Safety Cameras and Road Safety Funding Cuts

Drivers and riders who exceed speed limits cause more crashes, and kill and injure more people, than drivers who do not exceed speed limits. In 2008, almost 400 people were killed by someone exceeding the speed limit.

This is why speed management is a major part of the UK’s road safety strategy, with safety cameras being one tool of this speed management strategy. Over the last 10 years safety cameras, in particular, have become an important and cost-effective method for reducing road casualties.

Safety cameras are one of the reasons why deaths on the road have fallen from around 5,000 a year at the start of the 1990s to 2,222 in 2009, and they must continue to play their part in the UK’s future road safety strategy.

Although it is unavoidable that public spending cuts will affect road safety because they will affect every area of our lives, it is crucial that spending decisions are informed and based on clear evidence and data, and crude, blanket spending cuts are not imposed.

Both central government and local authorities should carefully examine the evidence of the effectiveness of safety cameras before deciding to cut funding in a way that means they will cease to operate.

The 10 reasons to maintain speed camera enforcement are:

• Getting these hard decisions wrong will cost lives.

• Excessive Speeding Kills Hundreds of People a Year

• Speed Cameras Reduce Speeding and Save Lives

• Without Cameras, Speed Enforcement will Disappear

• Speed Cameras Save Money

• Cameras are Educational, not just Punitive

• Road Safety Partnership Do More than Speed Enforcement

• The War on Motorists is a Myth

• Cameras Support the Wider Road Safety Strategy

• Cameras are one of the Reasons Britain is a World Leader in Road Safety

• There is Strong Public Support for Cameras