The Government’s road safety policies have come under fire once again with the release of the latest road traffics accident statistics.
Despite the adoption of more than 4000 fixed enforcement cameras and a huge rise in fixed penalties, the figures showed that number of car users killed on UK roads rose last year from 1671 to 1675.
Overall, the number of people killed on the roads dropped by 20 from 3221 to 3201. Much of this fall was accounted for by a decrease in motorcycle and bus/coach fatalities.
The number of people who were classified as seriously injured in road accidents dropped from 31,130 to 28,954, with most of the progress in this area accounted for by a fall among car users.
Critics say this is to be expected, with more than two million new cars coming onto the roads each year. Despite the huge advances in safety, overall road deaths have fallen by just 220 since 1998.
Captain Gatso, founder of Motorists Against Detection, said Britain needs to see a return to traditional traffic policing.
“Chief constables need to remove their signature from fixed penalty notices, which would pull the plug on the failing Speed Camera Partnerships,” he said.
The chief constable of Cleveland appears to have already taken Captain Gatso’s advice: a Teeside man had his speeding conviction overturned this week because the Notice of Intended Prosecution could not be proved to have come from the chief constable of Cleveland. The Notice – and possibly thousands of others issued since 2000 - was not signed by the chief constable, as is required by law.
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