Road Safety Report Shows Cameras Working

Date published: 19/12/2005

More money and more flexibility for local authorities to deliver safety on the roads has been announced by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling.

Safety cameras will be looked at as part of overall local road safety plans and the current system of funding them through fines will be ended. That system will be replaced by a new central fund for road safety of £110m a year, exceeding the £93m currently spent by safety camera partnerships. This will be in addition to road safety funding allocated through the local transport settlement.

The changes come as an independent four year report show cameras continue to have an important part to play with around 1,745 fewer people killed or seriously injured each year.

Alistair Darling announced:

• The results of the independent 4 year report on cameras which shows a significant reduction in accidents and casualties at camera sites, even when the statistical issue of 'regression to the mean' is included;
• An end to the current system of funding cameras through the fines they issue;
• Increased funding for road safety, with £110 million a year available to local authorities in England;
• New requirements to improve the signposting of cameras;
• A requirement for all local authorities to review the speed limits on their A and B roads by 2011.

Alistair Darling said:

"This report is clear proof that safety cameras save lives. There are hundreds of people alive today who would otherwise be dead. All the academics involved in this independent report agree that cameras are delivering substantial reductions in accidents and casualties.

"But I want cameras to be linked more closely to wider road safety. That is why I am increasing the amount of money available for spending on road safety, giving them a new fund of £110 million. In some places cameras will still be the solution, and can be funded through this money. In other places there will be alternative solutions which this funding can cover.

"In 2004, the UK had the lowest number on record of people killed in road accidents. We are committed to reducing that number even further. I firmly believe that the changes I have announced today will do that."

Funding

From 2007/08 camera activity and partnerships will be integrated into wider local authority road safety activity, and expenditure on safety cameras will cease to be funded through netting-off. Government will instead be allocating an additional £110 million a year in England over the first four years of the changes - considerably more than the
latest projection of annual expenditure by safety camera partnerships in England which is some £93 million.

Authorities will be able to use this funding for all types of road safety measures. As well as the greater flexibility, this will provide financial stability and facilitate long term planning.

Local authorities will be awarded money based on their road casualty need, and also through the quality of casualty reduction plans that they will submit annually to the DfT. The Highways Agency, Transport for London, and Welsh Assembly will be compensated to cover their
roads.

Camera siting

For the final year of safety camera netting-off funding in 2006/07 we are amending the Handbook of Rules and Guidance to enable greater flexibility in where cameras can be placed - whilst ensuring that there is still a road safety need. The deployment criteria will take account of all injury accidents as well as the level of  people killed or seriously injured, look back five years rather than three; and allow camera enforcement on routes where there is a serious problem of speeding and casualties, without the problem necessarily being concentrated at one particular location.

Signing of cameras and speed limits

The revised Handbook will also make improvements to the signing of cameras, to further assist drivers to recognise and comply with the speed limit:

• Speed limit and camera signs will be co-located where possible;
• Signs will be placed to allow the sign and camera to be visible to the driver in the same view.

Traffic Authorities will separately be required to review the speed limits on their A and B roads by 2011. By undertaking this review, which may lead to inappropriately low speed limits being raised as well as inappropriately high speed limits being lowered, we wish to encourage motorists to have greater respect for speed limits generally.