United Kingdom: number in speed camera revenue, number two in road safety.

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A European Transport Safety Council report issued Monday showed that the UK had fallen behind other European nations in road safety. Across Europe, road deaths dropped an average of 18 percent between 2001 and 2005 while the same figure for the UK stood at just 7 percent. This put Britain behind Greece, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in terms of progress. Britain also trailed Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland in per capita traffic fatalities.

"After 28 years of having the safest roads in Europe we have finally lost our crown," road safety expert Paul Smith of Safe Speed said. "There's one reason and one reason only. We have had bad road safety policy since the early 1990s. At the center of the bad policy are speed cameras and the oversimplified notion that 'slower is safer' -- if only things were so simple."

Since 1998, the UK focused on replacing traffic police with the largest deployment of photo ticketing devices in the world. England and Wales used 2544 fixed speed cameras, 2373 mobile speed cameras, 603 red light cameras, 15 SPECS average speed cameras and 27 route speed cameras for a total of 5562 ticket cameras. This does not include photo enforcement devices used by local governments that are not part of the national program, cameras in use in Scotland and Northern Ireland or closed circuit TV cameras used to issue parking tickets and other violations.

While camera use exploded, the number of human traffic police declined 13 percent -- from 7525 in 1998 to 6511 in 2005. In 2004, cameras issued 1,913,700 citations worth ?115 million (US $226 million) while humans issued just 191,100 worth ?11 million (US $22 million) -- nine percent of the total. A 2005 study funded by the UK Department for Transport showed police patrols tended to reduce the number of accidents while sites with speed cameras had a "significantly higher" injury accident rate.

The Transport Safety Council placed the blame on a failure in many nations to catch those driving under the influence of alcohol.

"In these countries, developments in drink driving deaths have rather slowed down overall progress in reducing road deaths," the report stated.

The ETSC report is available in a 3.4mb PDF file at the source link below

What line bears repeating?.....this one:

"After 28 years of having the safest roads in Europe we have finally lost our crown," road safety expert Paul Smith of Safe Speed said. "There's one reason and one reason only. We have had bad road safety policy since the early 1990s. At the center of the bad policy are speed cameras and the oversimplified notion that 'slower is safer' -- if only things were so simple."
 
There are always two reasons for doing anything, the good reason (Road Safety) and the Real reason (cut numbers of Police saving expense, and increase revenue by issuing tickets). If the real reasons were given then no one would have put up with it.

The British Government has overlaid bad decisions on top of bad decisions by previous Governments' and bad EU directives until loads of stuff that we used to be proud of has been lost - freedoms mostly.
 
There are always two reasons for doing anything, the good reason (Road Safety) and the Real reason (cut numbers of Police saving expense, and increase revenue by issuing tickets). If the real reasons were given then no one would have put up with it.

The British Government has overlaid bad decisions on top of bad decisions by previous Governments' and bad EU directives until loads of stuff that we used to be proud of has been lost - freedoms mostly.

In your opinion, do you see them ever banning or reducing the number of speed cameras? I'm not familiar enough with Gordon Brown, or his party for that matter, so I'm sort of curious as to what he will do with the road programs.
 
they should just get shock collars on people when they start their cars, no speed limits, no cell phone laws, but if your eyes leave the road in-front of you 10,000 volts through your ass!


that wouldn't work, but i do wish people were better trained to pay attention, instead of having to enforce all these stupid laws
 
I don't know how it works in the UK, but here in the US it seems we really need to have mandatory driver's license retesting every so many years. Too many people have forgotten how to drive safely. Some states require yearly inspections of cars to make sure they're safe. But they're forgetting the most dangerous part in the car: the person behind the wheel.
 
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