Speed cameras out number patrol cars 'by seven to one'
Press Association 2006 - Publisher: Jon Land
Published: 16/08/2006
Speed cameras 'replacing' police patrols Speed cameras outnumber police traffic patrol cars by up to seven to one in some areas, it was disclosed today.
Staffordshire has 35 police patrol cars and 260 speed cameras - a ratio of one to 7.4, according to research by Auto Express magazine.
London's Metropolitan and City of London police forces have 140 patrol cars and 828 speed cameras - a one to 5.9 ratio.
Another area with a high proportion of cameras is West Yorkshire, with 262 cameras and 56 patrol cars - a ratio of one to 4.7.
The magazine also found that some areas such as Durham, Dumfries and Galloway, North Yorkshire, Central Scotland and Northern Scotland had no speed cameras.
Also, patrol cars outnumbered cameras in some regions, including Wiltshire which has almost twice as many patrol cars as cameras.
Auto Express editor-in-Chief David Johns said: "There's been plenty of anecdotal evidence that police officers are being replaced with cameras, and now we have the proof.
"It's a really worrying situation for honest motorists because GATSOs and other speed traps can do nothing to tackle more serious crimes such as drink driving."
Using the information received from police forces, Auto Express also said which were the most popular cars used by the UK's traffic police .
The top three were all prestige models while 60% of all the cars used in the UK for road policing duties were from luxury brands such as BMW, Mercedes and Volvo.
Mr Johns said: "Maybe if some forces bought less expensive makes they could afford to have more traffic cars and therefore wouldn't have to rely so heavily on speed cameras."
UK Police caught Cooking the Books on Speed Camera Statistics
The Department for Transport were accused yesterday of failing to manage road safety properly and effectively after hospital figures and police statistics directly contradicted each other on the efficiency of speed cameras at reducing serious injuries and death.
Although official police statistics show the number of people seriously injured or killed on the UK´s roads falling consistently from 85.9 per 100,000 in 1996 to 59.4 per 100,000 in 2004, hospital admission statistics for the same period show no drop in admissions for traffic injuries, and in some cases, the numbers actually increased. During this period use of roadside cameras saw a massive increase, and researchers have been checking statistics to find the effects of their introduction.
Paul Smith of road safety group Safe Speed spoke out angrily to the Daily Express, accusing The Department for Transport of using flawed statistics to justify a failing policy.
But can it be true that the £1billion speed camera industry has had no real effect on increasing the safety of our roads? Costing £750million to install and landing 2million motorists with fines last year alone, it would be embarrassing for the government to backtrack on the cameras and would also leave a huge gap in revenue. The number of cameras has ballooned to 3,300 fixed sites and 3,400 mobile devices, and the police figures show a significant drop. So what cause the discrepancy?
The police figures are compiled by police officers at the scene of traffic accidents. But Oxford University students carried out a survey that found that that hospital admission rates for traffic injuries contradicted those statistics, by actually showing a slight rise of 1.1 incidents in every 100,000 (from 90 to 91.1) in the period under scrutiny.
According to the researchers recordings in the British Medical Journal, it would seem that the fall seen in the police statistics could be attributed to inconsistencies in the reporting process. According to Mr Smith, the NHS data is likely to be closer to the true figure, as their system for reporting is more robust - representing events and decisions made under medical consideration when compared to checking a tickbox on a police report form.
However, the Association of Chief Police Officers were happy to stand by their figures last night, and denied that their policies were not working, going as far as to say that there was no doubt road safety had improved, and regardless of under-reporting deaths continued to go down.
UK - Captain Gatso Declares War on Speed Cameras
The mysterious leader of Motorists Against Detection (MAD), an anti-speed camera group, has declared a "zero-tolerance" policy for photo enforcement in light of statistics that show the devices have caused an increase in accidents. Captain Gatso, a Tony Blair mask-wearing family man in his 40s asserted his group would begin stepping up attacks.
"This will be civil disobedience on a grand scale," he told the Sunday Express newspaper. "We are planning to target any and all cameras until the government sees sense and re-thinks its road safety policy. Before we had speed cameras we had the safest roads in Europe. Since their introduction this is no longer true."
The group, which claims two hundred members, has been responsible for the destruction of between 600 and 1000 speed cameras since 2000. Newly developed technologies allow for camera destruction within a matter of seconds.
"Most of the organizing group are just ordinary blokes with families who are sick of us heading towards a police state," Captain Gatso said. "There will be a zero tolerance policy towards all cameras. We need to focus attention on what the cameras are about."
In Liverpool, an eighteen year old was arrested around midnight on June 14 for using a hammer to smash a speed camera on New Chester Road in Birkenhead.
Source: Gatso gang return (Sunday Express (UK), 6/18/2006)
SPEED-TRAP FIREBUGS IN CRACKDOWN
By Tom Carlin
SPEED cameras may get fire-proof covers to foil arson attacks.
Hundreds of cameras have been torched by furious drivers, costing taxpayers £1million a year to repair.
Now one maker is offering flame-proof casings for the 4,500 units it supplies.
But campaigners against GATSO cameras have vowed to carry on targeting them.
And the leader of one shadowy group which says they have wrecked 1,000 machines even pledged to step up the attacks.
The man - who calls himself Captain Gatso - added: "Before cameras, Britain had the safest roads in Europe. This is no longer true."
