DorsetSpeed has obtained information concerning fine counts at the Speed on
Green on Holes Bay, Poole, and succeeded in gaining much better visibility into
DSCP activities in the future.
DorsetSpeed was formed a few years ago in response to increasing concerns about
road safety and inability of the “authorities” to do anything about it other
than to turn it into a money gathering exercise.
This became beyond all doubt when the Speed on Green was introduced in Poole in
2009. The junction is a clear and wide dual carriageway, particularly exiting
the town, does not have much pedestrian activity, but has safe crossings. The 30
limit is ridiculous, you only have to look at the similar junction near PC
World, which has a large number of popular stores on both sides of the main road
and no pedestrian crossing over the main road, fewer pedestrian barriers, a 50
limit and no enforcement, to confirm that speed limits are not set intelligently
and enforcements most likely to be installed to catch safe motorists.
The Dorset Safety Camera Partnership have been trying to keep quiet about the
fine counts for the “speed on green”. When DorsetSpeed made the original request
to FOI, 6 reasons were given as to why such information would be considered
exempt. When it was pointed out that all of the reasons given were nonsense,
Johnny Stephens admitted that 5 of the reasons were “generic and not applicable
to the site” but hung onto the reason that release of fines counts increases
attacks on cameras. As the reasoning of road safety operations should not be
confused or influenced by unrelated illegal activities, DorsetSpeed complained
to the Information Commissioner. Now, the information will be released, when an
audit has been completed.
This is something of a victory against the DSCP who seem to be incapable of
making any sort of credible argument that what they do is beneficial and would
prefer to hide behind secrecy.
The information that DorsetSpeed has succeeded in obtaining is:
1. Although the operation was started 1 July 2009, no NIPs were issued until the
22nd November.
2. The DSCP will in future publish the number of notices of intended prosecution
issued at each safety camera site once audit has been completed. This will be
available for each financial year, i.e. ending 31 March 2010. The DSCP will
endeavour to update the Site Statistics sheets as soon as
is practicable and will aim to complete this task by 30 June 2010.
Why it should take them 3 months to do this is rather extraordinary, but we can
now look forward to some interesting data in the summer. This will hopefully
enable the public to better understand what is happening and to make their own
minds up about the activities of the DSCP and road safety policy in general.