The speed camera data is available on the relevant website.

You might find this interesting:

www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/conten...f

Don't waste your time. Putting speed camera is a self fullfiling due 'regression to norm' and the rules for installing speed camera. They will always show a reduction. Simply put if you have a random peaking in the stats and put a camera in you will see that random peak evan out over the next few years. Make it look like a good thing!

Further when deciding the cause of an acident only a few things are measure i.e. speed,drink car condition, age of driver etc. Tiredness or distractions can not be easly measured and therefore are not often recorded.

So the easy/cheap option is to reduce speeds rather than understand the real issue.

We've actually had one here in Northampton go up.

A4500 Weedon Road, dual carriageway feeder to M1 north, was reduced from NSL to 40 over it's first mile and a half outside the town c2006. Now 50, though that limit extends further towards the M/way than the prvious 40.

IIRC the 40 anticipated extensive development that the recession has kiked into long grass.

50 is probably about right all way to M/way considering village/farm access and lorries entering/leaving the Red Lion truckstop.

20mph zone have issues with enforcement, the major one being that the police basically don't.

I have seen instances where the stats will wrongly blame speed. My friend in Northampton will most likely know the A509 newport pagnel rd. This recently had a section reduced from 40 to 30. The road section when audited will show an increase in accidents.

This is due to a very poor junction being added to allow the contruction of a supermarked. Ive seen a number of accients due to the lack clear visibility existing from the supermarket. There are clear Planning guides controlling access to a main road and this junction goies against the basic principals, so it's clearly a planning failure.

The police response has been to add random speed checks, I guess before long a camera will be positioned. So basically failing to address the root cause.

Took youngrovergirl from Colchester over to Cambridge, (addenbrooks)

what a horrible mishmash of inappropriatespeed limits, low when it could be safely higher, (ok with that) but too high in places where it needed to be lower!

colchester halstead haverhill....

only 2 hours for 43 miles...

As I have said in many conversations and posts, we do not take driving seriously enough in this country (probably other countries as well from what I hear)

I think some of the limits are too low and this often leads to a negative attitude to all limits.

There should be a comprehensive and thorough study made of how to improve road safety. Recommendations must then be implemented and evaluated. There should be a constant striving for improvement.

Unfortunately too many drivers are of exceptional and wonderful ability !

As I've observed before speeding is pretty well always near the top of public concerns in Police surveys.

The fact is that far too many of us have a sort of reverse Nimby attitude, welcoming speed limits/enforcement in our own back yard while complaining when those in other places cause us to slow down.

There have been many reported cases where residents in a particular village have screamed blue murder to have lowered speed limits installed in their village and then whinged because the limit has not been enforced.

When the police get around to enforcing it- who do they they mostly catch?- The locals who complained in the first place!

As I've observed before speeding is pretty well always near the top of public concerns in Police surveys.

The fact is that far too many of us have a sort of reverse Nimby attitude, welcoming speed limits/enforcement in our own back yard while complaining when those in other places cause us to slow down.

Unfortunately many people do not understand safe drving, and that it is inappropriate speed that is dangerous. Round my area limits seem not too bad, but I've been in areas where they are absurd, too low in areas, too high in others. There is a simplistic belief with some that lowering limits creates safer roads.

I have also noticed that sometimes road markings care barking. There is a new marking on a round about in the New Forest that scares me to death. The lane markings are bizarre and unexpected and I expect some crashes. Oddly another marking on the M3 where it splits to go to the New Forest that used to cause havoc has changed and is now sensible, and does not create havoc. When I go to London I find it frightening, so many signs, so many road markings, utterly confusing, and get in the wrong lane and you can get a fine. Makes you wonder if the authorities can do this, do they really know what they are doing?

No doubt about it, the faster a vehicle hits something the more damage is caused but all these speed limits are just there under the guise of raod safety and are mainly there to raise cash. The system is so effective now that the chances of being nabbed for speeding are high and if you are driving dangerously then it's s deserved fine.

Let me get this straight first of all.

Current speed linits on UK roads are in general fine.

Current limits WHERE THEY CHANGE UP AND DOWN for no real valid reason are unnecessary.

Example lin Wales where we used to live:

A short 30mph follwed by a short 50 followed by a mile or so of 60 then a 40 and finally back to a 30. Useful, no, distracting yes especially in the space of two miles when the whole thing could be posted at 40 all the way through, or at least 30-40-30, but that would be too easy as there is a nice spot for plod to sit in the 60 zone to catch those coming downhill towards them.

I am quite sure that gordonbennet (and others) could provide us with a few examples too.

Meanwhile, took a taxi from the airport on thursday night in Jordan and he was doing 135kph in a 90 zone on the Highway into amman.

Police at side of road not in the slightest interested.

I think the main problem is that reducing peoples speeds through limits is the easiest way to reduce accidents and their severity.

The bigger issue would be to improve driving standards but that would be difficult and expensive.

Speed cameras are self financing and in a time of cut backs will be the chosen route to safer roads. Unfortunately it can mean in some areas journey times will get long, and ever changing limits will make a fine for speeding inevitable even for the careful.

When I think about recent near misses, none were due to speeding. In one case a van changed lanes exiting a roundabout, and would have totalled my car had I not emergency braked. In another case a van overtook a tractor and trailer on a blind bend, and nearly had a head on with an oncoming car. And so on. I recently reported a car pulling out from a side road, slowly, in front of me, then stopping for no reason. Despite a video, no prosecution followed. And yet do 32 mph in a 30 limit, and they do you. It all seems a bit weird, unless they think that a speeding fine has a low overhead, and a high resulting income, hence is preferred.