Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Slower Speeds Initiative
GRADUATED PENALTIES
FOR SPEEDING
The Slower Speeds Initiative objects strongly
to any reduction in speeding penalties. We strongly support a
system of graduated penalties which would permit higher fixed
penalties in order better to reflect the seriousness of an offence
which is the leading cause of violent death and which intimidates
and endangers all road users and roadside communities.
We are very concerned that the Department has
provided no evidence to support the proposal and that it has offered
no evaluation of its likely effect on road danger and casualties,
especially in view of the fact that the change is being introduced
in road safety legislation.
In this response we examine the fairness of
reducing penalties (since this is the ostensible purpose of the
proposal), what the evidence suggests the impacts will be and
why the evidence does not support reduced penalties for any speeding
offences.
FAIRNESS
The ostensible point of reducing penalties is
to create a "fairer system for motorists caught speeding"
(Department for Transport 2004c). The Government have not set
out the way in which the present system is unfair to motorists.
In fact, for the crime which is the leading cause of violent death
in the UK (RoadPeace and the Slower Speeds Initiative 2005; Mosedale
and Purdy 2004), the present system is unaccountably lenient.
The fixed penalty system reinforces the attitude
that speeding is a minor, "victimless" and merely administrative
offence (Corbett 2003). Only the minimum tariff can be imposed.
Since 91% of speeding offences are dealt with through fixed penalty
notices (Fiti and Murray 2006), the vast majority are already
prosecuted in the most lenient way possible in law. The system
of totting up officially sanctions repeat offending.
Speeders are also treated very leniently given
levels of enforcement effort, the high threshold speeds for automatic
detection, the requirement for drivers to be warned in the majority
of cases that enforcement is being carried out and, above all,
the requirement for a serious crash history to justify enforcement.
Despite the very high benefit to cost ratio
(Gains et al 2005) only a tiny proportion of the road network
has effective speed limit enforcement. On the generous assumption
that half of the estimated 5,000 speed camera sites (Department
for Transport 2005a) are "live" at any one time and
that each can reduce speed over a 1 kilometre stretch, then 2,500
km of the country's 387,674 km of public roads (Department for
Transport 2005e: Table 7.6), less than 1%, has effective enforcement.
In 30 mph speed limits current ACPO guidelines
recommend a 35 mph enforcement threshold (Association of Chief
Police Officers 2004), a speed twice as likely to kill a pedestrian
as 30 mph according to the Department for Transport (2005d). Signs
warn drivers well in advance that enforcement is taking place
and the enforcement itself has to be highly visible. There is
evidence that this encourages speeding away from camera sites
(Corbett and Simon 1999; Fylan et al 2006; RAC 2005; Clark
2005).
Speed limits are rarely enforced in the absence
of a casualty history. In 2004, 93% of the fixed penalty notices
issued for speeding were a result of camera detection of the offence
(Fiti and Murray 2006, Tables B and D). The overwhelming majority
of camera detection is carried out by Safety Camera Partnerships
and the rules have required a speeding related casualty history
before enforcement can be carried out. It is hard to imagine a
more lenient system than one that allows law-breakers to kill
and maim before enforcement takes place and it is hard not to
see this as an extreme example of the law being weighted in favour
of the criminal and against the victim.
A reduction in penalties implies the need to
correct some injustice to drivers whose speeding is detected.
The Government's concern for law-breaking motorists should be
seen in the context of a road transport system in which the fear
of road danger seriously distorts transport choices and travel
patterns and imposes a set of linked burdens on society from obesity
and urban air pollution, to growing CO2 emissions and
fuel insecurity.
A MORI study for the Commission for Integrated
Transport found 44% of people said they would cycle more if the
roads were safer and 26% would travel less by car if the conditions
for walking locally were better (Hutton and Klahr 2001). Department
for Transport research into attitudes to walking and cycling (Department
for Transport 2003) has found that 37% of those asked would use
their car less if there were safer walking routes. Three quarters
of adults agreed with the statement, "The idea of cycling
on busy roads frightens me" and nearly half (47%) agreed
strongly.
Traffic danger is the main reason that 58% of
parents accompany their 7 to 10 year old children to school (Department
for Transport 2005b). A more recent survey by Brake and Green
Flag (2006) reveals that 68% of those asked worry about being
killed on foot and 36% of people who never cycle on the roads
do so for reasons which include a fear of traffic. Road danger
was spontaneously mentioned as a barrier to cycle use in another
survey (Department for Transport 2004a). Speed featured in the
top eight of unprompted local concerns in yet another (Department
of Transport, Local Government and the Regions 2001b).
At the same time that they propose reduced penalty
points and a fine of £40 for speeding offences, the Government
have been very preoccupied with how people behave in public when
not in their cars. The Prime Minister has repeatedly defended
anti-social behaviour legislation as necessary to protect the
vulnerable and the law-abiding. The 2003/2004 British Crime Survey
found that speeding is the form of anti-social behaviour of greatest
concern to the greatest number of people (43%; Wood 2004) and
is more than twice as worrying to them as behaviour such as littering
and graffiti for which the Government recommends a £75 fine
in Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (United Kingdom
Parliament 2005). By this measure of public concern, the minimum
fine for speeding should be at least £150.
IMPACT OF
LOWERING THE
PENALTY FROM
3 TO 2 POINTS
A basic test for changes to the speeding penalties
regime is their likely effects on road safety. If penalties serve
as a deterrent, then lighter penalties will deter less than harsher
ones. All the evidence indicates that the result of reducing penalties
will be to increase danger on the road, disproportionately affecting
vulnerable road users.
Downgrading speeding penalties will suggest
to drivers that the offence has been found to be less serious
than previously thought, contradicting messages concerning the
dangers of speeding which drivers are well known to underestimate
(Fylan et al 2006; RAC 2005). It could also have the perverse
effect of further eroding the legitimacy of enforcement rather
than bolstering public respect for the system—the Government's
stated aim for the proposal (Department for Transport 2004b).
The message that speeding has suddenly become
a less serious offence may provide drivers with a justification
to choose higher speeds than at present when they can (Fylan et
al 2006). The general rule of thumb is that a 1 mph increase
in average speed will be accompanied by a 5% increase in the number
of crashes (Taylor, Lynam and Baruya 2000). Increasing the average
speed of speeders by 1mph is predicted to increase crash frequency
by 19% (Transport Research Laboratory 2002).
Drivers who get flashed by speed cameras are
twice as likely to be involved in crashes involving injury as
drivers who keep within the enforcement threshold (Stradling 2004).
By increasing the number of steps to potential disqualification,
lower penalties will provide persistent offenders with 30% more
opportunities to re-offend and to crash. This will also increase
danger for other road users.
CIRCUMSTANCES
WHERE A
LOWER PENALTY
WOULD BE
APPROPRIATE
There are no circumstances where a lower penalty
would be appropriate.
As we pointed out in our main evidence, speed
is the single most important risk factor in road crashes (Elvik
et al 2004). It is known to be the major contributory factor
in nearly 30% of crashes involving death (Mosedale and Purdy 2004).
Furthermore, there are very good grounds to consider that this
is an underestimate. Very small changes in speed can prevent a
crash from occurring or if one does occur make a very large difference
in the severity of injuries (Taylor, Lynam and Baruya 2000; Elvik
et al 2004). The Transport Research Laboratory calculated
that a 2 mph reduction in average speed across the entire road
network would save 280 lives, prevent 3,900 serious injuries and
reduce all crashes involving injury by 24,000 each year (Barker
2002)—around 10% of casualties of each severity. The relationship
between speed and crashes is too sensitive to be properly evaluated
in crash investigations, no matter how sophisticated. "Minor"
violations can have major consequences.
This is especially so if speed limits are inappropriately
high. There is clear evidence that from a road safety perspective
the 30 mph limit for restricted roads and the 60 mph national
limit for single carriageway roads are too high. Speeding is more
dangerous than the law acknowledges.
Built up roads: 30 and 40 mph speed limits
The majority of detected speeding offences take
place on built up roads. 50% of car drivers exceed the 30 mph
limit when they can, with 44% choosing speeds between 30 and 40
mph (Department for Transport 2006). About 80% of speed camera
sites are in urban areas, with 64% in 30 mph limits (Gains et
al 2005: Table 2.2). The proposed new tariff structure would
fine a driver £40 and award 2 penalty points for speeds up
to 39 mph (Department for Transport 2004b). The vast majority
of detected speeding prosecuted by fixed penalty notices must
therefore be in the band the Government propose to downgrade.
Impact speeds up to the legal limit of 30 mph
can account for 45% of pedestrians deaths; 80% occur at speeds
of 40 mph or below (Ashton and Mackay 1979).
40% of road deaths, 59% of road deaths and serious
injuries and 68% of all road casualties take place on built-up
roads. Pedestrians continue to account for the single largest
group of fatalities, 38%. Together, pedestrians and cyclists account
for 45% of the deaths, 43% of the deaths and serious injuries
and 26% of casualties of all severities on built up roads (Department
for Transport 2005c: Table 24).
31% of all road deaths, 50% of road deaths and
serious injuries, and 59% of all road casualties occur on roads
with a 30 mph speed limit. The breakdown for vulnerable road users
is not published but one would expect it to be even higher than
for built-up roads as a whole. In the UK in 2003, per unit of
exposure measured as distance travelled, pedestrians were 16 times
and cyclists were 20 times more likely to be killed or seriously
injured than car occupants (Department for Transport 2005c; Tables
13 and 50). Studies of under-reporting of suggest that these figures
could underestimate serious injuries for all road users by a factor
of three and nearly six for cyclists (Department of Transport,
Local Government and the Regions 2001a; Aeron-Thomas 2000).
There are no official data on the impact speeds
at which these casualties are occurring. However, the evidence
on the relationship between impact speed and injury severity and
on driver speed choice on built up roads strongly suggests that
most deaths and serious injuries on these roads must be occurring
within the speed band which the Government propose to downgrade
as a less serious offence.
While the general rule of thumb is that a 1
mph increase in average speed will be accompanied by a 5% increase
in the number of crashes, the relationship varies with the type
of road. It is stronger at lower speeds due to the greater number
of conflicts and the more varied mix of road users. Transport
Research Laboratory have calculated that crashes increase by 6%
with every 1 mph increase in average speed on congested urban
roads (Taylor, Lynam and Baruya 2000).
Sending an official message that speeds up to
39 mph constitute a less severe offence while increasing opportunities
to speed will increase road danger, and will increase it disproportionately
for pedestrians and cyclists. We note that the Secretary of State
for Transport, Alistair Darling, told the Committee that improving
the safety of these road users is not an objective of the policy
(House of Commons Transport Committee 2005, Ev 11-12).
Single carriageway roads: 40, 50 and 60 mph limits
In 2005 the average speed of car drivers on
single carriageway roads with a 60 mph limit was 49 mph; only
11% of car drivers exceeded the speed limit (Department for Transport
2006). On the best quality single carriageway roads the average
speed is only 51 mph (Taylor, Baruya and Kennedy 2000). Even though
average speeds are well below the limit, 42% of road deaths occur
on these roads (Department for Transport 2005a, Table 13). It
is not unlikely that many (on modest estimates, around a third)
of these deaths will be the result of excessive (including inappropriate)
speed—drivers attempting to drive up to and over 60 mph.
Speeding up to 72 mph on these roads cannot possibly be a minor
offence.
As we pointed out above, the vast majority of
fixed penalty speeding offences are detected by cameras which
can only be deployed where there is a serious crash history. Where
speed limits are lower than the national limit on rural single
carriageway there is also almost always a crash history. If a
speed limit has been reduced and then enforced for this reason,
it is hard to see how speeding (up to 61 in a 50 mph limit and
50 in a 40 mph limit) on such stretches of road could be considered
a minor offence.
40 mph is a common speed limit through villages
even though 30 mph is supposed to be the norm (Department of the
Environment, Transport and the Regions 2000). Many villages have
higher limits, including the national 60 mph limit. Traffic speed
is a major blight for country dwellers. Enforcement is usually
only carried out in response to a serious crash history. It can
not be a minor offence to speed through a village.
Motorways and dual-carriageways
56% of car drivers speed on motorways and 47%
speed on dual carriageways (Department for Transport 2006). It
is often stated that our highest speed roads are our "safest"
and this is sometimes used to argue against the relationship between
speed and crashes. But our highest speed roads are also our most
highly engineered to minimise potential conflicts between road
users.
Even so, when trend is considered, in 2003 the
number of fatal crashes on motorways (separate casualty data for
dual carriageways are not available) had increased since 1993
while remaining static other roads. The number of fatal and serious
crashes had increased slightly while falling on all other roads.
The casualty rate had fallen by 6% compared to a 19% reduction
on other roads (Department for Transport 2004d, Table 8.3). Motorways
have not become safer in the last 10 years relative to other roads.
Crashes on motorways involve more vehicles and
more casualties of greater severity than on any other roads (Department
for Transport 2004d, Table 12). Any mistake—or violation—by
one driver leading to a crash will affect more travellers more
severely on a motorway than the same mistake on other roads.
Using an established methodology (Kallberg and
Toivanen 1998), the Initiative has calculated that enforcing the
speed limit on motorways could prevent over three hundred deaths
and serious injuries a year. There is no room for a "minor
offence" on our highest speed roads.
Conclusion
In their 2000 consultation on road traffic penalties,
the Government noted that speeding is an offence "seen by
some as less serious, or involving little risk to others"
and that "any perception that these are mere regulatory offences"
had to be changed (Home Office et al 2000, para 2.2). A
quicker/not a slower/route to totting up disqualification was
deemed appropriate for those who failed "to heed the warning
implicit in the first offence" (para 8.7).
The Government have presented no evidence to
support this reversal of their position.
They have suggested that the penalty should
reflect the severity of the offence but offered no criteria for
severity. They have not evaluated the potential impacts of relaxing
the speeding penalties regime. They have demonstrated that they
are much more concerned with `fairness' for offenders than safety
and equity for law-abiding motorists, vulnerable road users and
the communities through which drivers speed.
The policy will send the wrong message to drivers
about the seriousness of the offence, could push up speeds and
will increase opportunities to speed. It will increase danger
on our roads. In built up areas this will disproportionately endanger
pedestrians and cyclists. This must have the potential to increase
casualties. In addition it will increase the obstacles to transport
policies encouraging walking and cycling.
Finally, nowhere does the policy consider whether
current limits for which it would relax penalties are optimal
from the point of view of society: that is whether they serve
to minimise and equitably distribute risk and reflect desirable
road use and wider transport objectives. From a road safety perspective,
not only are driven speeds already too high but so are many speed
limits. On built up roads this is demonstrated by the relationship
between speed and injury severity and the disproportionate representation
of vulnerable road users in the casualty statistics. On single
carriageway roads average speeds are well below the national speed
limit. The disintegration of the system of national limits also
indicates that speed limits are too high as they are increasingly
varied downwards by local authorities.
The rationale for reducing penalties appears
to be to make speed limit enforcement more acceptable to drivers.
The Government should do this not by making it easier to speed—a
dangerous and backward step—but by making it easier for
drivers to comply with speed limits. The Government should:
— explain the reason for speed limits
and enforcement through high profile publicity campaigns;
— remind drivers of what the speed
limits are;
— widen the scope of enforcement to
maximise its benefits;
— introduce legislation requiring all
cars to be equipped with black boxes; and
— provide incentives for the adoption
of driver-operated variable speed limiters while intelligent speed
adaptation systems are in development.
11 April 2006
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