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Public perception of speed cameras could be threatening support

 for other road safety strategies in the UK

_________________________

Back to School for Speeding Drivers

(see footnote, and adjacent links to related pages)

March 10, 2004

Public perception of speed cameras could be threatening support for other road safety strategies and new ways of using the revenue from cameras - including re-education courses - should be introduced to break the link between enforcement and revenue.

The RAC Foundation has welcomed reports that the Government is currently examining methods of delivering re-education courses instead of penalty points to motorists caught by safety cameras across the country. The Department of Transport is looking at ways of ensuring consistency and effectiveness in the speed awareness courses - which are financed by offenders. 

Kevin Delaney, Traffic and Road Safety Manager of the RAC Foundation said:

"Speed cameras are an integral and essential part of the nation's road safety strategy but they have polarised public opinion, politicised road safety and personalised the debate as well as criminalising millions of motorists over the past four years.

"If the cameras are to fulfil their potential as the prime achievers of the government's ambitious casualty reduction targets it is vital that the attitude of otherwise law abiding motorists are changed towards remote enforcement methods. In the correct locations, cameras are a real road safety benefit. But we need to de-couple the belief that cameras are about money.

"Such change will only come about if we address those perceptions. Many drivers think that speed cameras are as, or more, concerned about raising revenue than reducing collisions and that numbers of speeding tickets are more important than dealing with very high speeds, blatant offenders and drink, drug and dangerous drivers."

The RAC Foundation has a four-point manifesto:

1.Break the link between enforcement and revenue. Rather than funding camera operations as a separate entity, bring them within the general road safety portfolio. Instead of returning the revenue raised for the continued operation of cameras, apply it much more widely to include road user education within schools. Instead of paying traffic police overtime to operate speed cameras, pay them to undertake mainstream high visibility traffic patrol duties, including dealing with the anti-social minority whose dangerous and often uninsured driving poses a greater threat.

2.Improve signing of speed limits to the point where every limit is signed clearly at the beginning and throughout. Ensure that a speed limit sign is always visible at a fixed or mobile speed camera site.

3.Increase the use of speed related interactive signs, which either remind drivers of the limit, or display the actual speed of speeding vehicles, especially on the approach to fixed site, or mobile speed cameras.

4.Tackle driver's attitudes towards speed by increasing the provision of speed awareness courses as an alternative to automatic penalties in the case of minor infringements, or first time offenders. A speeding ticket through the post tends to harden rather than change the recipient's attitude, whereas driver training encourages those taking part to think about their behaviour and perhaps change it.

Press release ends.

Notes (from the RAC Foundation):

a) The majority of motorists support the move to send speeding drivers back to school rather than clocking up points and fines and the RAC Foundation and Autocar Magazine have been in discussion with Government, Police and road safety bodies since launching their "Talking Sense on Speed Campaign" in October in a bid to see a national roll-out of these courses.

b) The RAC Foundation for Motoring is an independent body established to protect and promote the interests of UK motorists. Motoring organisation RAC supports its six million customers with breakdown cover and a wide range of other motoring solutions. The views of each organisation should not be attributed to the other.

Source: RAC

DSA Footnote:  It will be seen from note (b), above, that the RAC Foundation (unlike, say, the AAA Foundation, in the USA) is primarily concerned with "protecting and promoting the interests of UK motorists" and therefore true road/highway safety concerns cannot quite be their key priority. We, at DSA, believe that RAC Foundation press releases must be viewed in this light and not taken as being the last word in safety wisdom. There is actually rather a lot of hard evidence, from the UK, to show that crash and casualty figures have been reduced markedly at locations where speed cameras have been sited. 

Related pages:

"In the eight pilot areas, in the project the number of people killed or seriously injured was reduced by 18 per cent over two years and the total number of collisions went down by six per cent." Read the full BBC report here.

The Other Side of Speed Cameras    Nov. 10, 2003 --  RAC Foundation

The Other Side of Speed Cameras    Dec. 8, 2003  --  RAC Foundation

The RoSPA Report on Speed Cameras (pdf):  One of the conclusions from this report related to casualty data from 250 speed camera locations where, over a two year period, 35% fewer people (which means about 280 fewer, actual people) were killed or seriously injured.