Hazard warning

John Pollard, the coroner for South Manchester, at the inquest of a 69-year-old woman said speed cameras were sometimes responsible for "distracting drivers, even momentarily, who look at them and their speed rather than the road."
"These cameras are a valuable safety measure when properly sited and used. But they are in danger of becoming a hazard."
A Police accident investigator told the inquest: "They do tend to divert drivers' attention away from other areas and they concentrate solely on their speed."
(October 2004)

Money matters

The former head of Norfolk's speed cameras has criticised the decision to remove blue lights and police logos from speed camera vans.
Barry Parnell, who resigned as manager of the Norfolk Casualty Reduction Partnership in July, said by removing the lights "the chief constable is playing directly into the hands of those organisations and drivers who maintain that the cameras are only deployed for revenue gathering."
Supt Mark Veljovic, chairman of the NCRP, said: "We have taken advice and we feel it is inappropriate for partnership vehicles to display blue lights and police logos that people would associate with emergency vehicles.
"These are partnership vehicles and not police vehicles, albeit they are enforcing speed limits."
(October 2004)

Hide 'n seek

The controversial chief constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom has accused Tony Blair of not doing enough to push the case for speed cameras.
"It is the Jeremy Clarkson effect, the petrolhead lobby, a very vocal, but actually very small group," said Brunstrom, ACPO's transport spokesman, on BBC Radio 4 (June 2004).
"The evidence is overwhelming that something more than three-quarters of the population support the use of speed cameras in the way the government is doing it. I would like to see more politicians in the Cabinet, from the prime minister down, standing up and saying 'The evidence is solid. We are going to do this because it saves lives.' "
But in August 2004 Brunstrom admitted (in The Times) that Britain's existing 6,000 cameras had failed to cut the overall death rate. "We have got cameras at almost all the identifiable casualty hotspots and yet deaths haven't gone down because they are happening elsewhere," he said.
Mr Brunstrom added that he had already taken advantage of new rules to catch speeding motorcyclists on the A5 in North Wales.
"We are hiding behind road signs and walls. We are not trying to trick people, but we are saying: 'You don't know where we will be.' "