Memorandum from Idris Francis (RS 56)
A. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
A.1 The first step towards improving road
safety in the future is to understand what has gone wrong in the
past. This submission therefore starts by documenting how the
single most significant indicator of road risk, deaths as a function
of traffic volume, that fell with almost mathematical precision
by 7% pa. from 1950, and probably from the dawn of motoring (excluding
WW2) suddenly all-but stopped falling in the mid-1990s. In excess
of 8,000 more people have died than would sensibly have been predicted
in 1993. While the reasons may, to an extent, be subjective, the
facts are a matter of record.
A.2 The continuing fall in serious injuries
(SI) known to the police when deaths were no longer falling, was
not only counter-intuitive but also bogus, in the sense that figures
represent not real falls in serious injuries, but further falls
in already low reporting levels.
A.3 The figures show how, after decades
of being the safest country in the world, Britain's 12% fall in
road deaths from 1995 to 2005 was the 5th worst of 33 countries
for which data is readily available—far lower than the 43%
achieved for example by Germany, 40% by France and 36% by Austria.
By the end of 2006 our relative position could only have become
worse still.
A.4 Having documented these tragic failures,
this submission then identifies and dissects the single most significant
reason for these failures—the absurd, fatally flawed concentration
of policy on speed as the be-all and end-all of road safety, and
the inherently doomed attempts to improve road safety by penal
automated enforcement of speed limits by speed cameras.
A.5 Both official reports and PR claims
have systematically misrepresented what has been achieved and
made claims that far exceed what is even theoretically possible.
Web sites across the country continue to make inflated claims,
even in areas with the worst record in the country, and routinely
mislead readers not only about the evidence but about the legal
process, their rights and responsibilities.
A.6 While the potential benefits of even
draconian speed limit enforcement have been greatly overstated,
the no less important adverse effects of cameras, identified here,
have been totally ignored.
A.7 In its October 2006 report this Committee
claimed of speed cameras that "A more cost effective measure
for reducing speeds and casualties has yet to be introduced"
but both the data and the analysis on which that statement and
policy was based have been shown to be bogus, cameras being in
reality some fifty (yes 50) times less cost effective than vehicle
activated signs. Yet to this day the DfT and this Committee, despite
having been forced to admit that signs are 10 times more effective
than cameras, still recommend the installation of more cameras,
in direct breach of their statutory duty of care to road users
and taxpayers. An Independent Accountant's Report (F.42 to F.46)
confirms these inexcusable errors.
A.8 The KSI (Killed and Seriously Injured)
parameter is wholly unsuitable as the lead indicator of road safety,
and therefore as the main 2010 target. It is unsuitable because
(a) there being 10 serious injuries for every death, KSI trends
are almost identical to SI trends and tells us virtually nothing
about fatality trends (b) unlike fatalities which for obvious
reasons are recorded accurately, SI numbers and trends are highly
suspect (A.3 above) and (c) allows the authorities to mask dreadful
fatality trends behind sound-bite KSI numbers. It is essential
that the same "Fatality Equivalent" parameter, K+(SI/10)
used by rail safety authorities should replace KSI as the lead
indicator.
A.9 Space does not allow adequate coverage
of these important issues, so much more detailed information will
be made available in print, on the web and on CD. References in
this text relate to that web and CD evidence, except where explicitly
referring to other paragraphs in this text.
About the Author
State Scholarship in Pure and Applied Mathematics
1957, 1st Class Honours B.Sc. in electrical engineering 1960,
30 years owning and running a specialist electronic manufacturing
company, including every aspect of design costing, investment,
financial planning, sales and accountancy. Queens Award for Export
Achievement 1991 and since 2000 several thousand hours studying
road casualty data and trends in detail. One million miles of
driving experience since 1958 without injuring anyone.
The author formally requests an oral hearing
B. THE WORST-EVER
DECADE OF
ROAD SAFETY
TRENDS—THE
FACTS
B.1 Ever since Karl Benz demonstrated the
world's first motor car at the end of the 19th century, saying
that he doubted that more than a handful of people in the world
would ever be able to drive them, road safety has improved steadily
to an astonishing degree. The -7% pa. trend line in the above
graph is known to extend back at least to 1950, what data is available
suggests that it extends back to 1926 when UK records began and
logic suggests that it extends right back to the second motor
car ever made, an improvement on the first.
B.2 The key feature of the graph—apart
from almost clinical adherence to the trend line from 1950—is
its sudden divergence in the mid 1990s, a loss of trend that has
to date cost more than 8,000 lives. Furthermore, The Association
of British Drivers and Safe Speed have repeatedly drawn attention
to this adverse change of trend since 2000 or 2001 but have been
ignored—and indeed insulted—for doing so. Instead
of recognising the significance of the figures and doing something
about them, the authorities buried their heads in the sand while
claiming success on the basis of spurious falls in SI data.
B.3 Because 10 "serious injuries"
are reported to the police for every 1 death, and because the
police definition of "serious" (as opposed to "slight")
is strangely wide (including for example even a broken little
finger or any suspected serious injury later found not to be serious
at all) KSI is not and can never be—even if accurately recorded—a
sensible indicator of road safety trends. An immediate change
should be made to the same "Fatality Equivalent" parameter
used by rail safety authorities, calculated as K+(SI/10), a parameter
that can easily be calculated at least from 1950. The problem
the authorities then face is of course that it becomes clear immediately
that there is no chance whatever of achieving a 40% reduction
in K+(SI/10) by 2010, even ignoring the unreliability of police
SI figures (below).
B.4 The DfT have long known that only 40%
or so of serious injury accidents become known to the police.
It would be difficult to deny that in recent years, when far more
drivers have penalty points and fear for their licenses and all
that depends on them, and when the numbers of cars cloned, stolen
or wrongly registered (usually to avoid speed camera penalties)
have risen sharply and when more drugs are taken, that more and
more drivers avoid if at all possible involving the police even
in serious accidents.
B.5 In June 2006 The British Medical Journal
reported (G.23) that hospital records across the country for serious
accident admissions for 2 days or more do not reflect the falls
reported in police data and concluded that "The overall fall
seen in police statistics for non-fatal road traffic injuries
probably represents a fall in completeness of reporting of these
injuries". The report also stated that "The findings
from hospital admission statistics cast doubt on whether there
were reductions in serious road injuries from 1996 to 2004 and
on whether the government's targets ... will be met by 2010".
(G.25) and report (G.26). They add that, "If the reduction
in injuries is real rather than an artefact, it can only have
been a reduction in injuries that were not serious enough to warrant
hospital admission".
B.6 The DfT, as might be expected, seem
to prefer to believe the police figures, but logic suggests that
informed and properly documented diagnosis by hospital staff in
controlled conditions is likely to be more accurate than assessments
carried out by police officers or others lacking medical training,
often in difficult and dangerous conditions. Indeed, Thames Valley
Road Safety Partnership recently advised me that the 66% rise
in SI numbers from 1999 to 2000 followed " more specific
guidance being given to officers". If the necessarily subjective
judgement of police officers can change SI numbers by 66% so easily,
then it is at least possible for (conscious or unconscious) pressure
to meet the 2010 SI target to shift the thresholds back the other
way. As cynics increasingly observe, when targets are set, targets
tend to be achieved whatever the collateral damage.
B.7 Recent media reports state that hospital
targets lead to rising admission numbers, largely because Accident
and Emergency Departments want patients out within their 4-hour
deadline. However the BMJ study was explicitly based (G.23 Results,
pg.1) on admissions for 2 days or more that would not have been
affected.
B.8 In summary—the figures show beyond
any doubt whatever that the speed camera era, the mid 1990s to
date, has been by far the worst at least since 1950 (and probably
ever in peace-time) in terms of reduction of deaths in relation
to traffic volume. Further, the real trend in SI has probably
been as bad, if not worse, at least over the last 10 years. It
follows that claims of success and progress on a national basis—including
hitting the 2010 target in any meaningful way—are no more
than wishful thinking in defiance of the evidence. It is time
to stop pretending, and get to grips with the facts.
C. INTERNATIONAL
COMPARISONS
C.1 The tragic failures of road safety policy
of recent year are evident not only in comparison with our past
record—before speed cameras—but also compared to most
other countries. In 1995 (with the exception of Malta, too small
to be statistically significant) Britain had the lowest fatality
rate of the 33 countries listed by the DfT, at 6.2 per 100,000
population, compared to Sweden (6.4), Norway (6.7), Iceland (6.8),
Netherlands (8.2), Finland (8.4), Switzerland, (9.3), Australia
(9.8) and Japan (9.9) This was a reflection of the historic lead
we had for many decades for a wide variety of reasons.
C.2 Between 1995 and 2005 (J.22) 7 of those
33 countries (Estonia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Portugal
and Korea and Germany) achieved reductions of 40% or more. 6 (Japan,
Austria, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Slovenia and Greece) 30% to
39%, 8 (Belgium, Latvia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Spain,
Poland and Hungary and the Czech Republic) 20% to 29% and 6 (the
Czech Republic, Australia, Slovakia, Cyprus, Finland and Canada)
13% to 19%.
C.3 Britain—28th of those 33 countries—achieved
a fall of only 12%, an average of 1% pa compared to the 3% pa
routinely achieved in earlier decades. Only five countries (the
Irish Republic, Iceland 4%, the USA, Lithuania and Malta did worse—and
4 of those are small or very small countries (J.21 to J.29).
C.4 Given these comparisons and the dreadful
national trends how dare the DfT and the Transport Committee talk
glibly and complacently about the "considerable progress
has been made in reducing the scale of deaths and injuries on
the roads of Great Britain"? How dare Jim Fitzpatrick reply
(Hansard 7th Feb 2008) that the reason France has been able to
achieve a 40% fall in fatalities compared to our 12% is because
"they had more to start with"? Does he not understand
percentages? Does he not know that over 10 years France cut fatalities
by 3,573 compared to our 420, some 9 times the reduction from
a starting point only 2.5 times greater?
D. SPEED CAMERAS—DOOMED
TO FAIL
D.1 The single most significant change of
emphasis in road safety policy since 1993 has been the ever-greater
emphasis on speed as the most important cause of accidents, and
the increasingly automated detection and punishment of speeds
above the speed limit. There have of course been other factors,
not least the 1984 Home Office instruction that road safety was
no longer to be a "core police activity", drink, drugs
and other problems, but a billion pounds has been spent on cameras
that could never eliminate even 0.5% of K or SI, while police
patrols (which, unlike cameras can detect and inhibit all forms
of dangerous driving and do it "in real time") have
been cut.
D.2 Throughout these 15 years the authorities
who endorsed these substantial changes in policing tens of millions
of drivers and vehicles on millions of miles of roads, have never
even considered, let alone sought to quantify, the adverse effects
of these changes—despite their being the daily experience
of all drivers, but particularly of those already on 6 or 9 penalty
points. Does the DfT believe that, uniquely, it is immune to the
law of unintended consequences? How can making 38m drivers paranoid
improve road safety?
D.3 The once widely used mantra "Making
speeding as socially unacceptable as drink driving" implied
that in the early years of cameras the authorities expected speed
cameras to slow down drivers everywhere. If that was what they
intended, they have demonstrably failed—their own speed
data (D.21), (automatically obtained by some 200 detection systems
across the country) shows clearly that there has been no such
general fall in speeds and that whatever else cameras might have
achieved, they have failed to slow traffic except at camera sites,
which represent only 3% of our road network.
D.4 It is almost universally accepted that
any benefits speed cameras might provide are limited to their
sites and routes—any complaints to Partnerships about adverse
trends in their wider areas are invariably met by the reply "Nothing
to with us". While the report in the 8-area camera trial
suggested benefits in the wider areas, that claim was conspicuous
by its absence from later reports, which failed even to mention
other areas.
D.5 In September 2006 the DfT published
new, more detailed accident causation findings (D.22) showing
that 4% of slight, 5% of all, 7% of SI, 8% of KSI and 12% of fatal
accidents involve speeds above the speed limit even as one of
the many causal factors. "Going to fast for the conditions"
(but implicitly within the limit) scored substantially higher
while "Driver error" of various sorts showed higher
still at 66% or more. Cameras of course detect no dangerous driving
other than speeding.
D.6 The DfT explicitly warns that even eliminating
all speeds above the speed limits could not be expected to eliminate
even those modest percentages of accidents because the other causal
factors, often more significant than the speeding element, would
remain. Yet every Press Release, every glossily printed Partnership
Report, and even the national reports on Camera Partnerships routinely
claim casualty reductions of 30%, 50% and even 70% as camera benefit—even
though the speed reductions achieved are relatively modest, of
the order of 30% to 50%! In some cases they even claim credit
for reductions in accidents where speeds have increased! This
is all unadulterated nonsense and it has to stop!
D.7 The raw data is in any case suspect
to an extent—all too often numbers appear that cannot be
correct but have nevertheless been missed by error-trapping software.
Sudden doubling or halving of traffic is probably due to incorrect
entry of one or two-way counting. Speeds, being measured only
in free-flow conditions tell us nothing about speeds in the more
congested conditions which are inherently the most dangerous.
Traffic volume is not usually measured, making it impossible to
determine how many drivers—particularly faster drivers—divert
to other routes and having their accidents there instead.
D.8 The two main reasons however that claims
are fanciful—to say the least—are that (a) they often
ignore the long term downward trend and (b) they ignore regression
to the mean, the natural tendency of any parameter to revert to
its long term trend after a disturbance. The significance of RTM
in this context is that cameras are installed where accidents
have been at a high level in the recent past, and are likely to
fall naturally even if nothing is done—garden gnomes might
well have as much effect as cameras.
D.9 That the 4th Year Report (D.31)—so
often cited as justifying speed cameras—failed to allow
for regression to the mean in its headline claims (despite vehement
complaints in previous years and despite its own Appendix H),
was nothing less than disgraceful. My more detailed analysis (C.0)
shows how the claim of 100 lives saved each year was probably
overstated by a factor of 4, and how the claimed benefit to cost
ratio of 2.7:1 is in reality of the order of 1:1—and even
that dismal failure fails to allow for the many adverse effects
which were again ignored. That report is a disgrace.
D.10 The 6,000 cameras sites and routes
we now have represent no more than 3% of our road network, but
(because they tend to be sited at accident black spots perhaps
10% of accidents). We can therefore estimate the maximum possible
benefit of speed cameras: Take the 12% K figure (D.5 above) that
involves speeding, halve it to correspond to actual reductions
in speeding (D.7) and halve it again because eliminating all speeding
would not eliminate all of those accidents (D.6) and then divide
by 10 because of the geographical coverage (D.11)—the maximum
benefit cameras could ever provide in terms of fatalities is 0.12/(2x2x10)
or about 0.3% of the national total, or about 10 lives a year—at
a cost of £120m!
D.11 This is so small as to be invisible
within the random fluctuations. The equivalent figures for slight
and serious injuries are of course even lower, at 0.1% and 0.2%
respectively—and worse, none of these allow for the adverse
effects which might well be greater than the benefits. Spending
£120 million a year in the hope of solving 0.3% of the problem
is not just stupid but a breach of the statutory duty of those
in public office to spend public money in a cost effective way.
D.12 There will always be, of course, those
who understand emotion but not logic who reply that there can
be no limit to how much is spent to save even one life. The answer
to that is that spending inherently limited public funds ineffectively
costs the lives of those who could have been saved had that money
been spent on more cost-effective measures. We now spending £120
million a year for minimal benefit when hospitals are killing
70,000 patients a year (D.22, D.23), many thousands of them for
lack of the most basic provisions as hygiene and proper training.
Many thousands more die at home for lack of drugs we are told
"we cannot afford". No hospital in its right mind would
spend £50,000 a year to save one life every 75 years—don't
take my word for it, take the reply of the head of NICE when I
asked him!
E. ADVERSE EFFECTS
OF CAMERAS
THAT HAVE
BEEN IGNORED
E.1 It is extraordinary that the police
and the Department of Transport made a fundamental change to road
safety policy by automating speed limit enforcement, knowing that
it would affect 30 million vehicles and drivers and 5 billion
vehicle miles a year, without ever considering, let alone quantifying,
the adverse effects—and have still not done so even 15 years
later despite the appalling casualty trends.
E.2 In 2005 the DfT did invite tenders (E.21)
for research work including such effects but then cancelled the
project before it got under way (E.22) apparently on the grounds
that no such effects could exist—and despite millions of
drivers being only to well aware of them every day they drive
-and this after they published TRL595 (E.25) showing that Gatso
type cameras on motorways increase accidents by 31% to 55%!
E.3 As we have seen (Section D) it is arithmetically
impossible for cameras to cut even 0.5% of K or SI. The tragic
loss of trend in the speed camera era serves only to confirm that
cameras have been a disaster. Indeed as long ago as November 2003
Autocar, with the RAC Foundation, published an article entitled
"The £150m Failure" (E.26) Nothing changed since
then, except that it is now the £1 billion failure and thousands
more have died because of speed camera policy based on naive ideas
and wasting of public money that could have been spent to much
better effect, either on other road safety measures or elsewhere
entirely.
F. GROSS DISCREPANCIES
IN COST
EFFECTIVENESS COMPARISONS
OF CAMERAS
AND VEHICLE
ACTIVATED SIGNS
F.1 In January 2003 the Department for Transport
(DfT) published but then ignored (F.21) TRL548 "a large-scale
evaluation of vehicle-activated signs" (VAS) carried out
by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The benefits identified
in TRL548 were at least comparable to and arguably better than
those routinely claimed for speed cameras while the installation
costs quoted of about £5,000 compare to well established
figures of £40,000 or more for a camera, with very substantially
lower running costs.
F.2 In 2006 Dr Stephen Ladyman told this
Committee (F.22) that funding partnerships direct from fines would
end because "partnerships (were) minded to look first for
a road camera based solution rather than a better and perhaps
more cost effective solution". (paragraph 116 page 40, Q345
page EV112, Q345 pararagraph 18 page EV156). The Committee then
asked for cost effectiveness comparisons of those alternative
methods.
F.3 The DfT response (F.24, page EV156 onwards)
failed to mention TRL548. Having first claimed—wrongly—that
no such comparison was possible Dr Ladyman submitted one—based
on single-figure and therefore statistically meaningless accident
data from only one camera site and one VAS site. Using that accident
data and wildly inaccurate cost figures (F.24 page EV157 onwards)
the DfT calculated a 12% cost effectiveness advantage for cameras
over signs. Despite this self-evidently flawed data, analysis
and comparison, this Committee accepted the figures and called
for more cameras on the basis that "A more cost effective
measure for reducing speeds and casualties has yet to be introduced".
(F.24 paragraph 118 page 40).
F.4 In reality the DfT figures and analysis
(F.24 pages EV157 and EV 158) skewed the comparison in favour
of camera by a factor of about 50 to 1 (Auditor's Report F.42
to F.46) as follows:
F.5 (a) The cost of the camera installation
was given as £7.500, ignoring not only the £32,000 cost
of the camera itself and its maintenance but also the costs of
the penalty system.
F.5 (b) The £14,000 cost of the
sign site was implied to be for 1 sign but was actually for 2,
although this did not affect the bottom line comparison—the
later adjustment by Dr. Ladyman was just another basic error.
F.5 (c) Only the first year costs were
compared, ignoring the massive disparity in annual operating costs
of £30,000+ pa. for a camera but only £200 for a sign.
(F.24 )
F.5 (d) The effectiveness of the camera
versus the signs was overstated by 85% by a basic statistical
error.
By these various means what was in reality a
cost effectiveness benefit of at least 50 to 1 in favour of signs
was transformed into a 12% benefit in favour of cameras.
F.6 Having been aware of the correct comparison
since TRL548 was published in 2003 I wrote on 8 November 2006
(F.25) to this Committee to point out that these figures were
nonsense and copied that letter to Dr Ladyman and the DfT. I received
a dismissive reply from Mrs Dunwoody (F.24) dated 4 December 2006
stating that the Committee "did not feel it had been misled
by the Government over the relative cost effectiveness of speed
cameras and flashing signs., On 17 January 2007 Mark Magee, head
of the Speed Management branch of the DfT, wrote to tell me (F.25)
that "the department does not accept that misleading information
was contained in the memorandum".
F.7 On 17 March 2007, using data obtained
under the Freedom of Information Act, I wrote again (F.30) to
this Committee and to all its members, providing irrefutable evidence
(F.26, F.27, F.28, F.29) that the data and comparison were wildly
wrong and copied that letter and information to Dr Ladyman and
the DfT. On 20 March Mrs. Dunwoody replied (F.31) to tell me that
she had "forwarded a copy of (my) letter to the Clerk for
our records . . ." and by implication that she would took
no other action. On 3 April I wrote again to Mrs Dunwoody (F.32)
and Dr Ladyman (F.33) to protest, but Mrs Dunwoody failed to reply
then or since.
F.8 On 23 April Dr Ladyman wrote to the Committee
(F.34) finally admitting that (a) his £7,500 figure for the
camera site had failed to include the £32,000 cost of the
camera itself (b) his £14,000 figure had paid for two signs,
not one (c) the cost effectiveness comparison was not 12% in favour
of cameras but 920% in favour of signs! He continued however to
ignore the nonsense of comparing only the 1st year figures and
the error in effectiveness comparison.
F.9 Dr Ladyman also claimed that the figures
had been given "in good faith" and that "we (he
and the DfT) could not reasonably have known" that the figures
were wrong! The man in the street knows that speed cameras cost
tens of thousands of pounds, but Dr Ladyman and the DfT (and this
Committee) "could not reasonably have known"! Despite
having the relevant information on file!
F.10 Dr. Ladyman then claimed that signs
being nine times more cost effective than cameras need make no
difference to the Committee's recommendation for more cameras
but not for signs, because the two systems "are used in different
circumstances, cameras for "excessive speeds", and signs
for "inappropriate" speeds". This is semantic,
self-serving tripe! It is impossible to justify spending £50,000
a year for a camera when 50 signs paid for by the same money would
prevent 50 times as many deaths and injuries!
F.11 On 26 April, astonishingly, Mrs Dunwoody
replied to Dr Ladyman (F.35), accepting his explanation and figures,
being either unable or unwilling to recognise them for the nonsense
they were. Mrs Dunwoody and Dr Ladyman have both failed to respond
at all to my further letters (F.37, F.38, F.38 and F.36) respectively
while the DfT have still failed to recognise Dr Ladyman's new
error of a factor or 2 (F.40).
F.12 The massive discrepancies in Dr. Ladyman's
figures and analysis far exceed anything in my long experience—far
worse that the costings even of the Millennium Dome, the London
Olympics or hold-plated pigs named Galileo. The conduct exposed
here amounts not only to gross incompetence but also arguably
to breach of statutory duty of care, maladministration and/or
misfeasance in public office and breach of the Perjury Act of
1911 relating to false information in public documents. All the
detailed documentation, including correspondence with all concerned,
relating to these astonishing errors have long been in the public
domain on www.safespeed.org.uk/VAS.html and are on the accompanying
CD in Directory F, which also contains an Independent Accountant's
Report (F.41 to F.46) confirming these cost discrepancies.
G. MISLEADING
STATEMENTS AND
CLAIMS
G.1 Space does not allow me to document
here even a small proportion of the errors of camera benefit,
legal process and "advice" contained on virtually every
Camera Partnership web site across the country. Apart from clearly
spurious claims of camera benefit, whether explicit or implicit,
these sites routinely ignore worsening trends in their overall
areas, mislead readers about their rights, obligations and the
legal process in ways clearly intended to secure the maximum number
of penalties with the minimum effort, regardless of guilt or innocence.
In many cases the "advice" risks charges of attempting
to pervert the course of justice (for example G.2).
G.2 Lt Col Tex Pemberton of Sussex SCP claimed
in evidence to this Committee (F.22 Q251 page EV90) in March 2006
that "we have had some very significant success" but
seems oddly unaware (a) that Sussex fatalities rose in the first
three years of his "success" from 88 to 100 to 107 to
114, (b) that the more meaningful three-year rolling average of
fatalities, 107 in both 2005 and 2006, is now higher than at any
time since 1992 and (c) that SI rose in 2005 from 748 to 889 and
again in 2006 to 929—far worse than the national trend!
Just how much more of this "success" can Sussex be expected
to endure?
G.2 Most sites give the impression that
the requirement to identify drivers is absolute, and ignore paragraph
4 S172 1988 RTA "(4) A person shall not be guilty of an offence
by virtue of paragraph (a) of subsection (2) above if he shows
that he did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have
ascertained who the driver was". Parliament rightly decided
that defendants should not be convicted of failing to do what
they are unable to do—but the authorities (and indeed the
courts) are now riding rough-shod over this protection by ignoring
it on their web sites when giving advice about procedures, rights
and responsibilities. Similarly some web sites and police correspondence
claim there is a legal requirement for the Registered Keeper to
know at all times who is driving the vehicle. This is simply untrue—there
is no such requirement in law, except perhaps for heavy vehicles
According to law, the police (and only the police) are entitled
only to ask for the identity of a driver—no more than that.
Yet the authorities routinely use threats and improper duress,
including knocking on doors to obtain confessions. Improper duress
and misinformation is the order of the day in the dash for cash.
G.3 In May 2007 Meredydd Hughes, Chief Constable
of South Yorkshire and then ACPO's head of roads policing (The
Times H.39) to threaten drivers who defend themselves in court
with the costs of many thousands of pounds of a special squad
of prosecutors and expert witnesses if they lose. His actual words
were "Come and get us if you think you are hard enough"
(H.41). Defendants have a common law right to a fair trial and
a proper defence, and it is simply not acceptable that police
officers threaten defendants with costs quite out of proportion
to the penalties to secure convictions.
G.5 How ironic that Mr Hughes had to resign
from his road safety responsibilities after being convicted of
driving at 90 mph in a 60 mph area, and that his predecessor Mike
Hedges wrote of speed cameras "I believe we have lost a tremendous
amount of goodwill from the public. I think the biggest mistake
we have made is getting some money back. I am most uncomfortable
with the focus on the taxation view which goes with it . . . There
is a place for them but I think we have lost the argument on that.
I think the police service has really suffered some really serious
confidence problems, and support from the public, as a result".
H. RECOMMENDATIONS
H.1 Stop pretending that road safety is
improving—it isn't.
H.2 Stop pretending that cameras save lives—they
don't. Scrap them.
H.3 Admit that vehicle activated signs are
massively more cost effective than cameras and should therefore
not only replace them but be installed in far greater numbers,
while saving money.
H.4 Call for more specialist police patrols
to monitor, inhibit and penalise all forms of dangerous driving,
not just speeding, and to do so with a degree of judgement and
discretion. Call also for proper training for police patrol drivers—their
accident rate has quadrupled in only a few years.
H.5 Insist on the use of K+(SI/10) in all
assessment of road safety progress.
H.6 Call for a review of the definition
of "serious injuries" which includes too many minor
injuries.
H.7 Call for a Public Inquiry into the entire
speed camera programme and the conduct of all involved, including
those who have wilfully misrepresented the benefits of cameras,
or wilfully refused to act when gross errors of fact and analysis
have been reported.
H.8 Recognise that motor vehicles and speed
have been essential to the great improvements in our standards
of living over the last century and save far more lives than they
cost—so include in road safety policy the negative effects
on GDP—and hence resources of all kinds—of slowing
down traffic.
February 2008
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