Dorset Speed facebook group was shut down!!
Here is the link to the new group
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Is this the end for static speed camera funding in Bournemouth?
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/8380712.Is_this_the_end_for_static_speed_camera_funding_/
Here's a reader's repsonse to Pat Garrett's points:
"Mr. Garret's figures are cherry-picked and
seriously misleading. I have all the national and police area data and they
show:
Dorset K fell from 87 (1989) to 53 (1993) with no cameras whatever, then still
with few if any cameras fell again to 31 (1998) but as cameras numbers started
to rise (even before the formal partnership) so did deaths, to 54 (2002). Then
they fell again to 36 (2007 and 2008) - still above 31 ten years earlier! The
average rate of fall 2002 - 2008 of 3pa (18 in 6 years) with Partnership's many
cameras was less than half of the 6.4pa fall (56 in 9 years) from 1989 to 1998
with very few cameras. The 2009 fall from 36 to 23 (in a year of exceptionally
high petrol prices and the worst recession in most people's experience) which
Mr.Garret choses to include in his claim was wholly exceptional for Dorset and
is unlikely to be maintained, but even including it, the 7 year average of the
Partnership is still only 4.4pa (31 in 7 years) 30% worse than was achieved in
1989 to 1998 with few if any cameras.
It was always in any case literally impossible for cameras covering no more than
2% of Dorset roads, and by definition affecting (if at all) only the 14% of
fatal accidents that involve speeds above the limit, to have any statistically
beneficial effect on overall fatality numbers - especially as cameras typically
cut speeding by 50% or so, not 100%. (For those who still understand arithmetic,
14% x 2% x 50% = 0.14% maximum theoretical reductin, or from 54 about 1 death
every 14 years - at a cost of £2m or £28m over those 14 years)
In the real world falling fatality trends have for decades been caused by
improving roads and vehicles including safety features, tyres, roadholding,
stability, seat belts etc and better medical response - all that cameras have
ever achieved is to waste massive amounts of money making things worse.
Incidentally I am not in the least interested in sanctimonious comments from
those who have not yet been caught, all that matters is that cameras cause more
problems than they solve, by far. And that as the DfT finally admitted in 2007,
£1,000 pa vehicle activated signs provide whatever limited benefits benefit
£50,000 pa cameras ever could, and for the most part without adverse effects.
See
www.safespeed.org.uk/vas.html"
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