Shropshire speed cameras ‘are here to stay’
Monday 26th July 2010, 8:51AM BST.
The plug has been pulled on £150,000 worth of funding for speed cameras in Shropshire this year, but safety chiefs have pledged both fixed and mobile traps are here to stay in the county.
Transport chiefs at Shropshire Council say that due to government funding cuts the authority can now only afford to stump up £425,000 instead of the £575,000 it was due to give to West Mercia’s Safer Roads Partnership.
No decisions have been made by Telford & Wrekin Council, but cuts are also predicted.
Mobile patrols have been stopped and cameras will be turned off in Oxford following the loss of cash, but chiefs in West Mercia say that will not happen in Shropshire and contingency plans are in place.
Safer Roads Partnership manager Rod Reynolds said: “We have made proportionate savings to our budget within this financial year in line with the reductions faced by our funding partners.
Deliver
“The savings we have made will not have an impact on our front line operations in terms of enforcement activity and have been focused on a range of back office functions and improving operational efficiency.
“Importantly, we are continuing the valuable work with partners to deliver road safety awareness campaigns, training and education programmes.”
Mr Reynolds said the partnership was not “overly reliant” on more expensive static speed cameras as part of its casualty reduction programme.
He said the board had made a positive decision to concentrate more on mobile speed enforcement, in the shape of speed camera vans.
The partnership is one of the first to introduce Community Concern sites, where vans are sent onto roads where residents claim there are problems with speed.
Martin Withington, head of transport at Shropshire Council, said the decision to reduce funding was due to cuts from government.
He said: “We will now be contributing £425,000 to the Safer Roads Partnership to undertake, in the main, mobile camera speed enforcement, with some fixed cameras, and road safety publicity and training activities.”
By Wayne Beese
UK News
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only £430,000?
Perhaps the council should cut this totally to help save money!
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get rid of them they are just cash cow’s.may i suggest we get the local busy’s in their flash volvo’s,range rover’s and bmw’s to do their job with road policing.now that we are all tightening our belt’s may i suggest the police move away from the flash motor’s and start looking at vehicles like skoda,seat and kia or will it affect there image as they won’t be able to pose in their beemer’s in their rayban’s whilst hunting down the poor motorist.
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I always thought the BMWs, Volvos and Range Rovers were selected for their power, reliability and practicality, not their posing potential.
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Raleigh pushbikes are renowned for reliabilitty let’s put a few of the rather obese bobbies i see in these gas guzzlers and get crime off streets and town’s.
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Erm … last time I saw, the local police had diesel Vauxhall Astra’s and Corsa’s … hardly posing material. I think they got one Volvo which will be the traffic car and I think I saw a shock, gasp, horror, Ford Mondeo the other day !!!!
Reality check …. speed limits are there for a reason – you may not agree with the limit in a specific place but tanking past it is no ones fault but your own.
The legal requirement (if you search on google) is they don’t activate until 10% plus 2mph over the set limit – in other words you have to be doing over 35 in a 30, over 46 in a 40, over 68 on a national limit – hardly 1 or 2 over so who’s fault is that ???
Don’t want to pay the fine ?? slow down; the kids on pushbikes will thank you for not splatting them in your windscreen.
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Try Swindons results:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/england/8636654.stm
no speed cameras, no rise in accidents…
And on the subject of police cars I noticed a bobby doing door to door in a BMW this week in Shrewsbury.
I actually thought at the time, “why on earth is he using that”…
And BMW’s reliability is NOT any greater than hyundai, but the parts and labour is much more. This is a waste of money, perhaps the federation demands a certain level of transport to keep morale up in the force?
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Of course safety chiefs have said that they’re here to stay. Where would all that profit come from otherwise? Next they’ll be telling us we have to pay a congestion charge to enter Shropshire. Yet again the motorist continues to fund this disgrace by going 1 or 2 mph over the limit. Stealth tax.
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How are these speed cameras not self-funding?
If they were cash cows surely we should install more – could help ease the budget cuts with cash from those that are happy to break the law.
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If they hid the cameras rather than telling everyone where they are, they would easily fund themselves. But it is probably against people’s human rights or some such nonsense.
Lady followed me out of the hospital yesterday. She was about 100 yards behind me, travelling at 30mph. Once safely past the big yellow speed camera she must have hit 50mph and was on my bumper in seconds. Pointless.
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Goes to show they don’t deter speeding then and are just a revenue earner!
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Any way you choose to look at it, they only earn revenue from the plonkers who drive too fast.
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anotherfalse economy from CONDEM cuts, this will costs lives and income for the police which puts more cost on taxpayers, the idiots
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“This isn’t just nonsense, this is aaron spellman nonsense.”
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You don’t get it, do you aaron?
All revenue from scamera fines go direct to the Government, therefore this new coalition must know that these speed traps do nothing for road safety, and that greater cost efficiencies can be made by reducing the funding and looking at more effective traffic management solutions.
Much better than the clunking fist approach adopted by the previous Labour incumbents, under whose watch we saw these infernal contraptions multiply.
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Aah…………Bring back Gorgon Clown and the good old days of completely reckless expenditure, I say (sigh)
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i agree with Aaron, you need to reduce speed and improve safety but also you need to be cautious with taxpayers money and spend it prudently. Its only sensible to look at solutions like cameras which generate an income to cover their costs other wise your council tax will have to pay for the more ‘innovative and low tech solutions’
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speed cameras save lives
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Bold statement, that.
Care to back it up with some evidence that includes due consideration for regression to the mean at camera sites?
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Back to Swindon trial:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/england/8636654.stm
It is simply not true. So all recent improvements in road safety have nothing to do with road design, safer cars or heaven forbid imprved motorist ebhaviour: it is all down to the cameras that, when removed, miraculously cease to be having an effect.
Come off it, speed doesnt kill: bad driving and, in some cases, terrible pedestrian and cyclist behaviour, does.
Worst of all, because the speed cameras are about we get less police actually looking for dangerous driving, never heard of a speed camera catching a drunk driver…
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“speed cameras save lives”
Another gullible “speed kills” prophet.
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“speed cameras save lives”
Why,do they drive ambulances!!!!!!
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There are frequent fatal accidents on the A road next to where I live. Its usually caused by poorly judged overtaking and careless driving/lack of attention to motorbikes and junctions. I don’t think the mobile speed traps which are occasionally deployed are making any difference to the accident rate.
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#7 Winja [Care to back it up with some evidence that includes due consideration for regression to the mean at camera sites?]
We have a speed camera on Longdon Road. My dear old mum who died 10 years ago had to cross that road to catch the bus but she was terrified as it is a wide road and prior to the 30 speed limit she could not safely cross it, it was always a risky operation.
She stopped going out in the end having lost her confidence.
So speed cameras cannot be judged on accident records alone they serve a wider purpose of giving streets back to other the road users not in cars, children, older people and cyclists for example.
Speed cameras annoy a minority of car drivers who have no consideration for anyone else but themselves.
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Eva
You know absolutely nothing about my driving techniques or style or the method I adopt to deal with other road users whilst driving. So how on earth you could label me a selfish driver on the basis that I believe that speed cameras are nothing but snake oil is disingenuous at the very least.
Your anecdotal evidence aside, a speed camera’s effectiveness must be judged on accident stats, as such stats (they say) are the primary driver behind their installation in the first place. One has to compare apples with apples.
Returning to your Longden Road example, was it the implementation of the 30 speed limit that permitted your mum to safely cross, or the installation of the speed trap and the new speed limit?
The irritant – for me – with the ruddy things is that they are purported by the Camera Teams to be the main reason for a fall in road deaths in any given period. Nothing to do with better road engineering or improved active car safety features or better roadside assistance from paramedics. No. Nothing at all to do with those.
Anyway. I’m still waiting for evidence that these cameras save lives, giving due consideration for regression to the mean anomalies at the camera sites.
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I would much sooner see every penny of this money invested in ANPR devices. These allow police to catch the uninsured, the unlicensed, those without MOT etc.
There’s also a strong correlation between such offenders and bad driving and other more serious criminal offences, so by using the more sophisticated approach you’d not only catch a lot of habitual speeders, you’d also get a lot of uninsured junk off the roads, and catch a lot of criminals too.
Given that somewhere between 5 and 10% of drivers on the roads are currently uninsured, this would even make the eco-zealots happy!
I’m in opposition to the Government cuts of some quangos – especially those such as BECTA which were doing good work in education, but they could drop the so-called ‘Safety’ camera parterships overnight as far as I’m concerned – and no, before anyone asks – I’ve never been caught by one.
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Get rid of the fixed cameras, and get back the police with thier hand held ones.
If its 30mph, its 30mph not 32/35 or 40 likewise if its 40mph its 40 not 42/44/50 etc.
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I have no problems with having speed camera’s or mobile speed vans. I just think they need to put them in better area’s E.G. out side schools and by playgrounds.
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Winja I appreciate that you have no problem obeying the law and are not one of the many who do not and then have to pay the fines imposed.
My point which you have chosen to ignore is that the speed limit on that road for example, enables children going and returning from school to do so more safely than it was when I used to escort mine. Yes, it does help my father to cross when he goes to the doctor’s surgery in South Hermitage.
The cameras would not catch people if they abided by the law so it would be nice not to have them but we all know that the speed limits are not kept so we do.
I can’t imagine that people are considering the extent of injury they are likely to receive if they are hit by a car who’s speed was difficult to estimate or because they are slow on their feet or short sighted and may miscalculate the time nneded to cross a road.
For a child if the injuries are not fatal then they obviously stand a better chance of recovery than an elderly person. They would then however have a longer time to live with a disability or probably develop arthritis as they get older from having broken bones from when they were a child.
I mean how can you judge the way roads are used by the different legitimate road users like pedestrians by the improvements in health care?
Damaged cars cost the ecomomy very little compared to damaged people and all just for the sake of taking a very small mount of time longer to reach a destination.
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Ah.
See, I chose to ignore your initial point as it concerned speed limits, and I thought this thread was concerning speed cameras.
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perhaps the council could stop wasting money and put it towards saving primary schools, or councillors may be standing against an angry parents party at the next election, like that happened in gwynnedd council, causing plaid cymru to lose overall controll because of threatened school closures.
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The reason that a “safety camera” won’t “flash” you unless you are 10%+2 mph over the speed limit is to allow for inaccuracy in your speedometer. Most vehicle manufactuers only accuratly calibrate “speedos” for emergency service vehicles.
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part of the reason i think cameras should be used is to catch the stupid ladies that drive behind me in the mornings to work they are usualy combing hair and looking in mirror,putting lip paint on. chatting on phone,one last week followed me to the traffic signals at woodside acadamy stearing with her knees and using both hands to finish getting prepared for work i even said what a ********** idiot. she went left i went straight on to get out her way.
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[Returning to your Longden Road example, was it the implementation of the 30 speed limit that permitted your mum to safely cross, or the installation of the speed trap and the new speed limit?]
Any driver who knew his Highway Code would be aware that a road such as Longdon Road is already a 30 mph road.
Drivers who did not feel that they personally have to abide by a SPEED LIMIT continued to drive dangerously and inconsiderately to the disadvantage of other road users. The SPEED CAMERA has improved the safety for pedestrians and cyclists considerably and also for drivers crossing from South Hermitage to Luciefeld Road.
It has also enabled elderly people continue using the road and not give up their liberty to use roads just for the sake of a few car drivers who are quite frankly selfish people.
The camera also acts a hazard forcing drivers so slow down if necessary on a particularly long stretch of Longdon Road that does not have any natural/permanent hazards such as bends.
This is why speed cameras are used strategically and measuring their worth by accidents alone not sufficient.
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If the Government is short of cash to fund rural speed cameras why not do away with the unnecessary ones on the motorways. I say unnecessary because they are. Modern LGVs are fitted with speed limiters, usually set at 56mph for their maximum allowed 60mph.Surely cars could be thus modified, it’s not rocket science and what justification is there in producing a road car capable of doing twice the national speed limit. Obviously, emergency vehicles would not be subject to such limiting which should make car chases a lot easier for the police. I may have missed something in my reasoning but, come on, a car capable of 150mph in a country with a 70mph speed limit, WHY,WHY,WHY?.
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In the first 14 years after the Stocksbridge Bypass was built in 1988 there were 25 road deaths on the six mile stretch of road. In the eight years since Average Speed Cameras were installed at the end of 2002 there has been one.
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Those of you who are opposed to speed cameras please check this out:
http://www.brake.org.uk/bereaved-mother-launches-campaign-to-get-speed-cameras-reinstated-in-swindon-one-year-after-they-were-switched-off
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