nightjar nightjar@ wrote:

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...

nightjar nightjar@ wrote:


Simple question. Why have RTA's and road deaths INCREASED since speed
cameras where introduced?


What would they have been if the cameras had not been introduced?

They would have carried on falling quite probably. The very marked trend
since the 60s has been for a year on year decrease in fatalities, in spite
of increased road usage and increase in average speeds.


If that were the case, it should be possible to demonstrate an increase in
accidents around speed camera installations, which offsets the overall
downward trend in other areas. However, studies in the UK and abroad have
shown the reduction in accidents at camera locations varies from 35% to 55%,
when compared to the long-term trends and up to 70%, when compared to the

I have not seen stats for very recent years, so can't comment on the
scale of the rise (if there is one)... the impression I got for figures
I saw a couple of years ago was that cameras have made little if any
impact to the overall accident rate (although I accept they may have
displaced some of the locations). Often it seems the accidents move to
the back streets due to increased traffic deliberately choosing new
routes that avoid cameras.

sites before the installation of the cameras. Therefore, if accidents have
increased since cameras were introduced, they must be happening elsewhere,
which strongly suggests that there are other factors involved. It would, for
example, be interesting to compare the increase in ownership of mobile
phones to the traffic accident figures, or compare them to the use of seat
belts, which increased from the mid 1960s through to about the mid 1990s,
but now is on the decline, or the reducing effectiveness of the drink
driving campaign.

The seat belt one was interesting, since for years it was thought it had
made a big reduction in road deaths. What they forgot to include in the
stats however was that the year of introduction also coincided with the
start of the anti drink driving campaign - so it is actually more
difficult to attribute the actual cause of the reductions. They also
later realised that while seat belts did reduce the death rate among
drivers, there was an increase in the death rates for all other road
users (pedestrians, cyclists etc).


--
Cheers,

John.

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