Safety cameras are not generally deployed on rural roads as for many years the requirement was to have a number of serious injuries before you could use a camera. The lower traffic densities on rural roads mean that you do not get the collision clusters around road features that you do in urban locations, as such it is a much harder problem to deal with.
The solution is treating driver behaviour not the roads. Cameras can only address drivers exceeding the speed limit, and in much of the rural network a safe speed is significantly below the speed limit. If it takes a camera to deal with the problem then limits will have to be lowered.
I would like to suggest education, but drivers are notorious for asking for education and ignoring it, prosecution or compulsory education can provide sufficient incentive to get people to change their behaviour.
Incidentally camera fines are no longer reclaimed by police or local authorities so the cash debate is not really relevant anymore.

john, plymouth, devon

It would help if all motorists actually did 60mph on a national speed limit road not 35, would stop me having to overtake to actually get somewhere in time

Aaron, Luton, Beds

The problem is not only caused by young drivers. The Department of Transport should be implementing the reduction of speed limits on country lanes from 60 to a reasonable level of a maximum of 40. How can it be reasonable to have a 60 limit on a single track lane with passing places? It is not enough to say that this is not a target limit but nevertheless it should be a guide to a safe speed that can be driven on that road. How that guide help drivers, nevertheless young drivers? It has undertaken many surveys which confirm that the rural roads have higher incidents of fatalities yet does not implement some of the basic actions to reduce the problem. They have suggested in white papers in past that even local councils could reduce speed limits according to local circumstances. Why not act now? Why put it off? More accidents?

Julie , Essex,

leave the pot holes alone - that wil slow the idiots down

peter codner, devizes, england

I agree with Edward from France - just an excuse to put more cameras on the roads.

tony, birmingham, uk

Expect calls for the banning of "Roary the Racing Car" by the PC Health and Safety Brigade because it glorifies speed to 3 year olds. Infact drivers should just prepare for ever more restrictions and harrassment from officialdom egged on by safety groups because they seem to believe in a zero casualty rate. We could have that with a universal 10 mph speed limit! Expect shrill calls for it in the near future! It's the logical endgame for all these groups!

SP, Swansea, UK

A minibus driver taking kids to school tried to overtake my husband in the lane near us. This is a lane that isn't very wide and has passing places. Suffice to say that the council department that deals with the school buses were informed.
We also get boy racers bombing down the lanes. It's because the council deem the lanes unsafe for kids to walk down that the minibuses take the kids to school.

J Fisher, Bridgend,

In addition to tougher penalties for speeding (doubling of penalty points), we need far tougher policies on the use of mobile phones whilst driving. Speed limiters should be fixed to the engines of under-25s (at their own expense). Upping the age limit on new licences to 19 would also help. UK driving standards are appalling and we need to get tough on the madmen.

Chris, St Helens, United Kingdom

Driving should be regarded as a skilled and potentially dangerous activity. Drivers should be trained to a high standard and the test should reflect this. Raising standards will, inevitabley, mean fewer qualified drivers, fewer vehicles on the road, less pollution, little need for the despoiling of the country with signs and so-called traffic calming measure and , of course, safer roads. It isn't speed or bad roads that kill - the only cause is bad driving. Ensure that only good, skilled drivers drive and the problems will be solved.

charlie taylor, Glasgow, UK

The major factor for reducing accidents on rural roads, indeed any road, is driver education, not just flatly reducing speed limits everywhere. I have seen countless drivers not driving with due care along rural roads which have their own set of driving hazards. These drivers seem to think that a rural road, if empty has no hazards, a blind bend is a clear bend, a tractor an easy overtake, but utterly unable to reverse back into a passing place and pushing past on verges and forcing other drivers into gulleys and ruts, etc. Many cars on rural roads are never on their side of the country road, speeding or not. The basic fact is, the driving test needs to be more difficult, the advanced driving test needs to be brought more into stream with the ordinary driving test. Night driving, bad weather driving, rural and urban driving, driver awareness and anticipation, these need to be modules introduced immediately into the driving test. Driver education is key. Not just reducing speed.

KF, Suffolk,

I drive around 25,000 miles a year and the vast majority of bad driving I see comes from middle-aged middle-class business men. Funnily enough these are the same group of people that are most at risk of having accidents on motorcycles!

Rod Munch, Northampton, UK

Sadly, and tragically, all this is bound to continue. The authorities will carry on planting cameras as long as it so easily lines their pockets. Policing rural roads is expensive to funds and will thus be ignored, despite these new statistics. As long as we have magazines and shows like Top Gear and the NEC "MPH" show allowed to absolutely glorify speed and "laddishness" at the wheel for it's own sake, with no regard whatsoever for their effect on young drivers and ultimately the damage they are causing, lives will continue to be wasted. Roll on the time when someone sensible is in total control of the roads/safety situation, who has the authority to put fear into the minds of speeders (via punitive sentences), increase policing of rural roads as they save on the increase of hated cameras, and really get the figures down dramatically. Or is nobody really interested in saving all these human lives, as long as their own job is safe?

Renaud Spencer, St.Valery-sur-Somme, France

Rural roads in Oxfordshire sound like a superbike race of a Sunday morning. God knows what speeds they are doing, it sounds lethal! If they hit something that would be their end. Some ignorant wotsits won't even slow down for my dog and I when there are no footpaths - we move off the road, onto the grass bank - some slow down and I thank them, some just zip by frightening us both! It's the inconsiderate and ignorant few.

BO, England,

Whatever happened to police checks on noisy exhaust systems-all of the local tossers who regularly break the speed limit in my semi- rural neighbourhood have noisy exhaust systems especially the numpty who roars down my 30mph road every morning at 6.30am, the nearest we have ever come to having a police presence on our road is a neighbourhood police car with a "sponsored by Tescos" logo on it seen once in the past 3 years parked outside the local church!
Same goes for motorbikes too-the noisier the exhaust the smaller the brain it would seem.

Mike, Trowbridge, Wilts

A very recent phenomenon is the number of bus drivers and HGV drivers driving like maniacs. This was never the case previously. Is there a collective madness taken hold of our drivers?. Perhaps they have all been driven to distraction by the need to make deliveries or scheduled stops and the impossibility of doing so on our congested and often accident-blocked roads and motorways. Anyone who has been tailgated on a busy main road by a massive HGV, stuck right on their bumper, knows the full horrific reality of driving today.

Dirty Dick, Taunton, UK

I live in a rural area of south Cheshire, I have noticed in recent years an increasing number of women, young and older, who are driving at very high speeds out in the country. They all seem to wish to get into the boot (trunk - for our american cousins) of my car and it's very scary.

Richard, Nantwich, England

There is an answer to people who drive and inch from your rear bumper - slow down to a safe speed such that if you have to brake suddenly they are unlikely to hit you. If you think it's bad in a car, try being tailgated when you're riding a motorcycle and are totally exposed to the idiotic driving habits of these people. One day there'll be no fuel left, or only the rich will be able to afford it - roll on!

Brian, farnham, uk

Yes, the rural roads on Suffolk and Norfolk are the worst for arrogant, ignorant drivers, who consistently drive too fast, ignoring speed limits through villages, and act as bully boys by trying to drive into the bumper of any car observing the speed limit. HGVs are the worst, but there are lots of stupid motorists too.

Can we please have a crack down on the idiots who drive in East Anglian roads. If I speed up to keep my distance, I get the points on my licence - apart from the danger to pedestrians in in village streets. I have been passed by HGVs doing 60 in a 30 mile limit. Take away their licences for life - so they lose their livelihood? Good, and the same for private motorists doing 60 in a 30 mile limit. There is no excuse.

Anna, camberley,

The standard of many of our rural roads is terrible. With many lacking any lines or cats-eyes to tell you where the edge or the middle of the road is, it is all so easy - particularly when it's dark and wet - to veer off. This situation will only get worse if the Government insist on charging drivers to use Motorways.

Rod Munch, Northampton, UK

We need lower speed limits on all the rural roads, not just where roads are winding or there are houses; speeding vehicle have frightened walkers, cyclists and horse riders off the roads .

jane c, Milton Keynes,

if people would consent to driving more than an inch from your bumper it might help a bit. lorries are the worst culprits, often sitting so close all you can see is a sun-like dazzle of headlights in the mirror and you are going at the speed limit through an area with average speed cameras. what do they want you to do?

Jack, Leeds,

Now , where do we not find speed cameras---oh yes, rural roads.

Edward Johns, Lannion, France

While driving on a rural Suffolk road - my eyes focused up into the real view mirror - where a group of exuberant young lads were prancing about and driving very recklessly while attempting to join the back of my car...I felt very threatened and prayed for a police man to appear...This was at the weekend, evening time - the weather was good and dry...I dread to think what harm we could have all ended up in if the weather hadn't been so ideal. What were these guys trying to prove - how stupid there were? Well, yes they succeeded. And no I was not going slow - I was obeying the speed limit.

pat, FL, USA,