SpeedTraps

As we’ve noted before in our blog this is the news silly season. Nothing is supposed to happen in the dog days of summer, but this year, despite government being on vacation along with much else, there is still too much to write about.

It’s hard to ignore the bane of every British person’s life, automatic camera ticketing for speeding cars. It surfaced today that the number of fines issued via this system has increased by 400% over the last decade.

This column is not seeking exoneration for all the people who have been photographed while driving too fast, but that is not the point.

No doubt, if there were a camera at every single corner there would be even more speeding tickets issued. But we’re not supposed to be living in a police state and this camera proliferation just isn’t necessary unless the purpose is to punish and browbeat us all into blind obedience.

About ten years ago, speed cameras started to proliferate as if they were the illegitimate metal children of the politically correct. We were told that these cameras were being put in position purely to reduce the accident rate. We were also informed that all the money collected would be spent helping to improve road safety.

The latter has been interpreted to mean that all the money collected would be used to buy yet more cameras to be put in place to fine drivers yet more money to be used to buy more cameras. In the end this small island will be covered in cameras!
The authorities still claim that there has been a concomitant decrease in accidents due to these cameras, but the link is not proven to this writer’s satisfaction. Let’s all see the forensic evidence. If there is a link let’s have a further study that demonstrates the second part of this contentious argument in which more cameras will provably result in even less accidents. If we were to accept this specious argument there must be some point at which we could eliminate all accidents? I don’t believe this and neither, seriously, can anyone else.

We are informed that these cameras are collecting fines on nearly 2,000,000 (two million) speeding tickets a year. This amounts to penalties of more than £106,000,000 ($210 million) each year via camera. This equates to a quadruple increase over the last decade in which the Labour party has been in power in the UK. Is it yet another example of unproven politically correct dogma that blights our lives?

The Conservative party opposition spokesman, David Ruffley, correctly stated that the government is “treating motorists like cash cows.” He went on to state, “The number of tickets issued for speeding has increased 150% under Labour.”

Revenue from speeding tickets has almost quadrupled to £200 a minute since Labour came to power.

The increase has coincided with a massive expansion in the number of speed cameras

Home Office figures reveal that 1.8million tickets are being issued each year, or 4,850 a day. In 1997, only 713,000 fixed penalty notices were handed to drivers.

This is an increase of 150 per cent in only a decade, and it has been compounded by an increase in the value of fines - from £40 to £ 60 - in 2000.

'Coupled with an increase in the basic speeding fine, this means speeding tickets are now raising over £100 million a year for the Government.

'Ministers need to tell us what they are doing with this £100million a year taken from motorists.

'How much is actually put back into practical road safety that does not involve speed cameras?

'Ministers' failure to answer that question confirms the view that for this Government the British motorist is "a nice little earner".

'Is Labour using speeding tickets just to raise revenue rather than making our roads safer?

'Using speed cameras as a cash cow undermines public confidence. The Government needs to rethink ways of improving road safety, including cracking down on uninsured drivers.'

His questions and ours remain unanswered. Meanwhile this intentional and constant attempt to trap everyone speeding will result in every one of us eventually falling foul of the all embracing system, rendering it all meaningless. Surely, when we all break a law it must be time to change that law.