Please, councils, I know the industry has been telling you this for years but don’t believe it! Shut down the partnerships as soon as you can, save some money, and spend it on proper policing and other better things.

More accidents?

That was the concern in Swindon, but it didn’t happen. And think about it, the cameras each target about 100 yards of road. In the Dorset area, if there are 50 cameras, that’s 5000 yards total enforced road length in Dorset (3 miles). Everyone knows the only effect they have is the road immediately in front of them. How many miles of roads do we have in Dorset? No idea, but a quick google gave me a result of 3000 miles. So we have approx 0.1% of roads enforced. So if there are 300 KSI (again approximately right) in Dorset per year, you would expect to have to wait 3 years for one of those to happen at a camera site. Given that speed is a “contributory factor” in perhaps 10% of accidents, we would have to wait for 30 years for a good probability in Dorset, for a speed cameras to have prevented a death or serious injury.

Thus a quick “reality check” calculation backs up common sense that these cameras are nothing but a complete waste of money to anyone other than the jobsworths, empire builders, and equipment manufacturers that have done so well out of them for so many years. Just think of the lives that would have been saved if all the money over all the years had been spent on traffic cops (even if a very few).

Don’t let this nonsense continue. Cutting back to 20 cameras is not enough. Dorset Road Safe have not demonstrated that they have learned from their mistakes and will now deliver effective road safety measures. Shut down Dorset Road Safe immediately.