ras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices?

Hate them or love them, they’re here to stay: those imposing – that’s if they were in full view – devices, known as speed cameras – or, to the educated amongst us, Cash Cows.

Speed is something that is arguably bad, or good, depending on circumstances. Bad speed is 100mph through a village centre, or it could be 5mph on an ice-laden road, through a High Street, full of shoppers. A speed camera might clock up the faster example, but certainly wouldn’t register that drunken driver doing 5mph on ice, as he cuts a swathe through the Saturday morning shopping community, on the pavement.

So, both speeds could be viewed as inherently ‘bad’ – but which one is the more dangerous? The isolated village, with everyone tucked safely in the local pub, or the busy High Street, with its thronging masses of pedestrians, unaware that the drunk is about to lose control, because he was going 3mph faster than the conditions allowed?

And do cameras prevent dangerous speeds anyway? Well, no. If this were the case, the 100mph driver would not be flashed, and the 5mph driver would be prevented from killing people. So they don’t work. Yes, they ‘punish’ people for going too fast, but they don’t stop people from going too fast, and they certainly don’t apprehend people at the moment of the crime; notices of intended prosecution usually drop through the letterbox some two weeks’ later. So the speeder, who may be high on drugs or drink at the time of the offence, or on a mobile phone, or asleep at the wheel, or any number of other dodgy acts, won’t get stopped and breathalysed, drugs tested, woken up or caught red handed ordering a pizza on his phone.

Deterrent effect then, you might say? Well, no. Deterrents are things that dissuade people from doing them. Thus we have the nuclear deterrent, which makes other nations think twice before bombing us out of all existence, or the ‘cancer’ deterrent, which makes people think before smoking. But speeding deterrents don’t deter, because the number of fines and prosecutions is at a record high, year after year after year. As deterrents, they simply don’t work, as opposed to the deterrent effect of a police car in a lay-by on the A14, which has a magical effect of forcing every passing motorist to stamp on his brake pedal.

You might say that accidents have reduced and that speed cameras are responsible for this. I would say that Essex, with one of the highest concentrations of cameras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices?

could be viewed as inherently ‘bad’ – but which one is the more dangerous? The isolated village, with everyone tucked safely in the local pub, or the busy High Street, with its thronging masses of pedestrians, unaware that the drunk is about to lose control, because he was going 3mph faster than the conditions allowed?

And do cameras prevent dangerous speeds anyway? Well, no. If this were the case, the 100mph driver would not be flashed, and the 5mph driver would be prevented from killing people. So they don’t work. Yes, they ‘punish’ people for going too fast, but they don’t stop people from going too fast, and they certainly don’t apprehend people at the moment of the crime; notices of intended prosecution usually drop through the letterbox some two weeks’ later. So the speeder, who may be high on drugs or drink at the time of the offence, or on a mobile phone, or asleep at the wheel, or any number of other dodgy acts, won’t get stopped and breathalysed, drugs tested, woken up or caught red handed ordering a pizza on his phone.

Deterrent effect then, you might say? Well, no. Deterrents are things that dissuade people from doing them. Thus we have the nuclear deterrent, which makes other nations think twice before bombing us out of all existence, or the ‘cancer’ deterrent, which makes people think before smoking. But speeding deterrents don’t deter, because the number of fines and prosecutions is at a record high, year after year after year. As deterrents, they simply don’t work, as opposed to the deterrent effect of a police car in a lay-by on the A14, which has a magical effect of forcing every passing motorist to stamp on his brake pedal.

You might say that accidents have reduced and that speed cameras are responsible for this. I would say that Essex, with one of the highest concentrations of cameras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices?

fast, and they certainly don’t apprehend people at the moment of the crime; notices of intended prosecution usually drop through the letterbox some two weeks’ later. So the speeder, who may be high on drugs or drink at the time of the offence, or on a mobile phone, or asleep at the wheel, or any number of other dodgy acts, won’t get stopped and breathalysed, drugs tested, woken up or caught red handed ordering a pizza on his phone.

Deterrent effect then, you might say? Well, no. Deterrents are things that dissuade people from doing them. Thus we have the nuclear deterrent, which makes other nations think twice before bombing us out of all existence, or the ‘cancer’ deterrent, which makes people think before smoking. But speeding deterrents don’t deter, because the number of fines and prosecutions is at a record high, year after year after year. As deterrents, they simply don’t work, as opposed to the deterrent effect of a police car in a lay-by on the A14, which has a magical effect of forcing every passing motorist to stamp on his brake pedal.

You might say that accidents have reduced and that speed cameras are responsible for this. I would say that Essex, with one of the highest concentrations of cameras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices?

twice before bombing us out of all existence, or the ‘cancer’ deterrent, which makes people think before smoking. But speeding deterrents don’t deter, because the number of fines and prosecutions is at a record high, year after year after year. As deterrents, they simply don’t work, as opposed to the deterrent effect of a police car in a lay-by on the A14, which has a magical effect of forcing every passing motorist to stamp on his brake pedal.

You might say that accidents have reduced and that speed cameras are responsible for this. I would say that Essex, with one of the highest concentrations of cameras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices?

ras in the world, has seen an increase in accidents, while Durham, with just one fixed camera, has seen a reduction. It’s also difficult to ‘prove’ a camera has saved lives. You can name people killed, but you can never name anyone whose life has been saved by a camera. It’s a negative formula. Perhaps it was the positioning of a discarded sweet wrapper that caused the reduction in accidents? Who knows?

Cars are safer than ever; braking systems are cutting edge, and the responsible driver doesn’t need a camera, in order to know what is a ‘safe’ speed. So is it time to re-evaluate these useless devices? Speed on the day that happens!