Our latest Wanker of the Week is Anne Snelgrove, the tiny Labour MP for Swindon South who was recently described on a Swindon residents' website as "totally ineffective". Mind you, she's not completely useless. She was recently named "MP of the Year" by the Kennel Club, which must presumably be like winning Best of Breed at Cruft's. We're not sure which breed she is, though. Dandy Dinmont, perhaps? Answers on a postcard, please.
Anne Snelgrove, Best of Breed
There's been a lot of understandably gleeful press coverage of Swindon Council's decision to reconsider its membership of the local Speed Camera Partnership, on the grounds that speed cameras are just a cash cow to milk the public if you'll excuse the rather mixed-up metaphor. The recent change of financial arrangements so that the government now keeps all the fines might have something to do with it - it means that Swindon pays £400,000 a year as its contribution to the upkeep of 16 fixed speed cameras, three red-light cameras, eight mobile vans and three motorcycles across Wiltshire, yet they don't receive a penny of the profits, so in effect the cameras are not only raising taxes from motorists but from local councils as well. The council would prefer to spend this money on sleeping policemen, improved road cambers, vehicle-activated warning signs and other improvements to Swindon roads.
While we applaud Swindon's sensible approach, wish them well, and hope that many other local authorities will follow suit, our interest is in the reaction from Swindon MP Anne, because she has accused council leaders of playing 'politics with lives' and has begun handing out leaflets with the slogan, "Hands off Our Speed Cameras'.
Instead of praising the council's determination to do their job properly and make sensible, thoughtful decisions about how road-safety money should be spent for the benefit of local residents, she simply parrots the government line "People's lives should not be put at risk by withdrawing from the scheme".
A spokesman for the Department of Transport said the funding decision was a local matter for Swindon, but added: "Safety cameras are there to save lives not to make money. There are 1,475 fewer deaths and serious injuries at camera sites each year. The Government is clear that the best safety camera is the one that takes no fines at all but succeeds in deterring drivers from speeding." This is a pretty odd statement considering the government's own figures show that 95% of accidents have nothing to do with speeding. It was revealed in 2006 that from the start of the previous year all road traffic accidents had their contributory factors recorded by the police. This allowed the Department for Transport for the first time to compile comprehensive data on the causes of accidents. The results showed that 5% of all accidents are attributed to exceeding the speed limit. In our innocence we might have thought that Swindon's desire to address the causes of the other 95% was very praiseworthy, but evidently we lack the keen acumen and penetrating insight of Ann Snelgrove MP.
The same report revealed that speed cameras were totally ineffective at preventing the vast majority of accidents. Considering only accidents to cars, exceeding the speed limit was attributed to just 3% of accidents - 97% of car crashes had nothing to do with breaking the speed limit. The report prompted campaigners to ask why, when 2 million motorists are prosecuted for speeding each year, the total number of fatalities on the roads in 2005 decreased by only 1%.
Strangely, another factor influencing road deaths never received much publicity. Home Office minister Hazel Blears revealed in 2003-2004 while 4% of all deaths were caused by the public exceeding the speed limit, nearly 1% of all deaths involved a police vehicle. Perhaps the speed cameras are pointing at the wrong people?
In some places the situation is even worse, and even more obvious: in 2005 the Scottish Executive announced that despite a 61% increase in fines for speeding, road deaths in Scotland during the same period had jumped by 9%.
Accidents on motorways, the fastest of all road types, account for just 4% of accidents, which suggests that travelling at higher speeds is not in itself dangerous. It means that roads engineered to take faster moving traffic have an excellent safety record. Perhaps the answer to reducing accidents can be found in better road engineering on other types of roads - and isn't that just what Swindon Council are taking on board?
In that same year, 2005, the number of deaths caused by drunk drivers was at its highest for 12 years. Official figures showed that 590 people were killed as a result of drivers over the legal limit. The number had increased steadily since 1998 which is roughly when speed cameras started to mushroom. But of course cameras aren't too good at picking out inebriated drivers, so the profit to be made from drunks is hardly worth pursuing.
In a study funded by the Government's Engineering and Physical Science Research Council and published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, experts from Liverpool University's civil engineering department said after studying 150 accident black spots that speed cameras had no effect in reducing serious crashes in built-up areas. Dr.Linda Mountain said "It was a surprise, I had expected to find some reduction."
She also said that the value of speed cameras had been "exaggerated". Speed humps and similar devices had a significant impact, but cameras didn't. She pointed out that the policy of installing cameras only on streets where there had been a spate of accidents could skew the results to make them seem more effective. The high accidents rates at these locations could be unusual statistical peaks meaning that the accident rate would fall naturally over time, even if no action was taken.
That probably explains why so many Scamera Partnerships have installed cameras where there is no history of accidents but where they are likely to generate a substantial cash-flow. It's always nice to see public servants taking notice of expert opinion.
So all in all, Ann Snelgrove, you're being a bit of a Wanker, aren't you? Shouldn't you have had a closer look at the facts before leaping to the defence of the Yellow Peril? "Hands off our Speed Cameras" isn't likely to be a very popular campaign, is it?
But perhaps it's all a bit difficult for you. I expect you'd rather get the nice man at the Kennel Club to take you walkies.
The GOS says: The top contributory factors for accidents in 2005 were:
Failed to look properly: 32%
Bad behaviour or inexperience: 25%
Misjudged other drivers speed/path: 18%
Poor turn/manoeuvre: 15%
Going too fast for conditions: 12% (doesn't necessarily mean exceeding the limit - GOS)
Loss of control: 14%
Vision affected: 10%
Slippery road: 10%
Following too close: 7%
Sudden braking: 7%
Disobeyed traffic signal or stop sign: 6%
Impaired by alcohol: 5%
Exceeding speed limit: 5%
Road layout: 3%
Vehicle defects: 2%
Please don't write in and point out that this list totals more than 100% - obviously more than one factor can apply to a single accident, for instance one might have lost control while one's judgement was impaired by alcohol. But I expect you'd already worked that out.
There's an excellent 2007 article about why speed cameras don't save lives here. It includes a devastating quote from a spokesman for the government's Transport Research Laboratory. When asked to investigate why road deaths were not falling as expected, the spokesman said "some drivers must be getting worse".
Isn't it nice to know that one's welfare on the roads is in the hands of such deep thinkers? I wonder how much he earns?
Ann Snelgrove earns £61,820, which is roughly three times what The GOS gets. Hmm … interesting question … is Anne Snelgrove three times more useful than The GOS? I don't think so. At least The GOS can take himself for walks.
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