Speed Cameras

What are speed cameras?

"Speed cameras" is the common name given to safety cameras operated by local police forces as a means of enforcing speed limits on dangerous roads. Safety cameras are also used to enforce traffic signals, by photographing vehicles driving through red lights.

There are four main types: fixed cameras, which are unmanned and photograph vehicles speeding through a stretch of road where there has been a cluster of accidents; speed over distance cameras, which are unmanned but operated in pairs and detect the speed reached by vehicles between them, and which are typically used on longer stretches of roads with high collision densities; mobile speed cameras, which are manned and set up at roadsides; and red-light camera sites, used at traffic light junctions where collisions are recorded because of vehicles failing to comply with a red traffic light.

Unlike other methods of road traffic law enforcement, speed cameras do not require offending motorists to be pulled over.

Being caught speeding or running a red light typically results in the issue of a Conditional Offer of a Fixed Penalty, under which the driver may opt for a £60 fine and three penalty points, rather than deal with the matter in court. More serious offences, such as breaking the speed limit by more than 25 miles per hour, result in higher fines and penalties.

Since 2000, the revenues from fines have been "recycled" to local safety camera partnerships - bodies representing the local police, NHS, council and other bodies - to cover the costs of their camera regimes and supporting educational programmes.

Fines are actually collected by local magistrates' courts, and passed on to the Ministry of Justice, which passes them in turn to the Department for Transport. The DfT then passes sufficient funds to cover the cost of the programme to a lead local authority which acts as "treasurer" for the partnership, with the rest being paid into the Consolidated Fund. In Scotland, this work is done by the Scottish Executive.

Background

Speed cameras were first permitted in the UK by the Road Traffic Act 1991, which ruled that evidence from type-approved automatic devices to be used as the sole evidence that an offence had been committed.

They were quickly deemed to be a success, with a Home Office study in 1996 claiming that areas covered by the cameras had seen a 28 per cent reduction in injury crashes at speed camera sites and an 18 per cent reduction in injury crashes at traffic lights. However, the Home Office warned that the further roll-out of the system was being hampered by a lack of funding. At that time, all revenues from fines imposed were returned to the Treasury.

In 1998, the Government stated that it would be sympathetic to proposals for schemes allowing police forces to keep funds from speed camera fines. In March 2000, the Government published the White Paper, " Tomorrow's Roads - Safer for Everyone", which promised to achieve considerable reductions in road accident injuries by 2010. A month later, the Government introduced a pilot scheme that would permit cost recovery in eight areas - Cleveland, Essex, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Thames Valley, South Wales and Strathclyde - in order to fund the expansion of the camera programme.

The measures were quickly proven to have had a significant impact on road safety in the covered areas: in Northamptonshire in 2001, accidents fell at fixed camera sites by 50 per cent and the number of people killed and seriously injured by 67 per cent; in the whole county there was a 30 per cent reduction in the number killed and seriously injured compared with the 1994 to 1998 average. Across the eight areas, prosecutions had risen eighteen-fold.

The pilots had been scheduled to last for two years, but the evidence was so compelling that the Government decided to roll the scheme out nationally after just a year. The general permission for approved local safety camera partnerships to recover costs - known as the National Safety Camera Scheme - was included in the Vehicles (Crimes) Act 2001.

June 2002 saw the issue of new guidelines on the deployment of cameras, in response to the massive roll-out seen in the preceding months and the corresponding outcry from motorists, who were being hit with a huge number of fines. The new rules required cameras to be painted yellow and not hidden behind trees and road furniture to increase their visibility, areas covered by cameras to be clearly signed, and for cameras to only be sited at locations where four people or more had been killed or seriously injured in accidents or eight personal injury accidents had taken place in the last three years. The guidelines were issued by the Safety Project Camera Board which included officials from the DTLR and Home Office, but not the Department of Health.

In February 2004, Conservative leader Michael Howard promised to remove any speed cameras found to have been sited to raise money rather than improve safety. The next month, a DfT report found that none of the 6,000 cameras across England and Wales were sited for improper reasons, and an independent report published in June found that 100 lives per year were being saved as a result of cameras. However, it also found that safety had worsened at some camera sites, but put this down to the actions of local police forces.

On 15 December 2005 the Transport Secretary announced the ending of the National Safety Camera Programme and netting-off funding arrangement for cameras in England and Wales. Camera funding, activities and partnerships were integrated into the wider road safety delivery process from 1 April 2007.

Controversies

There is a widespread public concern that speed cameras are being used primarily not as a means of increasing road safety, but of raising revenue by police forces. This has been exacerbated by the speed at which cameras have arisen and the siting practices of some police forces prior to the 2002 guidelines. As early as late 2001, a number of senior police officers were warning that the system was turning otherwise law-abiding drivers against the police and the Government.

It is argued that cameras penalise "innocent" speeders, while doing nothing to deter more serious traffic offenders, such as uninsured and drunk drivers. Many have claimed that the rise of speed cameras has been paralleled by a reduction in conventional traffic policing.

The undiscriminating character of speed cameras is at least partly to blame for public antipathy, insofar as they take no account of the reasons why a driver might be exceeding the speed limit - something many police officers could be sympathetic to. However, equally responsible was the financial impact that widespread deployment of cameras had on the large number of motorists who speed habitually.

Studies into the efficacy of safety cameras have been ambiguous, and the debate is at times heated. Isolated incidents of attacks on cameras culminated in February 2003 with one device at Thrapston, Northants, being blown up by a bomb.

The Government and safety cameras' supporters insist that in reducing speeds at blackspot sites, cameras are having a positive impact, in view of the high rate at which accident mortality increases in relation to higher speeds.

Nevertheless, the road safety lobby continues to criticise the Government's guidelines, which state that a location has to have already experienced a number of serious accidents before a camera can be located there as an unreasonable concession to the motoring lobby. Similarly, the requirement that cameras be made visible is controversial, insofar as it is alleged to make it easier to speed once away from the cameras and to encourage dangerous heavy braking immediately before entering a covered area.

A Transport 2000 report of April 2004 found that safety cameras were actually highly popular with local communities, who objected to the restrictions on siting. And a survey from the Institute of Advanced Motorists carried out in February 2008 revealed that 78% of the 500 motorists questioned approved of speed cameras, although a "strong suspicion" remained that the cameras were not installed purely for safety reasons.

More recently, in January 2011 an investigation carried out by Which? magazine found that over half of fixed cameras in England and Wales - 53% - did not work at any one time. The investigation also found "big differences" in the number of speed cameras used by each of the 43 police authorities in England and Wales.

Sussex had 60 fixed speed cameras all operational, while Lancashire, which has 287 fixed cameras, used just 10% at any one time. And four regions - Cleveland, Durham, North Yorkshire and Wiltshire - had no fixed speed cameras at all. Which? concluded that their investigation had shown the chances of being caught speeding were "dramatically different" depending on the area.

Statistics

In 2009, the average free flow speed of cars travelling on non-built-up roads was 70 mph on motorways, 68 mph on dual carriageways and 48 mph on single carriageways.
The average free flow speed of cars in 2009 on roads with a 40 mph speed limit was 36 mph and on roads with a 30 mph limit it was 30 mph. These figures are unchanged from both 2007 and 2008.
On motorways in 2009, 52 per cent of cars exceeded the 70 mph speed limit. In addition, 16 per cent of cars were recorded as travelling at 80 mph or faster.
Very few heavy goods vehicles exceeded their speed limit of 60 mph on motorways. However, over 83 per cent of them exceeded the 50 mph speed limit on dual carriageway non-built-up roads and 75 per cent exceeded the 40 mph limit on single carriageway non-built-up roads.
In 2009, over half of all motorcycles travelled faster than the 30 mph speed limit in built-up areas. Forty three per cent exceeded the speed limit by 5 mph or more.

Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain, DfT - November 2010

Quotes

"Everyday about nine people will die and a further 78 will be seriously injured on our roads, and excessive or inappropriate speed will be a factor in a significant number of these accidents.
"Safety cameras have played a vital role in helping us to reduce road casualties. Where, they have been introduced, cameras have on average reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured by 42%."

DfT - 2011