Lessons from the past. Whenever we hear of so called claims of “safety” from speed scameras side.
Always be aware the camera side likes to take credit for crash “reductions” a camera would have no affect on!
This is a 2005 example when Two British groups pulled accident reports.
The Association of British Drivers (ABD) fought with the camera partnership for release of crash data under the Freedom of Information Act. According to the documents, the crashes cited in the formal justification for the placement of cameras on the M4 include:
- an accident where a pedestrian fell from a bridge
- an accident where a gust of wind pushed one truck into another
- several tire blowout accidents
- a crash where a car drove the wrong way
According to Smith, the accident data show that only about four percent of accidents on the M4 were actually caused by exceeding a posted limit. The documents rated the most and least important contributory factors as a percentage of accidents on the M4, as follows:
- Inattention: 28%
- Failure to judge others’ path or speed (i.e. poor lane-changing): 28%
- Lack of judgment of own path: 17%
- Fatigue: 14%
- Careless, thoughtless or reckless behavior:14%
- Excess speed for conditions: 14%
- Exceeding posted speed limit: 4.2% (SafeSpeed estimate)
“I would very much like to hear the Camera Partnership explain exactly how it is supposed to be possible that their cameras reduced crashes by over sixty percent when only about four percent of crashes involved exceeding a speed limit,” Smith said. “It does not make sense.”