January 10, 2004
TWO TRACK JUSTICE:
Speed cameras are good for you: Driving fast is dangerous, says Ross Clark, and the middle classes should stop whining about attempts to slow them down (Ross Clark, 1/10/04, The Spectator)
The main arguments of the anti-camera lobby are these: speed cameras can’t prevent accidents because, as the Transport Research Laboratory’s research paper TRL 323 proves, only 7 per cent of accidents are caused by excessive speed. Speed cameras are really about raising revenue. Worse, the crusade against honest middle-class motorists is diverting policemen from the business of catching ‘real’ criminals like burglars.The first argument is fallacious. The purpose of TRL 323 was not to discover how many accidents are caused by speeding but to analyse the way in which policemen had filled in accident report forms. While ‘excessive speed’ accounted for 7.3 per cent of the factors blamed for accidents, many of the other factors, like ‘behaviour — in a hurry’, ‘aggressive driving’ and ‘reckless behaviour’, were simply speeding by another name. The anti-camera lobby chooses to ignore other statistics by the Transport Research Laboratory, which show a 35 per cent reduction in the number of people killed and seriously injured close to the sites of speed cameras. A separate study in west London reported a 70 per cent drop in accidents at camera sites compared with before cameras were installed.
It isn’t true that speed cameras are great revenue-raisers. No one has installed cameras with more enthusiasm than Northamptonshire police, yet the force is nursing losses as the cameras have proved to cost more to maintain than they raise. That said, the government should neutralise the revenue argument altogether by using any surplus from speed cameras to award a rebate in road tax to anyone who reaches the end of the year with a clean licence.
Dodgy statistics are one thing, but what really irritates me is the assertion that in some way police are persecuting middle-class motorists at the expense of pursuing ‘real’ criminals. ‘A serious political problem is being created by the emphasis that is being put on petty crimes at the expense of serious ones,’ writes Rachel Sylvester in the Daily Telegraph. Yet the prison population has doubled in recent years, and it certainly isn’t because jails are overflowing with Ruperts and Samanthas caught in their Volvos at 31 mph on Wandsworth Bridge.
Zero tolerance is great when they're busting the black kids who squeegee your car window in the city, but when it applies to us white folk it's the first step towards 1984. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2004 7:39 AM
No, this isn't "zero tolerance".
This is quite plainly just another example of the Annointed attempting to run other people's lives for them. The great-unwashed hoards don't know what's good for them, so - once again - the annointed must take on the task.
If they are truly interested in safety, they'd also enforce the laws against impeding the flow of traffic (like sitting in the left lane when the rule is "slower traffic keep right") or syncronizing the traffic lights on major roads so that one can travel the speed limit without stopping (or running a quick yellow) for every third light.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at January 10, 2004 12:57 PMActually, by turning over much of the speed enforcement to cameras, it frees up policemen to focus on the more serious crimes. People make light of speeding, but from a body count perspective, traffic crime is by far the deadliest form of crime. Unless you live in a gang-infested inner city neighborhood, you are far more likely to be killed by the guy talking on his cell phone driving to work than by any "real" criminal.
Posted by: Robert D at January 10, 2004 1:50 PMOJ:
Well, yes and no. The safest speed limit is the one set--after observation period in the absence of an established speed limit--at the 85th percentile.
The problem with speed cameras is that it gives municipalities the incentive to set artificially low limits, then tag people who are driving safely.
Red light cameras do the same thing, through encouraging municipalities to allocate insufficient time for the yellow.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at January 10, 2004 4:28 PM"artificially low limits" The operative word is limits.
Posted by: oj at January 10, 2004 4:38 PMOJ, I'm entirely with you on the need to promote civil, considerate behavior by slapping the wrists of the rude and inconsiderate. I just think speed cameras are a crude, counterproductive tool for that end, and red light cameras are worse (for the reasons Jeff stated).
I drive to work on a freeway that's posted at 55 mph; when it's not crawling at 5 mph, everyone does 70. Putting a speed camera up to make everyone go exactly 55 (realistically 50 to avoid getting fined for going 56) wouldn't contribute to civility (lots of people cursing the slow-down, driving aggressively around it, etc.) or safety (again, for Jeff's reasons). That's how it works in Britain -- everyone does 80 until they get close to the speed camera, then they jam on the brakes, then once they're past the camera, they hit 80 again to make up the lost time.
The folks we want to get aren't the folks doing 70 in the left lane, they're the crazies zipping across all four lanes at 90. I don't have a solution, but speed cameras aren't one either. Not 1984, but not analogous to broken windows, either.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at January 10, 2004 6:19 PM