Fury at speed cameras 'spreading like cancer' Motorists run gauntlet as numbers boom
MOTORISTS run the gauntlet of more than 250 miles of average speed cameras, a study reveals.
Motorists will have to deal with booming numbers of average speed cameras
And many more such devices are on their way as their price tumbles, says the RAC Foundation.
The longest stretch of them – 99 miles – covers one of the remotest major roads in the country, the A9 through the Highlands between Dunblane and Inverness.
There are at least 50 stretches in Britain permanently monitored by average speed cameras. The shortest covers just a quarter of a mile at Tower Bridge in London.
There’s far more to safe driving than speed
The RAC Foundation plans to study whether the cameras have cut accident rates. Critics claim they are “spreading like cancer” across the country.
Average speed cameras check that a vehicle stays under the limit between cameras whereas the oldstyle fixed devices can catch speeding only where they are located.
Alliance of British Drivers founder member Hugh Bladon slammed average speed cameras as revenue-raisers rather than road safety measures.
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He said: “We have no objection to these cameras on motorways while maintenance men are working but we don’t see why they cannot be switched off when work stops. These cameras are spreading like cancer across the country. “To have a system covering 99 miles must have something to do with collecting cash rather than road safety.
“These cameras do not make roads safer. If they did our accident rate would be reducing enormously and it is not.
“There’s far more to safe driving than speed.”
The Road Safety Analysis study for the RAC Foundation said 256 miles in England, Wales and Scotland are covered by average speed cameras installed permanently. Temporary systems are installed during roadworks.
The longest stretch of the cameras is 99 miles
One stretch of road with the cameras in Northern Ireland was not part of the study. Numbers have grown dramatically since the first system was introduced on the A6514 Nottingham Ring Road in 2000.
Twelve systems were installed last year making a total of 50. Richard Owen, the operations director at Road Safety Analysis, said the increase stems, in part, from the cost of average speed camera systems falling 15-fold.
There are a total of 50 average speed camera systems in the UK
He said: “It’s now typically around £100,000 per mile, compared with around £1.5million per mile in the early 2000s.
“Some of the old fixed cameras are coming to the end of their life and are starting to be replaced, in some cases with average speed camera systems.”
RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said: “Average speed cameras are becoming more common.
“Unsurprisingly, compliance is high but the acid test is whether accident rates have also fallen. That is what the next part of this research project should tell us.”