Determining the real impact of speed limit enforcement cameras in the UK
Analysis of some 5 million injury crashes between 1987 and 2011 by John McKerrall Lambert and Idris Francis. Conclusion: “Speed cameras have no significant impact on road trauma.”
Excerpt: “It can be seen that far from slowing traffic, the cameras had no effect on freeway speeds. In fact, at some locations average speeds were higher after the cameras. Okay, the small increases are statistically insignificant. But the numbers are clear: speed cameras do not decrease highway speeds. Aside from a brief dab at the brakes by a few drivers in reaction to fixed speed cameras — frequently resulting in screeching tires from cars behind — most seemed oblivious to them.”
UK Department for Transport reports threefold undercount of road accidents during the speed camera era. Excerpt: “The British Medical Journal (BMJ) was first to show that, contrary to DfT’s former assertion, injury accidents were not decreasing… DfT claimed road injury rate fell from 85.9 per 100,000 in 1996 (before cameras) to 59.4 in 2004 (after cameras), but hospital admission records showed that the road injury rate actually increased slightly from 90.0 in 1996 to 91.1 in 2004.”
Speed cameras in the UK did not reduce speeding between 1994 and 2006, according to official Department for Transport (DfT) statistics. Officials reported that in 2006 about 53 percent of motorists exceeded the posted limit, up slightly from 1994 where 47 percent of drivers were speeding and speed cameras were not in widespread use.
A UK government-sponsored study shows speed cameras have no effect in construction zones. Excerpt: “The study showed that there was no significant difference in the rate of Personal Injury Accidents when road works were present on the motorway,” reads the summary prepared by the Transport Research Laboratory. “No significant difference was observed in the Personal Injury Accident rate for sites with and without speed cameras.”
A UK/Australia study which shows that speed cameras reversed a decades-long trend toward fewer accidents. Excerpt: “The net result of years of speed cameras in Britain and Australia is that road speeds have not slowed significantly, the downward trend in serious accidents and fatalities has been almost totally lost, hundreds of thousands of the safest drivers are convicted each year and the goodwill between law abiding citizens and the police is evaporating. In the midst of all this, British and Australian State governments are selling their speed campaigns as a great success. Don’t believe it.”