Speed Cameras

Speed cameras (or is it now Safety Cameras?) have been much in the news lately. There are various reports that the government is to scrap them. In fact they are cutting funding for them - the final decision lies with the local authorities but it will, often, amount to the same thing.

I'm a bit in two minds about this. On the one hand, I abhor wanton speeding. It's selfish, anti-social and largely pointless on all but the clearest of motorways. Also, having never received a speeding ticket, I'm rather smug about it. On the other hand, I always have the suspicion that the speed enforcement is designed to catch the easiest targets - not the most dangerous. The road I live on is a case in point: it has a national speed limit (60 mph) for the full length and, for much of it, it's pretty much impossible to break the speed limit. This doesn't, in itself, make it safe and there have been a number of fatalities and many more serious accidents. This should make it a prime target for safety enforcement and I do see the police camera van parked up on a regular basis. However, this is to monitor motorway traffic from a bridge where, as far as I can tell, there have been no accidents in the last few years - let alone fatal ones.

In fact, when the cameras were first introduced I was very much in favour of them. This is because they were used to catch people who jumped red lights. This is a mindlessly dangerous activity and the cameras cut this behaviour overnight; job done. After this, they were increasingly used for speed enforcement. At first this looked reasonable enough but increasingly they were placed out of sight and in areas where speed limits were not always clearly posted. Their success was then announced: not in terms of how many accidents they had prevented but how many people had been caught by them. If excessive speed was causing accidents then surely a successful camera should catch no-one. Increasingly they were viewed not as safety devices but as a mere money making scam.

I can't see scrapping cameras having any positive benefit. It's not as if the money will be spent more wisely elsewhere. The money will simply be gone. However, I do think there can be a better approach to road safety. Far too often I see road layouts that are badly designed, with poor road markings and road signs that are illegible or hidden behind foliage. On my own road, there are at least three places in which the road markings will place vehicles on a head-on collision course without warning. I'm very wary of this but those unfamiliar with the road can be quite easily caught out - and many are. All it would take is a little road paint to prevent this. A very cheap and simple solution that would bring down the road traffic accident statistics. This doesn't even need any form of police enforcement. The Japanese have a phrase for this: Poka-yoke - literally "mistake avoidance".

In theory, drivers should never be in a position of breaking a speed limit at an accident black spot. The cameras should not be used to catch speeders, so much, as the chronically inobservant.