The end of speed cameras?

A large cut in road safety budgets means that hundreds of speed cameras across the country could be switched off.

The government has cut £38m from this year’s road safety budget and ended central funding for speed cameras – a central plank of its promise to “end the war on the motorist”.

With some road safety departments losing up to 40% of their budget, cuts are being made in road safety initiatives throughout the country. Unfortunately for many road safety partnerships this means abandoning their speed cameras.

Staffordshire Safer Roads Partnership has announced that it is reviewing its ‘entire package of road safety measures’ and that many of its speed cameras could be switched off.

Oxfordshire County Council is turning off its 72 speed cameras after facing a £600,000 cut in funding.

Dorset County Council is considering similar measures, although a spokesman from the Council stressed that they still back the role that speed cameras play in road safety.

The picture looks the same across the UK – although many Road Safety Partnerships will be leaving their cameras up as a deterrent, the cuts mean that maintaining working cameras is simply too costly for most.

Reactions to the cuts

Chief Constable Mick Giannasi, of Gwent Police, who speaks on road policing for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “The evidence is that road safety camera partnerships have achieved significant reductions in road casualties over the last decade. There are almost half the number of casualties now that there were eight years ago.”

Cambridgeshire Chief Constable Julie Spence added: “People think, ‘we should be able to get away with it’. They wouldn't tolerate law-breaking by anybody else, but they do it themselves without thinking. It all seems OK until something tragic happens, like a child dies because of a road traffic accident.”

Research shows that speed plays a major role in survival rates for children hit by traffic. If a child is hit by a car travelling at 40 mph, there is an 80% chance they will die. If the car is travelling at 30 mph, there is an 80% chance the child will survive.

A Department for Transport spokeswoman said that road safety remained a priority: “The coalition government is committed to further improving road safety but it is right that local councils decide how best to tackle specific problems in their areas. We ended central government funding for new fixed speed cameras because we don't believe we should dictate to councils that they use them as the default solution in reducing accidents.”

One County Council has decided that speed cameras are so important they should find a way to fund them despite the budget cuts. Officials in Nottinghamshire have managed to secure funding through their Local Area Agreement to enable them to keep the cameras on. Richard Jackson, Nottinghamshire’s cabinet member for transport and highways, said that the implications of immediately reducing road safety activity were unacceptable.

What happens when you switch off speed cameras?

On the 11th August the Telegraph reported a significant increase in speeding drivers since the Oxfordshire cameras were switched off. A speed camera on the A44 in Woodstock detected 110 offences, up on the 93 expected offences when the cameras had been active.

Dan Campbell, from Thames Valley’s Safer Road Partnership, said: “These are very limited results from just two locations and a few days worth of data. However, if this is a trend that grows across Oxfordshire it is very worrying indeed.”

Have your say!

Do you work for or with a road safety partnership? Are you reducing your speed cameras, or have your cuts hit elsewhere?