Surely the councillor is confused. The survey dowsn't say that more people speed in Radlett, but that more people who live in Radlett speed. Maybe they drive to Borehamwood to do their speeding?

More high powered motors, more money than sense.....Ba5tards!!

It's very easy to condemn the activities of a few 'boy racers' when they charge around some housing estate, then condemn everyone who exceeds a posted speed by a few miles per hour along what may well be a clear road. Speed, or the oft used euphemism 'Safety' cameras are responsible for billions of pounds of treasury income, not from the 'boy racer' though, and seldom from outside schools, nor through housing estates. Why not in those places? Because the lack of revenue, and the accident criteria do not allow placing cameras in such localities.

If speed cameras 'catch' people, it is more likely that they are placed so as to catch as many ordinary drivers in the most likely circumstance where it may be deemed to be safe enough to make a little progress. Statistics from safety camera partnerships are carefully chosen for maximum support of the camera scheme. Questions asked amongst the general public are designed to get a 'favourable' response, for example; Q1. In principal, do you agree with speed cameras? 74% said yes.
But another question -
Q2. Do you think that speed cameras are being used for road safety or
revenue for revenue? 76% said yes.

So basically, people agreed with their use 'in principal' but with the proviso that at present they were NOT being used correctly.

Next day, the papers state that nearly 3/4 of people in the UK supported speed cameras. This is a real example.

Billions of vehicle miles are travelled every single day, passing oncoming vehicles mostly with a closing speed in excess of 40mph., negotiating bends, junctions and all manner of obstacles without ANY accident at all - and many instances a few mph over a given posted limit. Driving at a speed limit is no assurance of safety on the road. It can be possible to drive as safely above a limit in many circumstances, just as it can be dangerous to drive obediently 'at' the posted limit in others.

One of the most noticeable effects of speed cameras nationally since their inception in the early nineties, is the plateauing off of a previous firm trend of falling fatalities from as far back as the 1950's. No other single item - safety advances and vehicle numbers included - can be put as the cause of that reduction in trend. Cameras cost lives. Introduce me to one person who can truthfully state a speed camera has saved their life?

But they do make a lot of money, supports huge industries, employ tens of thousands of people from manufacture through to administering fines, and have an almost 'religious' following for those who 'believe'. Yet how many have caught the drunken, drugged, dangerous and incompetent, unlicensed, uninsured? That is what Police officers can, and do do.

Speed cameras discriminate on technicalities only. They are no safety measure, one could get a similar changes in accident statistics at any give camera site by placing a Garden Gnome on a pole due to the simple, and reliable factor of Regression To The Mean.

Their demise is long overdue, and the partnerships game is up.

Road safety does not sit on a pole, it sits inside ones head in the form of attitude - a state of mind.