THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH DRIVERS
IN SCOTLAND
OPEN LETTER TO ANGUS COUNCIL'S INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICES COMMITTEE
Dear Councillor Selfridge,
I am writing to you in connection with the establishment of the Tayside 'Safety' Camera Partnership, and Angus Council's participation in it.
You are on record as stating that you would like to reduce the number of road accidents in Angus. An admirable goal, and I'm sure that all right-thinking people would join you in it. However, you are attempting to do this by installing more and more speed cameras (please, don't call them safety cameras!), and then keeping the cash from the fines for yourselves.
Cameras don't work: The trouble is that speed cameras don't seem to make much difference to safety. The Police have the figures. Why don't you ask them for yourself: in a recent survey, even the most speed-phobic police force said that speeding is the main cause of less than one accident in ten, and many respondents put the result much lower. Why don't you ask road and traffic researchers, who in many parts of the world (including Britain) and in review after review have determined that law enforcement excessively or wholly based on speed limit enforcement actually raises accident rates? Why don't you ask the British Government itself: after years of steadily falling accident rates, the carnage suddenly began rising again, just as everyone was being browbeaten into mindlessly repeating "Speed Kills".
Are you, really, genuinely concerned about safety? Why are you installing all the new cameras on relatively safe, straight roads, and not in towns and villages where most accidents happen?
Cameras bring the Police into disrepute: I can't imagine ordinary Police Officers are at all happy at being asked to enforce unpopular and useless measures (which are about to become even more unpopular) when burglars and muggers (and money-grabbing councillors) are seen to get away scot-free! I'm sure that most Police would much prefer to be defending the public from real criminals, rather than criminalizing the public in the name of easy convictions, a view most eloquently (and bravely!) put by Michael Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, only last weekend in the Daily Mail.
Cameras are bad for business: I'm sure I don't need to point this out, but in Angus and Tayside, just like in the rest of Scotland, tourism is a major industry. What message does it give to visitors, do you think, to be confronted by a camera around every corner? Do you think they'll come back? Do you think they'll tell their friends how nice it was to drive here? I'm sure they won't. I'm sure they'll go where they're not threatened with conviction fifty times a day! Everybody dependent on tourism will lose out - except you, of course; you'll still have the cash from the fines. (Do you have a Euro bank account for receiving fines from tourists?)
Cameras are all about raising cash: So, the Police don't like them, experts don't like them, tourists don't like them, and motorists don't like them. The only people who seem to like them are yourselves (who, of course, get to keep a share of the loot), and the Labour government, whose policies have equipped you for this cash-grab. Why should we import this failed English policy across the border? Shame on an SNP administration for allowing itself to be bought for a few pieces of silver!
There are better options: Do you believe that the only tool you've got in the drive for safety is speed cameras? You'd be wrong. There are many strategies, demonstrated and proved across the world, which bring down accident rates far more effectively.
But by erecting cameras everywhere, you can pretend you're doing something. It doesn't matter to you that it's useless and unpopular, it's something. But, while you're wasting our money (and, make no mistake, jeopardising your political future with it), our children continue to be killed and maimed. I hope you'll set aside some of your loot (exactly how much do you expect to raise?) for some very good PR to explain all those wasted lives.
Getting away with manslaughter: You may be able to live with your conscience, sacrificing the lives and limbs of our children to line the pockets of the Council , but I, Sir, am not. If you insist on deploying more and more cameras, you will be getting away with, if not murder, then at least manslaughter. Instead of wasting time and our money on criminalizing ordinary motorists, I want you to spend our money on something that will make our roads genuinely safer - you have no shortage of choices.
Stand and deliver: The Tayside Speed Camera Partnership is nothing less than legalised highway robbery, dressed up to look respectable. I call on every rational motorist in Angus - every decent road user with a conscience - to join me in opposing Angus Council's collusion in it. And I call upon you, Councillor Selfridge, to abandon this ill-thought and dangerous programme, and implement something constructive instead.Sincerely,
Eamon Scott, (Full Address Supplied)
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