In a rather bizarre twist of fate, Nanny has decided to ban one of her own "Nannyist" safety measures.She has decided to halt the installation of 500 new speed cameras, as she awaits a review of their effectiveness.
The review will be carried out by University College London.
Road safety group Safe Speed has been banging on, for quite sometime, about the fact that fewer cameras meant fewer deaths.
Safe Speed said Department for Transport figures showed the growth in fixed and mobile speed camera sites grew by under 1% for 2003 to 2004, compared to 33% between 2002 and 2003.
Founder Paul Smith said that was the "true reason" road deaths fell last year. He went on to lambast Nanny's obsession with speed cameras, pointing out:
"Speed cameras are a dangerous distraction to drivers, police and local authorities alike. In almost every case there's something else that's more important to road safety than strict speed limit compliance."
Nanny's colleagues have privately admitted that the fall in road deaths may be simply the normal recovery that would be expected after a peak in crashes known as "regression to the mean".
Cameras can be installed only where there have been a spate of serious crashes. Under the law of averages, it is unlikely that the number of crashes would continue at the same rate.
Mervyn Stone, Emeritus Professor of statistics at University College London, said:
"I am deeply sceptical of the data that has been concocted to support the increase in cameras."
In other words, Nanny has lied to us about the effectiveness of these cameras.
The reason?
Speed cameras provide Nanny with an exceptionally easy source of revenue.
Let's go back to the days of having a man walking in front of the vehicle with a red flag.
As far as safety goes the camera probably makes drivers more attentive but not at the road ahead, they are known as cash machines! you would expect the deaths to go down as the cars are becoming better at crashes (protcting the occupants and peds), the worst stats for london were at the end of the horse age!
ReplyDeleteJeremy Clarkson calls them piggy banks. Anti-Speed camers groups call them Scameras. The camera vans are nicknamed Tallyvans because they are out terrorising motorists (Is this old joke back too early yet...)
ReplyDeleteYou had better watch out the time over distance cameras are becoming popular now, nanny is watching you all the way, don't you dare even think of speeding. Paranoid moi?
Soon we will have black boxes in our cars tied by direct debit to our bank accounts giving nanny a steady stream of revenue every time we turn the key and a big bonus if we dare go 5 mph over the speed limit.
Have you noticed how effective the 50mph limit on motorway roadworks had been. People are behaving so nanny has dropped the limit to 40mph on most motorway roadworks. Draw your own conclusions.