We all make mistakes - that's life. Those of us who are grown-up and honest just admit our mistakes and get on with things. The road safety industry (and I use that term deliberately, because it IS an industry, nothing more and nothing less. Those of you who have worked in a large organisation will know that all bureaucracies exist to multiply and grow) is obviously not grown-up and not honest, because its reaction on being shown its mistakes is to continue to make them with even more determination, both in its actions and its statements.
 
Sadly, because every death on our roads hides enormous grief and suffering for some poor family, the road safety industry's actions are dangerous, and many of its statements are nothing more than downright lies.
 
So here are a few of their downright lies for us all to think about …
 
• "Speed Kills!" They have long asserted that speed causes a third of all accidents. This lie has become a fundamental plank of their thinking, if "thinking" is the correct term for such self-seeking obfuscation, yet they have never carried out any research to prove it.
 
On the contrary, when the Transport Research Laboratory was commissioned to investigate a new type of form for police officers to report on road traffic accidents, it found that, as published in their report TRL323, excess speed was a factor (not necessarily the only one) in just 7.3% of accidents. Not QUITE a third, then?
 
It's well-known that a lie is more likely to be believed if it is repeated loudly many times, which is presumably why Derbyshire Camera Partnership, for instance, were happy to publish a leaflet claiming that "excessive and inappropriate speed is the biggest cause in all road collisions". Government departments tend to be a little more careful, though: in a letter to a member of the public recently, a DfT official climbed down so far as to say "The Department has in the past suggested that around one third of accidents are speed related. This is not a figure it continues to use".
 
• Local authorities will always introduce speed-limits "on grounds of safety", they claim. This is a lie. They introduce them because they are under pressure from local newspapers and bereaved families to do something about accident black spots, and they don't want to spend any money improving the roads. Or, in some cases, they do it in response to pressure from residents who want their towns or villages to be more peaceful. We can all sympathise with this - it's just not honest to label it as "road safety".
 
At the end of 1995, Suffolk County Council introduced 450 new 30m.p.h. speed limits, many of them on roads where no driver would expect to see them - clear, uncluttered roads with good visibility and few if any houses (I live in Suffolk so I know!). Even where the limit is on a road passing through a village, it is often continued for an unreasonable distance beyond the village boundary.
 
The following year, fatalities on Suffolk roads rose by a staggering 69%, a truly shameful figure and the worst for six years. Despite pressure from the public and the condemnation of the County Coroner, did the County Council even consider that they might have been wrong? Well, no. The limits are still in place and widely ignored. They have never admitted that there could be any connection between their actions and the increase in road deaths, and still claim that it was a statistical blip. They even believe their own lies, it seems. I wonder if they would have been so reticent if deaths had actually fallen instead?
 
• We are often told that "a 1m.p.h. change in average speed causes a 5% change in accidents." This is based, not on scientific evidence, but on a survey of reports from places like Finland, Denmark, Switzerland etc. which didn't even compare like with like - one was on fatal accidents, another wasn't and so on. There has never been any serious investigation in this country to back it up or disprove it. In fact it's remarkably difficult to get reliable information about road deaths related to the various levels of speed limit, something Sir Nicholas Lyell MP might have been referring to when he questioned the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions in Parliament in 2001.
 
But then, why should the road safety industry bother with proper research? The old lies have done quite well enough in the past, so ……
 
• Speed cameras save lives. That's good, you think. Seems self-evident, really - if you make drivers go slower, fewer people will be killed or injured. And there's the added benefit that by fining all the idiots and morons who break speed limits, we can raise money to improve roads and policing. Brilliant! Except …. it isn't quite that simple …
 
In England and Wales fixed-penalty fines and other prosecutions for speeding rose, mainly through the use of cameras, from 206,900 in 1995 to 1,411,300 in 2002 - an increase of about 680%. In the same period the number of fatalities fell by less than 3%, and the next year rose to an all-time high. So speed cameras are saving lives, are they?
 
The authorities frequently point to the number of road accident fatalities in London after the introduction of speed cameras. They state that fatal accidents in London fell from 276 in 1997 to just 226 in 1998, a reduction of 18%, and claim that this reduction was due to speed cameras. What they don't tell you is the figures for other years, such as just 214 fatalities in 1994, and an increase to 264 in 1999.
 
Fatalities in Lincolnshire were 104 in 1999, and fell to only 71 in 2000. The Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership claimed this as a great success for speed cameras, despite the fact that the Partnership wasn't set up until June 2000! Since then the Partnership's efforts have seen fatalities climb to 84 in 2001, 91 in 2002 and 103 in 2003.
 
Essex handed out 213,861 speeding fines in 2002, more than any other county in the country, and more than the total number issued in the whole of the UK in 1995! And the result of this relentless battle for safer roads? Road deaths increased by 26% in 2003.
 
To most of us the reason for this carnage is plain to see. The average driver (or idiot or moron, depending on your point of view) goes down the road watching for other traffic and varying his speed according to the road and weather conditions, reacting to bends and junctions and changing visibility. When the road safety industry imposes unrealistic speed limits and enforces them with cameras instead of sensible policemen in police cars, drivers stop looking at the road and watch their speedometers instead. According to police, the biggest single cause of road accidents is not excessive speed, but driver inattention. Thanks, road safety experts, you've really helped.
 
• Speed cameras are not just about fleecing the poor motorist. Who are they kidding? The Sunday Times got hold of Essex Road Safety Partnership's accounts for 2002/3. Of all the money gained from fining motorists, after taking off its own running costs, it gave £2.44 million to Essex Police, £2.24 million to Essex County Council - and kept £1 million for itself. Nice business.
 
In 2001 when new speed cameras in Nottingham failed to catch many drivers, a disappointed Paul Preston of Nottingham Traffic Management Office, said to a Daily Mail reporter "For reasons we don't fully understand drivers seem to be complying with the limit." What a shame - spoiling his fun!
 
• The final big lie about road safety is the emotional argument, which may be paraphrased as "if you don't agree with speed limits and speed cameras, you must be in favour of running down little children." Well, no, not really. I've been driving for 40 years, have never had an accident or even been close to one, and have a clean licence although how long that can last I don't know, because I frequently break the speed limit, being too busy driving with care and attention to keep an eye on my speedometer.
 
Some arguments are difficult to combat, which in a way makes those who use them all the more dishonest. You know the sort of thing …
 
Newspaper reporter: "Mrs.Woman, you recently lost your much-loved son or daughter because he or she was killed in a road accident. Are you calling for better road safety?"
Mrs.Woman: "Well, I hadn't thought ….. er, yes, I suppose I am. I mean, it would be silly to call for WORSE road safety, wouldn't it?"
Newspaper reporter: "So what are you campaigning for, exactly?"
Mrs.Woman: "Well, let's see …. I haven't really had time to …. I suppose that if my son or daughter had been driving a bit slower …."
 
Newspaper headline: "GRIEVING MOTHER CALLS FOR NEW SPEED LIMIT".
 

Newspaper reporter (a couple of days later): "Councillor Jobsworth, what is your answer to Mrs.Woman, the resident who so tragically lost her son or daughter and is now campaigning for a new speed limit on the A666?"
Councillor Jobsworth: "I know this road well, and it has always seemed a very safe one to me".
Newspaper reporter: "So you're rejecting this brave lady's desperate call to avoid the tragic and unnecessary deaths of even more young people?"
Councillor Jobsworth: "But there's only ever been the one on this stretch of road, and he or she was driving a secondhand Maserati at twice the speed of sound ….."
Newspaper reporter: "So we can tell our readers that the County Council is in favour of allowing its young people to wipe themselves out?"
Councillor Jobsworth: "I didn't say that".
Newspaper reporter: "So what are you going to do?"
Councillor Jobsworth: "I don't see what we could reasonably …."
Newspaper reporter: "And what have you to say to Mrs.Woman - that her son or daughter deserved everything he or she got?"
Councillor Jobsworth: "I'll bring it up at the Road Safety Committee tomorrow".
 

 
Most of these facts and figures, and some of the wording too, can be found on the excellent website of the Association of British Drivers. I hope they don't mind. It's a really good website and offers many hours of interesting reading - I thoroughly recommend a visit. Just click here.
 
Also, have a look at SpeedLIMIT and Safe Speed. Somebody needs to tell the truth about all this, because the police, local authorities, camera partnerships and even the newspapers have a vested (i.e. financial) interest in not doing so.