction in accident rates in the first year cameras are introduced in specific locations.
"Many people take note of them initially then get used to them."
10 January 2004
quote:
Chief Insp Val Prince said: "We have not had any people killed or seriously injured at camera sites.
No because they aren't in blackspots...f*****g idiot......
(of course I've been out of Lancs for 9 years so I'm just relaying what I hear)
[Edited on 10/1/04 by Alan B]
You're right though!
Spotted a new one locally today very busy stretch of B road, very wide very straight main access route, never heard of a crash on it in many years,
damn fast though if no ones looking
I wish the motorists and fellow members of the public made, more of an effort to moan about this, whose bloody
roads are they anyway, the sooner those fools in local and national goverment realise they are in power to look after our interests and not line
coffers the sooner I might take them seriously, spend more time thinking about national issues instead of getting involved with "overseas
agendas" twats.
Bloody politicians, overpaid useless gits. Rant over
Shug.
Hi,
You'll probably find that all the accidents were happening about a mile or so back down the road from each camera site where the concertina
effect kicked in and had all the traffic bunching up for no apparent reason. ..
There are 3 cameras on my way home from work, 2 outside schools (fair enough). However, as I am driving past each one my attention is 50:50 on the
road and my speedo to ensure that I don't creep over 30MPH on what is a two lane, wide open, urban dual carriageway. My attention SHOULD be 100%
on the road of course but it isn't in practice.
What's better, hitting a school child at a nice safe 30MPH whilst looking at your speedo or driving safely and observantly at, say, 36MPH and
braking/avoiding the school child because you have seen them.
My preference for areas like outside schools would be the red tarmac (no bumps thanks) as this draws your attention to the fact it is a danger zone
without distracting you and making you paranoid.
By the way, apparently you can swing a tin of beans (or whatever) around on a piece of string in front of a gatso camera and it will take pictures of
it exceeding 30MPH. You might need to remove the label. Uses up the film very quickly and no doubt wates lots of time processing the pictures for no
reward... Of course I'm not encouraging this sort of behaviour you understand!
Cheers,
Craig.