A CROSS-PARTY group of MPs has enraged the motoring lobby by calling for more speed cameras to be installed, even at sites where there have been no accidents.

As part of a wide-ranging review of safety on the roads, the House of Commons transport select committee also called on the Government to consider requiring “alcolocks” to be fitted in cars to immobilise drink-drivers.

Despite a backlash against the increasingly ubiquitous use of speed cameras, the MPs said it was a “disgrace” that existing government guidelines required preventable deaths and injuries to occur in a location before a speed camera could be installed. It called on the Government to ease the rules so that police could install cameras at sites simply because drivers broke the speed limit there.

Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Labour chairman of the committee, said: “Evidence of excessive speed is evidence of danger and there is no need to wait for somebody to die in order to take action intended to slow vehicles.”

Motoring groups have mounted an increasingly vociferous campaign claiming that the cameras have a limited impact on saving lives, and are being used by police just to raise funds. They have accused police forces of trying to hide cameras from view to increase the number of tickets issued and of squandering the money raised.

Paul Smith, founder of the anti-camera Safe Speed road safety campaign, said: “If it wasn’t such a serious road safety issue, it would be amusing that there are calls to place cameras where there have been no crashes. It will destroy what little reputation cameras have left, because if you place them where there have been no crashes, then crashes can only go up. Speed cameras have failed to make roads safer. They have replaced valuable life-saving policies. They must be scrapped.”

The AA Motoring Trust warned that installing cameras where there had not been crashes would undermine public faith in the Government’s road safety policy.

Andrew Howard, the trust’s head of road safety, said: “Cameras are achieving their road safety goals, yet are still not accepted by a substantial minority of drivers. Gaining this acceptance is crucial and we believe that limiting cameras to proven accident sites holds the key.”

Edmund King, executive dir-ector of the RAC Foundation,spoke against too much reliance on cameras. He said: “A camera can clock someone a few miles over the limit but do nothing to deter drink, drugged or other forms of dangerous driving.”

However, the report, Roads Policing and Technology — Getting the Balance Right, insisted that there was unequivocal evidence that cameras saved lives, with 42 per cent fewer people killed or seriously injured at sites with speed cameras. It said that drivers should be penalised for going just over the speed limit, rather than let off as at present.

The study also called for the introduction of more advanced technology, such as time-distance cameras, which measure the average speed of a car between two points rather than just the speed at one instant. Where possible, ‘alcolocks’ should be fitted to the cars of convicted drink-drivers, and then, if effective, they should be fitted to all new cars, it said.

The report also insisted that cameras must not be used to replace traffic police, since cameras cannot tell whether people have been drinking or are driving while illegally making mobile phone calls.

Road deaths have fallen by two thirds over the past 40 years, giving Britain one of the best safety records in Europe. However, Mrs Dunwoody said last year there were more than 32,000 deaths and serious injuries on roads. “Compared to other aspects of daily life, travelling on the roads continues to be an extremely high-risk activity,” she said.

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