MINISTERS have ordered a study into the validity of claims that speed cameras reduce deaths and serious injuries by 40 per cent. The Department for Transport has used research showing a sharp decline in casualties at camera sites to justify the rise in fines.

But officials now admit privately that the fall may be simply the normal recovery that would be expected after a peak in crashes known as “regression to the mean”. Cameras can be installed only where there have been a spate of serious crashes. Under the law of averages, it is unlikely that the number of crashes would continue at the same rate.

Mervyn Stone, Emeritus Professor of statistics at University College London, said: “I am deeply sceptical of the data that has been concocted to support the increase in cameras.”

He said that the best method of assessing the impact of cameras would be to select two dangerous roads and install cameras on one but not on the other. But families of people killed by speeding drivers on roads without cameras might sue.

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