Britain's roads are amongst the safest in the world. In France, we have even seen the government using the British road safety miracle as part of one of its own road safety education campaigns. The "courtesy behind the wheel day" in France was full of praise for the "British recipe" for road safety.
Despite these successes, one of the key tools used in Britain to tackle the worst excesses of reckless speed, the speed camera, comes under a constant and sustained attack. Besides the outright vandalism of the cameras themselves by some on the extreme end of the anti-speed camera movement there is an intellectual assault by the so called "motorist lobby".
The motorist lobby routinely produces stories and statistics to demonstrate exactly why speed cameras cause more accidents than they prevent, and why their use is always unfair or faulty or just outright incorrect. The motorist lobby claim to be the victims of a state led campaign of tyranny aimed at fund raising for local authorities and stifling their individual freedoms.
A simple Google search for "speed cameras" will produce any number of anti-speed camera groups helping to distribute this type of information, and with much of the mainstream media all too eager to climb onto the bandwagon, many of the lobby's distortions manage to go largely unchallenged.
The general argument of the motorist lobby appears to be that speed cameras are imperfect means of policing the speeds on our roads. That the use of speed cameras to gather evidence is arbitrary and unfair and that the roads would be safer without cameras because drivers are responsible citizens who can police themselves.
However the arguments given by the "motorist lobby" refuse to address the real issue at stake, which is not the speed camera itself but rather the speed limit.
The speed limits on most roads (with the possible exception of the Motorways) are in place for a very good reason. There are few people who would argue that they should be permitted to drive around residential streets and busy pedestrian districts at high speeds. How many of us really want drivers to be unrestrained on country lanes and around dangerous corners. I would guess not very many.
It is widely accepted that the application of speed limits have saved countless lives and it appears to be largely undisputed that these limits are in fact a good thing. However the argument against speed cameras is in reality an argument against the speed limits. It is an argument that says that “I should be allowed to break the perfectly sensible rules of the road, and should not have to fear any punishment”.
The speed camera is nothing more than a tool to enforce the speed limit. To argue that it is unfair to enforce the speed limits is an argument against the speed limits and therefore an argument for an unrestricted motorised free-for-all on our streets.
In order to provide some comparison; If someone is caught stealing on CCTV, is it logical for them to argue that it was not fair because:
- I did not see a warning sign!
- The camera does not work properly!
- They put the camera in an awkward place because they only want to fine me and make money!
Of course it isn't, but this exactly the argument used by the motorist lobby every day.
If there is a problem with the speed limits in Britain then these speed limits should be challenged. To challenge the use of speed cameras because they are an effective enforcement of the limits appears to be a dangerously flawed logic.
