UK's 6k Speed Cameras Issue 1.92m Tickets, 115.2m Fines
Pistonheads reports that the UK's anti-speeding Holy War continues apace. Actually, it continues to gather force. "The [above] figures were released by the Government in response to a parliamentary question and showed that in some areas speeding fines had increased tenfold." In general, the '05 stats represent a doubling of the number of speeding camera tickets issued from '97, and slightly more than a fourfold increase in ticket revenues over the same time period. Ostensibly, that's not the point. Supposedly, the cameras are designed to improve road safety (as if you didn't know). On that score, The Department for Transport clings to its pro-camera rationale like an eighteenth century English bureaucrat defending America's tea tax. "The best safety camera is the one which takes no fines at all, but succeeds in making everyone slow down. Independent research shows a 42 per cent reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured at camera sites – that means more than 100 fewer deaths each year." To which Paul Smith of the SafeSpeed anti-camera pressure group says bollocks [paraphrasing]. "We have only seen a seven percent improvement in [road deaths in] the last eight years. This is absolutely terrible performance and it is perfectly clear to me that 'bad road safety policy' is responsible."
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