Letter: It’s time for the facts about speed cameras
Tuesday 10th August 2010, 6:20AM BST.
Letter: I’ve no issues with a speed camera as a concept when they are sited in appropriate places but there are far better methods of controlling traffic speeds.
I came across a set of lights in Spain at the entrance to a village where there were no road junctions. They were radar controlled and if you are travelling above the speed limit they turned to orange. If you haven’t slowed down by the second set of lights they turned red. Simple and effective.
When it was proposed to install the speed camera at Bennett’s Bank I wrote to the safety camera partnership and asked for a breakdown of the statistics they had issued concerning accident rates.
I asked that rather than stating that there had been X number of deaths and serious injuries on that stretch, that they should break that down and give yearly figures for the previous three years showing how many deaths, injuries requiring hospitalisation and of those hospitalised how many had to stay in overnight or longer, showing the accident trend.
The written response was that they were unable to give me those figures as they were supplied by the police and were clumped together.
So just what figures were considered so critical that Bennett’s Bank was the worst place in Shropshire for accidents – as it must have been to be the first recipient of a speed trap?
It’s about time we discussed publicly the value of the safety camera partnership and whether we want to fund it in the future. It is after all taxpayers’ cash. So, Telford and Wrekin Council, what are you going to do?
Michael Wilkinson
Ketley
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Like it! Bennett’s Bank was only chosen for the reason that its road configuration encouraged short term and minor excesses of speed. Such pettiness stoked huge resentment where public support, or at the very least tolerance, was what should have been cultivated. There were a number of locations where a camera would have been better sited for the purpose of improving road safety, but none of those would have offered the rich statistical pickings that Bennett’s Bank did. Statistics which were used to justify further expansion of the project and the “look how clever and what value for money we are” mentality. A worthy project, fundamentaly and fatally flawed by too much self interest.
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Yes, there are automatic traffic lights on the approach to most villages in Spain. However only foreigners comply with them. Speed cameras, fixed and mobile, are on the increase in Spain. Speed and lack of driving experience contribute to most fatal accidents in Spain and believe me there are a lot. Unless someone comes up with a better solution, like educating drivers to have some concern for others, keep the cameras together with any other means of reducing speed.
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In was driving in Spain three years ago on a beautiful new motorway towards the airport. It was a very long road. Every so often it would give the fatalities on this road – not as we find on our roads with number of incidents in the previous year, but as a digital sign stating the number of fatalities on that particular road since January. It read 1868 fatalities since January. We were there in August. The roads were brilliant the driving appalling. why because that is their culture. Bennetts Bank was an exercise in getting us to pay for additional cameras not in road safety per se. We all learned to distrust the people who put them there and become cynical. You will probably find that there were no figures supporting the introduction of the camera at Bennetts Bank and other rules had to be found to permit it. Sad world when it’s peoples lives at stake and politicians play with us like toys.
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I remember the days when they used to have lots of accidents on Bennets bank…all at the crossroads that is now the traffic lights…so WHY put the camera so far back on the straight safer bit?
More money raised perhaps?
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I am one driver who is in favour of speed cameras. I cover enough miles to realise that a large proportion of drivers – I’d say about 50% – do not understand the the risks of speed, the idea of a safe stopping distance or that other road users do not have the same view of the road that they have.
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Simple stop making cars that can speed up to over 150 miles per hour and do the same as HGV and govern the engine to sat the speed limit of 70 miles per hour SIMPLES
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All road users should have to take an advanced driving course within 2 years of passing their basic test and until then their vehicles should be identified as being controlled by inexperienced people.
Its good training that is missing, giving road users the information they need to cope with roads in any conditions.
Currently only people who actually want more knowledge and understanding on how to use the highways take courses and tests and they are proven to be safer drivers, facts backed up by the insurance companies who will often give advanced drivers a discount.
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