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HAVE YOUR SAY

BAN SPEED CAMERAS SAY ROAD SAFETY CAMPAIGNERS

Road safety campaigners want speed cameras scrapped

Saturday August 9,2008

By Mark Blacklock

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(61)

Road safety campaigners yesterday called for speed cameras to be banned after police slashed road deaths by 40 per cent without them.

Only two forces in Britain refuse to operate fixed speed traps – and both have recorded significant reductions in road deaths.

Official statistics just released show that police across Britain have quadrupled fines in the last decade to more than £106million a year.

The money collected by Durham Constabulary – just £169,000 in 2006 – is tiny by comparison because the force does not operate the fixed camera traps. Yet at the same time the force has cut its road death toll from 44 in 1998 to 26 last year – a fall of more than 40 per cent.

Neighbouring police forces which operate cameras have fined motorists millions.

Northumbria, which operates 45 fixed cameras and 104 mobile sites, collected more than £3million, and Cleveland issued fines of £1.1million.

The only other force in the country to have banned fixed cameras is nearby North Yorkshire – and road deaths there are down by 15 per cent.

All of the remaining forces operate speed cameras, hated by drivers and motoring organisations which regard them as a revenue-raising device rather than a safety measure.

And although the death toll nationally has dropped from 3,421 in 1998 to 3,172 in 2006 – a reduction of seven per cent – it is far below the levels achieved in North Yorkshire and Durham.

Claire Armstrong, of the anti-fixed camera campaign group Safe Speed, said: “Speed cameras are not saving lives.” Her organisation wants to see speed cameras removed and replaced with more officers on patrol, as is the case in Durham. Ms Armstrong said: “The police presence on the road is no longer there. You can drive up and down all day and not see a single police car. It is very worrying.”

**CLICK HERE TO READ THE DAILY EXPRESS COMMENT ON SPEED CAMERAS**

She added: “Speed cameras just target the ordinary, law-abiding motorist who goes a few miles an hour over the limit but isn’t driving dangerously.

“The result is that the relationship between the police and the public is now at an all-time low.”

**Should all speed cameras be scrapped?**

**Do you think roads would be SAFER without cameras?**

TRAFFIC DIVISION

25.08.08, 9:14am

I used to go to the Ace Cafe and my favourite bike was my Bonnie. One of our pastimes was spotting coppers asleep in their patrol cars at night, turn around and come past them freewheeling, thumping the roof of their vehicle before driving away at speed. Morris Minors and even P6 Rovers were no match for Bonnevilles.

When I grew up and drove ambulances, we used to squirt water at coppers on point duty and in return, they whipped out water pistols and squirted us as well.

Can you imagine pulling out a water pistol and squirting a copper today? If you managed to avoid being shot or getting arrested, you would both be up on serious fizzers and end up with the sack or at the very least, a political correctness indoctrination plus, "advice and guidance."

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment

TRIUMPH!

18.08.08, 2:08am

Have you ever tried to hold a 650? I'm more of a Daytona man myself (although i pine for my now ex- Monster) Its not a shock that women were refrained from experiencing such a vehicle. Mind you the modern Hondas are not much better, especially not after the addition of extra fairing and equipement.

As for our kith in the fire service, I have to admit that i'm the black sheep for shunning the life of the water fairy.

• Posted by: ruhe03 • Report Comment

ICE CREAM, CHOC ICES!

17.08.08, 12:21pm

Yes, I am going back to the early 1970s when traffic were first issued with them. I also remember that they were the first to have double "Mickey Mouse ears," blue beacons specifically for motorway driving. I also remember when they excluded women from traffic division because it was claimed that they would not have the strength to hold up the 650 Triumphs.

Mind you, when Trumpton first employed women, they made Geoff Capes look effeminate.

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment

SPEED CAMERAS

16.08.08, 8:45pm

The first speed camera in London ran out of film in 2 hours.

Such was the speeding on that road!!!

Now there is no film just digital cameras.

• Posted by: Flyer • Report Comment

MR WHIPPY

16.08.08, 4:52pm

Actually white-crested hats were standard issue up until a few years ago and have now been reinstated.

• Posted by: ruhe03 • Report Comment

RED LIGHT CAMERAS

16.08.08, 2:07pm

The first red light camera installed as an experiment was at the Hanger Lane Gyratory system at Park Royal. The film ran out in a couple of days because it was the main escape route for ambulances and traffic division cars. It hardly caught normal vehicles and when it did, they all had Polish number plates.

I witnessed a collision when a drunk driver went through red lights at speed at Hillingdon on the A40 and crashed into some poor sod crossing legitimately on the green. His excuse was, "These lights are always green when I go through them, hic!" The ice cream men took him away. (For those of you who did not know, the ice cream men joke was directed at the new issue white caps for Traffic Division.) I thought it was far kinder than the Black Rat nomenclature.

• Posted by: Harveymiff • Report Comment