RAC warning over speed camera claim

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The RAC Foundation has warned it would be wrong to read too much into claims that a town's roads are safer following the removal of its speed cameras.

Fixed-point speed cameras were removed in Swindon more than a year ago and the borough council's leader has said that recent speed-offence and accident statistics are a vindication of the decision.

However, concluding that road safety is not linked with speed cameras could be "reckless", according to the RAC Foundation.

The council said that in August-October 2009, just 1,033 motorists received prosecution notices after being caught by mobile cameras in the Wiltshire town.

But in the same three-month period in 2008, when the fixed-point cameras were in place, the figure was 2,227. The council also said that while there had been one fatal accident on the roads covered by the cameras in August-October 2008, there had been no deaths in the same period this year.

There were four slight-injury accidents in August-October 2008 compared with two serious-injury and four slight-injury accidents in August-October 2009.

The council's leader Rod Bluh told the Daily Mail: "These figures clearly show there is no link between accidents and cameras."

RAC Foundation director Professor Stephen Glaister said: "The town's experience seems to offer absolutely no statistical assurance that fixed speed cameras do not contribute to preventing death and injury on the nation's roads."

Copyright © Press Association 2009

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