Staffordshire Traffic Police Numbers Drop 83.7% in 10 Years!

Despite the failure of Staffordshire's 260 plus speed cameras to have any impact on the county's road fatality trends, as demonstrated above (click on graph for a larger view), 94% of the £2.4 million road safety grant is being spent on maintaining speed cameras. The effect of the speed camera programme on the number of traffic police has been devastating: in 1998-9 there were 208, down to just 34 for 2007-8 - a staggering fall of 83.7%. Speed cameras don't catch drunk or other illegal, dangerous drivers - only police patrols can. Staffordshire police admit the fall is due to speed cameras and ANPR, but cliam that ordinary police patrol officers are trained to deal with traffic offences. Not so. Traffic police were the elite officers for detecting vehicle offences and can't be adequately replaced by ordinary patrols.

Trafpol numbers in other areas: 1998/9, 2007/8, % fall

North Wales: 236, 90, 61.9%

Cheshire: 205, 94, 54.1%

West Mercia: 238, 128, 46.2%

Surrey: 177, 98, 44.6%

West Midlands 405, 352

Figures from Auto Express and Express & Star:

Fears over lack of traffic police

Swindon Council Scraps Fixed Speed Cameras

Swindon Councillors have voted to withdraw the £320,000 funding for fixed speed cameras and spend the money on genuine safety measures. Road deaths in Swindon went up last year. Peter Greenhalgh, the Tory councillor who proposed the idea, told BBC Radio 5 Live the current road safety policy was not working, "The Department for Transport annual results - published on the 25th of September - show that, nationally, only 6% of accidents are caused by people breaking speed limits and yet almost 100% of the government's road safety money is being invested in speed cameras," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7685550.stm

See ABD Mercia's detailed examination of speed camera statistics:

http://abdmercia.blogspot.com/2008/09/detailed-examination-of-speed-camera.html

and a histogram of road fatalities in Staffordshire 1992 to 2006:

http://abdmercia.blogspot.com/2008/09/staffordshire-road-fatalities-1992-2006.html

Walsall Council are also reviewing their speed camera policy.

Fuel price relief 'is not enough'

BUSINESSES say £1 a litre petrol has given them respite from economic gloom – but believe the price at the pump is still too high.

Unleaded petrol at stations in North Staffordshire dipped below the £1 mark yesterday for the first time this year after months of motoring misery.

But drivers and fuel-reliant businesses say they are still paying too much for fuel because the cost of crude oil has almost halved from a high of $147 (£84) a barrel to a 14-month low around $75 (£43).

Paul Biggs, Staffordshire co-ordinator for the Association of British Drivers, agreed more financial pressure needed to be taken off motorists.

He said: "It is great news to finally see the prices come down again.

"The cost of oil has almost halved, so you would expect to see that at the pumps.

"It seems like the prices went up very quickly as the price of oil rose, but they are not so fast to put the prices down.

"I still think we are paying far too much for fuel. Sixty per cent goes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and that is too much."

17/10/08

The Sentinel: Fuel price relief 'is not enough'

Caught on Camera - Revenue Raising in Warwickshire

Photographs and comments from Keith:

The white 08 registered Vauxhall Movano has no visible markings on the front to indicate that it is a police vehicle, the sides have some silver reflective stripes and the rear doors have yellow and red markings around the heavily tinted rear windows.

No where on the vehicle are the camera warning signs that have been a feature of the Ford Transit talivans used by Warwickshire previously and which feature on virtually every other area's talivans.

To the majority of motorists this new van could pass for a road contractor's vehicle. The new van has been seen lurking in Merevale Lane Grendon near Atherstone, the B4116, in a little used farm gateway just downhill from Merevale Church. The road is very rural and has a 50 mph speed limit for 75% of its length. The tally van has been positioned right at the end of the 50 mph limit to trap motorists who speed up early to the current 60 mph limits where their speed increase is assisted by the downhill nature of this section of road.

The talivan has been spotted here around 4.30 pm on Thursday October 16th 2008 ready to trap people returning from work.

With hardly any residents, excellent visibility and pedestrians a rarity on this section it is difficult to see how placing this speed trap here can be described as a safety measure.

The cynical omission off the usual talivan markings, the cessation of Warwickshire County Council publishing the daily movements of its talivans on its website combined with the imminent imposition of a 50 mph speed limit on virtually every rural road in Warwickshire says all we need to know about the true purpose of the safety camera partnership which is to raise as much revenue as possible whilst depriving otherwise law abiding hard working citizens.

Another comment from an ABD member:

I saw that there a week or so ago, it is one of my alternative routes to work, I wasn't even sure it was a Talivan, it looked as though it could just as easily have been a maintenance van working at the church.

Stupid limit anyway. The only hazard is the hill crest and then only if you are travelling towards the A5, yet 3/4 of the whole road has a 50 limit.

And don't get me started on the idiotic pheasant warning signs!

'Greens' Claim Birmingham's HOV Lane Set Up to Fail

BBC Midlands evening news, October 7th: There was a report about the 'Green' Party claiming that the HOV lane trial had been deliberately set up to fail - because the experiment only operates in a morning, and there is no enforcement - only one driver fined so far! Funnily enough, the police just happended to be enforcing it when the BBC were filming! The 'green' spokesman, who literally looked 16 and not old enough to drive, complained that there wasn't enough 'incentive' to car share. No drivers group was invited to opine! Filming showed an empty HOV lane and cars rammed into the right hand lane - another stupid reduction in road capacity!

ABD PR's:

Birmingham`s A47 'Car Share' Lane Criticised (18/11/07)

Birmingham City Council's A47 'Car Share' Lane Duplicity Exposed (25/11/07)

M42 Active Traffic Management Control (ATMC)

Notes from the Forum at Coventry earlier this month that saw the presentation by Highways Agency on Active Traffic Management Control,(ATMC) currently on the M42 but planned for expansion to other motorways, including the M6 and M40. The Main points were:-

1. ATMC is the future according to Highways Agency for reducing congestion on Motorways. It is 20-25% of the cost of widening and can be done much quicker.

2. The aim is to cut congestion and improve reliability of journey times by increased use of the hard shoulder.

3. When hard shoulder is in use currently max speed limit for all lanes is 50, but there are plans to increase it to 60.

4. When hard shoulder is not in use normal rules apply although variable speed limits can be used on the normal running lanes.

5. Whole area is covered by CCTV and gantries are spaced so that one is always visible. Control centre is manned 24/7.

6. Vehicles don't break down as much as they used to, so hard shoulder is not needed so much for breakdowns.

7. Under ATMC Emergency Vehicles don't need a hard shoulder. Any lane can be reserved for emergency vehicles to reach an incident by means of overhead gantry signs closing the lane to all other traffic.

8. Emergency Refuges are placed approx every 500 metres, breakdowns should try to reach one of these refuges. Refuges are usually next to overhead gantries and have a loop to tell control when a vehicle enters them, also a phone and CCTV coverage.

9. These refuges are deep enough away from the hard shoulder to allow work to be carried out on the offside of a vehicle without the need to close the adjacent running lane as is required by health and safety for hard shoulder offside work.

10. Benefits of ATMC on the M42 include- more free running; shorter journey times; better fuel consumption, 50% drop in personal injury accidents (interesting claim that increased average speeds reduce KSI, which conflicts with the usual claim that a 1mph reduction in average speed reduces casualties by 5%); no KSIs as yet during hard shoulder running; reduced CO, PM, CO2, NOx, and Noise levels.

This is a little disingenuous, as the M42 Southbound congestion from around Junction 8 was made much worse following the construction of the M6 Toll, which resulted in the loss of a lane around Junction 7A in order to provide access to the M6 South. ATMC didn't cure this problem - a new lane was recently constructed, which certainly did help a lot.

11. Overall benefit cost ratio is 3.3 to 1

12. Next applications are to the rest of the Birmingham Motorway Box and then spread across the country (sounds like a back door way of reducing the national motorway speed limit to 50 or 60mph).

13. Major problem with certain motorways is where they have already been widened and hard shoulder is not continuous, for example at bridges where decision was taken not to widen the bridge but to eliminate the hard shoulder there. To make best use of ATMC the bridges would need to be widened to give a continuous hard shoulder.

14. Causes of congestion are: 10% road works, 25% accidents, 65% volume. Congestion costs £20 bn pa.

15. HA is keen to talk to road users, especially companies and associations who might be able to put a link to HA live traffic information on their own websites, also to get feeds via RSS, traffic radio, atlas pro, event management, etc.

Contact:

outreach@highways.gsi.gov.uk

www.highways.gov.uk


Thanks to Robert Bolt who attended the forum and made notes.

Specs 3: More Money for Big Brother

It looks as though 'Specs 3' average speed cameras will be rolled out on rural and major urban roads. Drivers' journey details will also be kept for 5 years in yet another sinister 'big brother' policy. Specs will not be targeting accident black spots, but will track drivers and measure the average speed of vehicles over tens of miles. This is in part an admission that drivers brake briefly through Gatso cameras and then speed up again. The national average speed limit reduction through conventional speed camera sites is only 2.2mph, and 1mph in Staffordshire. The belief is that a 1mph reduction in average speed reduces casualties by about 5%, but this has been shown to be statistical manipulation in order to avoid using the scientific '85th percentile' method of setting speed limits.

The Times: Drivers will have no escape from new speed cameras

ABD; TRL 511 - The need for speed reduction

EuroRAP: A453 UK's Most Improved Road for Safety

The A453 from Mile Oak, Tamworth, Staffordshire, to Bassett's Pole roundabout on the A38, has seen a fall in casualties from 1 killed, 7 seriously injured for the period 2001 to 2003, to just 1 serious injury for the period 2004 to 2006. No speed cameras involved in order to claim all the credit, but the provision of pedestrian refuges at Mile Oak so that pedestrians can cross the road to the bus stops, and the reconstruction of the A38 roundabout at Bassett's Pole complete with traffic lights. The police have also clamped down on bikers gathering at Bassett's Pole and the accompanying bike racing on the public road. The unenforced 50 to 40mph speed limit at Mile Oak is incidental, despite the claim from EuroRAP.


EuroRAP say:

"Britain’s most improved road in this year’s analysis by the Road Safety Foundation is the A453 from the A38 to Tamworth in Staffordshire. This rural single carriageway has seen an 88 per cent drop in the number of fatal or serious collisions in the last six years, taking it from a medium risk road to one of the safest. According to the Foundation, this has been achieved by introducing traffic lights, speed limit reductions and village pedestrian facilities."

http://www.eurorap.org/library/pdfs/news/20080627_GB_Results_Release.pdf

EuroRAP