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October 24, 2008
Swindon becomes first town to ban speed cameras
The black burn marks on the yellow box in Queen’s Drive will tell you all you need to know about what they think of speed cameras in Swindon.
The Wiltshire borough’s Tory-run council has become the first in Britain to abolish the cameras after it refused to pay the £320,000-a-year cost of maintaining them.
Peter Greenhalgh, the councillor in charge of highways, claimed that the cameras were “a blatant tax on motorists”. He said that, instead, the money would be spent on road safety projects that save lives, rather than fill Treasury coffers. Opponents of the move have told the council that it will have “blood on its hands” when the first person is killed by a speeding driver.
Wiltshire Constabulary will use mobile cameras and handheld radar guns to monitor drivers’ speeds in the town.
Swindon, home to a Honda car factory, would be a boy racers’ idea of heaven if it were not for the cameras. The town is crisscrossed by dual carriageways and roundabouts, and young drivers of souped-up “hot hatches” regularly gather for high-speed cruises and “burn-ups”.
In the Swindon branch of Halfords, the country’s largest, someone was buying “Ready, Steady, Gone” exhaust tailpipes, which are the size of Coke cans, £1,500-a-set alloy wheels with low-profile tyres and aluminium “racing pedals”.
The boy racers are easy to spot in their uniform of baseball cap, shellsuit and trainers. They sit, low down in bucket seats, barely able to see over the wind-screen as they twitch in time to booming sound systems. Paul, the manager of a car rental company, said: “There are loads of boy racers in Swindon. You always see them in the McDonald’s car parks. Fifty per cent of my customers have at least one SP30 speeding conviction.” The council will now consider a range of alternative antispeeding devices, from sleeping policemen to more signs.
The decision to remove the cameras from Swindon will be closely monitored by road safety and motoring organisations. Edmund King, the president of the AA, said: “It is fine to remove cameras if they are replaced by cops in cars and interactive slow-down signs. However, we do not want to see a road safety void in Swindon. Saving lives on the road is more important than party political wrangles over camera funding.”
Brake, the national road safety charity, described the decision as “a very dangerous experiment with people’s lives”. Jane Whittam, its spokeswoman, said: “Speed cameras are an important tool in catching drivers who insist on breaking the law and putting lives in danger.”
Celebrations by boy racers may be premature. Swindon council does not have the power to remove the three fixed-speed cameras. From April, the cost of maintaining them will have to be met by the other members of the camera partnership – the police, Wiltshire County Council and the Highways Agency. A borough council spokesman said: “If the partnership wanted to pay for fixed cameras to continue, they could do so.”
The number of traffic police has fallen by a fifth in the past decade, with traffic laws now largely being enforced by cameras (Ben Webster writes). There are now 1,507 fewer police officers engaged in patrolling the roads than there were in 1998, when the number was 7,806, according to a written answer to a question in the Commons. Over the same period the number of camera fines more than quadrupled to two million. The AA said that cameras were an inadequate substitute for police because they could not detect a drunk driver.
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There is nothing wrong with the judicious use of speed cameras, but unfortunately this government doesn't care about the safety aspect but erects as many as possible purely as a revenue driven exercise.
James Stuart, Inverness,
Wonder if these kind of mindless fools will have the same view
when their child is killed by someone who applauded the demise of the cameras. If you are within the law, they are no threat.
Bill Atkins, Rehoboth Beach, USA
A camera does not slow anyone down. We need only one story where a driver was caught on camera only to crash and die later in his journey, before he knew of the fine, due to speed to show how pointless they are.
Mark M, Warrington,
There is one major cause of accidents that cameras won't cure - impatience. In many cases where I stick to the limit, others who don't wish to do so behave aggressively and dangerously as a result. A greater on-road police presence and more powers to pull people over for poor driving are needed.
Ben Adamson, Manchester, UK
Swindon the first to ban speed cameras?
North Somerset did it a year ago, they opted out way before Swindon - all their camera housings are empty but no fuss was made about it then. Seems all these news sources overlook the 'real' first council to ban them.
Carl Matthews, Bristol, South Gloucestershire
God bless those councilors for standing up for there townspeople instead of oppressing them and draining their wealth. Hire a cop (that's American for police officer) for gods sake.
Mike, Santa Fe, USA
If all these 'honest citizens' did not break the law camera's wouldn't be needed!
You know the rules... if you get caught...YOUR fault!!
Don't hide behind facile slogans ('crypto-fascist' - brilliant!) get a life.. and take responsibility for it!
Camera's and the other stuff become academic
Josh, Oxford, UK
Mobile cameras in police cars patrolling the roads is the answer, but with no police resource to do this, how will speed limits be enforced? They won't.
Ben Garside, Loughborough, UK
It is not only speed cameras which should go, but most of the city/town centre CCTV cameras. They are being used by politicians as an excuse not to employ proper Police patrols and are very wrongly described as a preventative measure, which they are most definitely not. Police can only react to them
Neil, Gloucestershire, England
Playing with peoples lives ? blood on their hands? Give swindon a chance.
They do not believe the cameras work and are looking for an alternative.
instant fines create a culture of confrontation. they want something else.
Police officers is the answer but this is being cut.
Richard, Tenterden kent,
This is more than a road safety issue. It is symbolically the first encouraging sign of defiance of our crypto-fascist government by a public authority. Irrespective of party politics, the more that councils, police and education authorities have the courage to do this the better for us all.
Gordon Alexander, Frome, UK
Everyone who lives in Swindon knows where the speed cameras are and have been set in the same places for years.
Most people will slow down then speed up if they see a fixed camera.
The mobile speed cameras have always work more effectivity in detering people to speed.
Gary, Swindon, Wilts
Speed cameras do not and cannot curb speeding. An individual discovers he/she has been speeding days later by letter and fined. Frustration kicks in and then what?
The new LED sign that displays your speed for all to see does work. It will SLOW you DOWN.
Robert McFadden, Glasgow, U.K.
The governments own statistics show that injuries and deaths on the road are rarely caused by excessive speed of the vehicles involved. As a motorist and biker I see many mobile speed cameras sited at the end of a long straight road to try and catch people where there is never any accidents.
Keith, WELSHPOOL, UK
Good you Tories!! At last, a glimmer of common sense returns to British life after 11 years of Labour lunacy.
Perhape this is the first shot fired at the nanny [state]; perhaps in 2010, we shall have the opportunity to finish her off for good!!
Speed cameras are nothing more than Cash Cows!!
Drew, Nottingham,
spped cameras dont work full stop and the these new linked speed cameras wont work ether, here in liverpool they just turn the speed cameras 90 degress to face to the wall so they dont look at the road.
MR w jones, Liverpool, England
A victory for common sense and for taking money back from Gordon the grabber.
Mike, Bristol, UK,
I guess this means that they do get the money from the hand-held cameras. This clearly has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money.
Martin, Bordeaux, France
Living in Swindon, I can say that the reason road deaths are so high (10* nat. ave.!) is that some treat the roads as a racetrack, day and (especially) night. That the cameras are ineffective suggests that there aren't enough of them allied to a lack of police. Pure politics from a Tory council.
Alan, Swindon,