Speed cameras are used to drive revenue rather than stop accidents, watchdog report states

Published 16 July 2020

Speed cameras are being deployed by police and safety partnerships on roads where there's no history of collisions, according to an independent report of road policing by Her Majesty's Inspectorate.

The report cites that "the reason enforcement took place at certain locations was that they were 'good hunting grounds'" to raise revenue rather than improve road safety.

Speeding fines increased by 41 per cent from 2011 to 2018, to over two million. Most of this increase was also accounted for by speed cameras, supporting the inquiry's findings. While police forces don't receive money from speeding fines, they are able to claim back administration costs and provision of educational schemes - such as speed awareness courses.

The report said: "Apparent unwillingness to support education over enforcement had led to suspicion among officers, including some at chief officer level, that the focus of activity was intended to increase revenue for the safety partnership."

The Inspectorate recommended safety partnerships - which carry out the placement of many speed cameras - should be required to publish the revenue raised from speed cameras and how it was spent.

The report found spending on roads policing had fallen 34 per cent since 2012/13 at the same time as deaths in traffic collisions rose in 2018, reversing a decade-long decline.

In fact, the other three categories of the fatal four - drink driving, driving without a seatbelt and using a mobile phone at the wheel - declined by 76 per cent due to budget cuts and decreasing police numbers.

Comments

gavsmit on 16 July 2020

Haven't most people been saying this for years?

Why invest in dealing with wannabe terrorists, gang stabbings / shootings, 'protestors' looting and destroying for any old excuse, really bad drivers that tailgate / wander across lanes / exhibit road rage when you can catch usually law-abiding tax payers doing 45 in a 40 who were concentrating more on the road than their speedo?

They don't even catch the huge number of lovely people driving around with cloned number plates and speeding either - even when it's obvious as they are driving like loons in and around other people that are forced to obey the limits, thus making an even more dangerous situation.

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hissingsid on 17 July 2020

This is not news. Tell us something we don't already know!

Here in Somerset the Police withdrew from the so called "safety camera" partnership several years ago, because they had to do all the paperwork for the fines but received none of the proceeds. The cameras are still there, but are switched off.

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Palcouk on 21 July 2020

As Is said in most enquiries "lessons will be learnt" then nothing is done

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spakatak on 28 July 2020

Returning from Cornwall to the North West a couple of weeks ago, and therefore not familiar with the roads, I came over a rise to start a long downhill stretch on a dual carriageway - so 70 mph speed limit. Obviously your speed starts to increase as you head downhill and fortunately I realised and immediately started to brake when it had got to a reading of 74. It's a good job I did, because I then spotted a speed van on the other side of the dual carriageway with the operator leaning out of the driver's window and aiming back up the hill. A bit further on there was a static speed camera on my side of the road. There is absolutely no doubt that the van was there because it was a happy hunting ground for them as drivers left it too late to start to brake. I am all in favour of cameras in accident blackspot, but when most people's only interaction with the police is dealing with something like that, it's little wonder that the police have lost a lot of respect. Bottom line is that it was there to make money and that was the sole purpose.

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MitchelGoodman on 4 February 2024

google.com>Check serch

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John Palfrey on 23 February 2024

As has been said, everyone knows this to (largely), be a money spinning racket dressed up as "casualty prevention", the name thus applied to disguise the true purpose of many such camera installations. Gavsmit at the start of this thread has this whole charade nailed IMHO.

These camera's are re-callibrated annually, with a certificate of said recallibration being shoved up your nose if you get "cought" when the "evidence" drops through the letterbox, as recently happened to my wife.

If such re-calibration is done, and it transpires when carried out that the camera concerned is found to be "out", how do they know WHEN it became inacurate?

Leaving aside the nonsense of some of the convictions derived from this palava, how many motorists have been fined and had points on their licence from inacurate camera's to which they have no recourse, and conversely, how many "got away with it"?

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