Sir, It is encouraging to see the Government blocking the installation of more speed cameras (report, July 15). Since their inception in 1992, the Association of British Drivers has argued that they are not just ineffective as a road safety tool, but focus drivers’ minds dangerously on the wrong thing.

There is a world of difference between driving too fast for the conditions and exceeding the speed limit. Cameras simply punish the latter whilst ignoring the former. They serve to prosecute compliance offences whilst being incapable of detecting and preventing the real causes of crashes.

Using the fear of prosecution to force compliance with limits diverts drivers’ attention from the road ahead and its hazards. But the safe speed for any given situation changes constantly. Sometimes it is well below the posted speed limit, sometimes it is above. Road safety policy needs to recognise this.

We need to draw a clear distinction in road safety between that which is illegal and that which is dangerous. Cameras have failed to do this.

MARK McARTHUR-CHRISTIE
(Road Safety Spokesman)
The Association of British Drivers
Bampton, Oxfordshire

From Mr Graham Burns

Sir, The laws create a set of speed limits to be imposed on our roads; their purpose is to encourage safe driving. The limits and the law are necessary because we cannot rely on individuals’ judgment as to what is a safe speed in relation to road conditions at the time and their own driving skills. The law, not speed cameras, is the safety measure.

It is an offence to break the law by exceeding the speed limit. Cameras are a means of detecting offenders. They are effective and economical, releasing police officers for other tasks.

The review being undertaken by a minister of the Crown who is a serial offender is in the main initiated, I suspect, by disgruntled people who have been caught by a speed camera and are affronted by the notion that the law of this land should apply to them.

Speed cameras should be installed as widely as possible so that we can be sure that if we break the law we will be caught and punished. Of course, such wide deployment and the certainty of detection would so reduce the number of offenders that in time someone would claim that they were redundant and not cost-effective, and the whole argument would start again.

GRAHAM BURNS
Fleet, Hampshire

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