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SAFETY cameras have cut road deaths and serious injuries in Scotland by more than two-thirds, a new report has revealed.
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Pretty impressive really - must also show that some work has gone into putting cameras in 'appropriate' places.
Ought to mean that police should be more willing to enforce speed limits generally - clearly they can be more flexible and agile than fixed cameras.
"The Scottish Conservatives called for a stronger focus on other types of crimes. Chief whip John Lamont said: “Of course any measure which makes our roads safer is to be welcomed.
“But many people will look at these figures and wish the authorities were as enthusiastic and prolific at cracking down on other crime.”"
http://www.scottishconservatives.org/john/about_john.aspx
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The cameras reduce death and injury and pay for themselves through fine income - meaning they don't prevent police from focusing on "other crime".
"The cameras reduce death and injury and pay for themselves through fine income - meaning they don't prevent police from focusing on "other crime"."
This.
Actually, hypothecation of fine income stopped in 2007. The Safety Camera Partnerships are grant funded in Scotland. In general fines issued in court cost more to collect than their value.
Lamont is clearly from the "End The War On The Motorist" wing of the Tory party.
"In general fines issued in court cost more to collect than their value"
Better increase them then!
Very good comment here:
puddock
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 at 08:43 AM
The Scottish Conservatives should ask themselves how many deaths these 'other crimes' cause.
mgj - you are correct that direct funding of safety camera partnerships through hypothecation of fine income ended in 2006/07. However, more is normally paid to the Government in fines than grant paid out to the safety camera partnerships - in fact the change in financial arrangements was (in part) made as cameras were seen as being too successful, the infamaous "tax on the motorist".
The new financial arrangements mean it is difficult for partnerships to substantially expand the newtork of cameras as their finances are restricted to what the Government is willing to pay out, which generally only covers ongoing operations and minor expansions of the camera network.
Presume these are both true(?) -
"In general fines issued in court cost more to collect than their value"
"more is normally paid to the Government in fines than grant paid out to the safety camera partnerships"
Whether any of this is taken into account - or the 'cost effectiveness' of preventing KSI - is another question...
chdot - I think they are. Generally, the courts aren't involved in collecting speeding fines imposed by fixed penalty notice. Only if someone challenges the notice do the courts get involved - and the potential fines much higher.
"Only if someone challenges the notice do the courts get involved"
Good point.
from road.cc on a previous version of this report (http://road.cc/content/news/25984-updated-scottish-speed-camera-statistics-highlight-major-reduction-fatalities) "In the financial year 2008/09 the grant paid to the eight partnerships operating the programme totalled £6.4 million. In the same period, penalty notices issued by the partnerships totalled £4.2 million, of which £3.6 million were paid."
Since then, the programme budget has been cut to £4.6 million, while paid penalty notices (through the programme) have been about the same. This amount paid excludes any court fines and any notices from Police or cameras outside of the Programme eg roadworks where cameras are paid for seperately.
road.cc: "Deaths and serious injuries at speed camera locations in Scotland have reduced by 56% compared to the period before their installation. ... The 56% figure equates to a reduction in the average number of people killed or seriously injured from 370 to 163 per year" - which would be worth spending over £30m to achieve
The report has several failings but I think it is good to see that a majority (76%) of people support use of speed cameras and few (29%) think there are too many cameras. Which raises the question of why there have been so few new cameras installed after the first part of the programme ten years ago.
slowcoach - fines collected in 2009/10 are much lower than in previous years, details below:
YEAR Fines collected
2003-04 £6,947,460
2004-05 £8,654,100
2005-06 £6,813,960
2006-07 £6,846,420
2007-08 £5,305,620
2008-09 £3,608,340
2009-10 £3,278,700
The scheme has been completely self financing until recently. Strangely enough the fall in income seems to co-incide with the UK Government requirement that cameras be painted in hi-vis colours and the beginning of the new financial arrangements. Coincidence?
Coincidence? I don't think so.
The high-vis rules were made-up in late 2001 and applied as cameras came into the programme mainly by 2003, so that didn't seem to reduce the number of bad drivers having to pay.
Yes, the numbers of COFPN issued has come down since there was no longer the risk to partnerships of losing money if they didn't catch enough speeders. It went back up in 2010/11, but is still only a tiny proportion of the number of times drivers break speed limits.
Year COFPN paid
01-02 28,982
02-03 39,496
03-04 115,791
04-05 144,235
05-06 113,566
06-07 114,107
07-08 88,427
08-09 60,139
09-10 54,645
10-11 62,011
chdot - I think they are. Generally, the courts aren't involved in collecting speeding fines imposed by fixed penalty notice
Not true. The courts collect all speeding fines paid in Scotland and are responsible for licence endorsement. Most never end up 'in court' but unpaid fines and challenged tickets are passed back to the Safety Camera partnerships and may subsequently end up back with the courts after going via the Fiscal.
AKen - sloppy work by myself. You are correct, people make speeding fine payments at JP courts. I should have made it clear that courts have this administrative function as well as their judicial function in fine enforcement.
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