TwickenhamCyclist
Guest
This is Private Eye’s view on the switching off of Oxfordshire’s safety cameras. I thought the conclusion of the piece put things pretty succinctly and may be of interest to you all…
Copied from Private Eye 1268, 6[sup]th[/sup] to 19[sup]th[/sup] August 2010, page 7:
ROAD RAGE
How does switching off speed cameras in Oxfordshire and other areas, as central government axes their funding, square with the Tories “Big Society”?
David Cameron wants people to be more active in improving their communities, but the big improvement many communities want is safer roads. Local campaigns for speed cameras came up against Labour’s bizarre rule that cameras were allowed only at places where at least four deaths or serious injuries had happened in three years (any factory, hospital or airline manager would be hauled over the coals for taking that reactive approach to risk management). Sporadic enforcement by camera was allowed at some “sites of community concern”, but many residents had to settle for borrowing police equipment to register vehicle speeds themselves, with punishment impossible or unlikely.
What Labour and Tory ministers have never understood is that speeding traffic is a problem because of intimidation, not just the occurrence of accidents. Over the past 40 years children’s independence of movement has reduced dramatically, with worrying health consequences, thanks largely to parental fear of traffic.
Elderly people can be cut off from neighbours or services if they are terrified of passing vehicles. The absence of recent accidents where traffic routinely exceeds the speed limit could be an indicator not of safety but of locals being too scared to cycle or walk on the road as they’re entitled to do.
Copied from Private Eye 1268, 6[sup]th[/sup] to 19[sup]th[/sup] August 2010, page 7:
ROAD RAGE
How does switching off speed cameras in Oxfordshire and other areas, as central government axes their funding, square with the Tories “Big Society”?
David Cameron wants people to be more active in improving their communities, but the big improvement many communities want is safer roads. Local campaigns for speed cameras came up against Labour’s bizarre rule that cameras were allowed only at places where at least four deaths or serious injuries had happened in three years (any factory, hospital or airline manager would be hauled over the coals for taking that reactive approach to risk management). Sporadic enforcement by camera was allowed at some “sites of community concern”, but many residents had to settle for borrowing police equipment to register vehicle speeds themselves, with punishment impossible or unlikely.
What Labour and Tory ministers have never understood is that speeding traffic is a problem because of intimidation, not just the occurrence of accidents. Over the past 40 years children’s independence of movement has reduced dramatically, with worrying health consequences, thanks largely to parental fear of traffic.
Elderly people can be cut off from neighbours or services if they are terrified of passing vehicles. The absence of recent accidents where traffic routinely exceeds the speed limit could be an indicator not of safety but of locals being too scared to cycle or walk on the road as they’re entitled to do.