"This graph shows, with 98% correlation, the extra deaths related to speed camera penalties. It shows quite clearly how the extra deaths increase with the increased number of speed camera penalties, and how they similarly reduced as the penalties have been reduced. It does not necessarily follow that the penalties cause the extra deaths, but it shows how the obsession with enforcing speed compliance, at the expense of other more beneficial methods, has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths on our roads."

It seems that in Dorset, fixed cameras are to be withdrawn, and the “no excuses” campaign is starting to put real police on the road looking for real problems. This is a major step forwards, very encouraging for the many like me who have been complaining bitterly for years about how road safety management has been totally corrupted by the obvious aim to simply raise as much cash as possible from traffic policing while ignoring the obvious simple dangerous problems that cause such misery.

I hope that as well as just looking for the small things (seatbelts, mobile phones, etc) some of the more serious problems will also be targeted, such as: /br> -driving too close
-erratic / inconsiderate driving
-not using slip roads to adjust to the speed of the road being entered
-lane hogging
-driving too slow
-etc.

It will be interesting to see how the new approach works, it could work very well, as long as the motivation of those involved is to educate and improve safety, rather than to still issue the maximum possible number of fines, which will inevitably shift the attention away from the serious problems to the trivial ones.

The Dorset “Sa£ety” camera partnership still carry out occasional, predictable, ineffective, mobile operations in the area. While some councils are starting to realise they can no longer cope with the cost and embarrassment of supporting and promoting the partnerships, Dorset seems committed to them. The DSCP are introducing mind-blowingly stupid operations like the Speed on green at Holes Bay (see below).

Not surprisingly, driving standards continue to deteriorate, and numbers for those killed and seriously injured on the roads are increasing (see below).

Respect and compliance of speed limits are reducing. Throughout the day and night, race tuned vehicles can be heard racing around at full throttle. On every short journey I see drivers who demonstrate a complete lack of awareness for all other road users around them, above and below the speed limit.

Congestion is getting critical, the only signs of interest from the council seems to be “road surveys” carried out with staggering incompetence and with no chance of providing the dynamic continuous data which could so easily be transparently gathered with today’s technologies. Journey times, driver stress and fatigue increase, leading to more and more accidents and an escalating problem.

Numbers of uninsured drivers, cloned vehicles, etc. are staggering. Despite all of these problems, all that is done is to attempt to dish out large numbers of speeding fines. This has little meaning even to insurance companies who no longer significantly load premiums for even multiple speeding convictions. Even the partnerships can’t be bothered to pursue large numbers of tickets. The majority of those actually being penalised are those who are the few remaining decent people who wouldn’t dream of challenging the “authorities” and with all paperwork completely in order, and have exceeded a limit by a tiny amount under completely reasonable circumstances, i.e the easy targets who aren’t causing a problem.

Those who run the “sa£ety” partnerships and road management at the councils (and the public) must understand they are doing an extremely bad job and the deaths and injuries that would not be occurring if they were thinking about road safety, rather than whatever it is they are thinking about (pensions, job security, bonuses, nothing, ??) cannot be ignored. The DSCP has not answered a single one of my criticisms over the years – do they have any integrity or belief in what they are doing? I don’t think so.

Below are some examples of speed camera operations, which clearly demonstrate the irrelevance of what is done compared to the real problems on the road, which become obvious when you observe what happens and apply some common sense.

No wonder the roads are so bad.