Considering on the Littlejohn Axis Of Evil speed cameras are up there with Muslims, gays, traffic wardens and politicalcorrectnessgawnmad as figures of hate, this comes as no surprise. Also of little surprise is that if you’re a poor child you’re at higher risk of road injury/death – there is a huge lack of safe play areas (and now fewer opportunities as the coalitions cuts playgrounds etc) for the poor and obviously they don’t get the same chances as the middle/rich classes. I remember from my own upbringing playing on the street was the norm on my estate, luckily the car owners knew it (except when they saw a cat…) most of the time.

In short: Scrapping speed cameras is just plain stupid and spiteful.

Guns don’t kill people.

Speed does not kill people.

Oh but I’m pro life…….or something.

Hang on a minute, by getting rid of speed cameras is the Transport Sec effectively saying that it’s ok to speed…ie break the law? And that attempts to curb lawbreaking are an assault on individual liberties?

WTF, as they say on teh internetz

It will come as a huge surprise to LC readers that the TaxPayers’ Alliance are among the most vociferous anti-speed camera groups (you’d think they’d welcome the extra revenue from law-breakers). Unfortunately, as this blog by someone who knows about interpreting quantitative data shows, they’ve been talking out of their exhaust pipes: http://www.nontoxic.org.uk/?p=218

“It will come as a huge surprise to LC readers that the TaxPayers’ Alliance are among the most vociferous anti-speed camera ”

Comes as no surprise to me because the Tax payers alliance is nothing more than a far right wing astro turf outfit that pushes right wing views.

Just like the Tea party in America who have now come out against net neutrality. Which only goes to prove that they are a corporate funded right wing group that pushes a corporate agenda. Too bad so many of their members are very stupid.

I’m insulted on behalf of everyone who uses the internet to think that anyone thinks we’re stupid enough to fall for the “independent” research funded by the Department of Transport.

The propaganda in favour of the massive amount of money wasted on cameras of every sort has been incredibly pisspoor. This has been the rip off of the century and they’ve been rumbled

The stats from Swindon often cited in the press showing no change in accidents after speed cameras were axed do not stand up to much scrutiny.

As this article shows http://bit.ly/9vqYnI

Why not review speed limits if enforcing current limits them is unfair?

Then there can be a rational debate trading-off deaths of poor people with freedom for car drivers to drive very fast.

Is Jeremy Clarkson confirmed as Road Safety Tsar yet? He’d be a great choice.

Look at the trolls defend killing.

They just hate the idea that their crimes are proved. Middle class petrol heads don’t like it when they get caught breaking the law. Remember when Ken Clarke brought in a new fine system that would better reflect a person ability to pay.

Thire was a middle class backlash because they did not like it up them.
It was fine for some tosser on benefit to get a £100 fine when their weekly money was £120, but not ok for someone earning £500 a week to be fined £400.

The tory middle class don’t think laws apply to them.

“The social distribution of car ownership is different. ”

The stats above include children injured as passengers, not sure if this would help or harm your case but worth taking into account.

@8 Speed limits are reviewed all the time but only downwards, (as far as I can tell). Given that cars are far superior in terms of safety than they used to be, both for passengers and pedestrians, it is somewhat odd.

@6. No no no. We’re only allowed to use that sort of criticism against research that is wrong. We must all remember that, regardless of the facts, spending cuts are not aimed at saving money. Without exception, every spending cut is motivated by the desire to kill poor people – especially children.

We can judge whether research is right or wrong simply by asking whether it reflects this well-known fact. And I think we all know that the Tories only want to get rid of speed cameras so that they can drive their Bentleys at 90mph over the mangled corpses of chavs while sipping champagne and saying “Rar rar rar, we’re going to smash the oiks”. FACT.

@falco

And I would welcome a review (though perhaps not a Clarkson-led one).

The last Government’s approach to road safety (combined with car industry safety advances) led to large declines in people killed on the roads.

But there appear to be many people who believe that the inconvenience of speed limits and other road safety instruments outweigh the value of fewer deaths and injuries they have helped reduce.

Making these policy trade-offs clear in a open independent review and developing new road safety policies on the back of an evidence-led consultative review will be immensely valuable – and far better than abolishing speed limits through the back door to placate the motoring lobby.

The propaganda in favour of the massive amount of money wasted on cameras of every sort has been incredibly pisspoor.

Wait – did you just lump CCTV in with speed cameras? They’re not the same thing – in fact, they’re not even particularly similar, except that they both involve cameras.

Besides, I thought speed cameras were supposed to be a “stealth tax”, implemented primarily as a means of raising revenue? When did this talking point get retired?

(The truth is somewhere in the middle – speed cameras are almost, but not quite, self-funding – which must make them one of the most cost-effective interventions available. Where’s the right’s love for economic rationality, not to mention law-n-order, when you need it?)

Finally, if there’s ever been a “war on motorists”, it’s been the most piss-poor and ineffective war ever. Even worse than the “war on poverty”… You want a war on motorists, I can give you some suggestions.

The ‘ localism ‘ solution would be to let local authorities charge what they want. Speed cameras have a problem with compliance because the fine is too low. Motorists acting rationally see the benefits of the crime outweighing the costs of being caught. Therefore, we should increase the fine. The free market solution would be to let anyone who obtains a speed camera licence set up their own speed camera. If the local residents disagreed with the local authority policy they would elect different representatives. To be anti-speed camera is to be anti-free market and anti-localism.

@9

They do that in Sweden – fine by ability to pay. Some millionaire recently caught is now facing the largest speeding fine in the world SFr1.08m, or £656,000. Seems like a good idea to me…

Dunc

– speed cameras are almost, but not quite, self-funding – which must make them one of the most cost-effective interventions available.

Fine, they don’t require a £38m per annum subsidy from central government then.

No one is preventing local authorities from using the cameras, the government is simply saying it will not continue to pay for them.

By far the best strategy would be for councils to leave the most important cameras in place, but only actually load them with film etc. once in a blue moon. Since drivers would never be sure whether they were operational or not on any given day, they would combine a significant degree of deterrence with maximum thrift.

I am not a big fan of speed cameras in urban areas, mainly because they are so ugly. They are also, very often the wrong solution. Better road planning can be much more effective at curbing speed and it doesn’t make your town look like an extension of the Maze prison. And sometimes just asking people to slow down will do the trick. It has worked effectively outside the UK, anyway.

So, councils, here is what to do: please the motorist by scrapping as many traffic lights as possible (good for reducing emissions too!) and getting rid of cameras and endless warning signs, drop the speed limit to 20 or 25 miles per hour, conduct a large scale awareness raising programme for the new limit, and start removing central line demarcations and speed limit signs, lowering curbs and replacing tarmac roads with cobbles.

Fine, they don’t require a £38m per annum subsidy from central government then.

That would be true if they were actuallyself-funding… But they’re not. Unless you fancy an increase in the fines levied, which would work for me.

Of course, by the time you take in to account the massive costs associated with road accidents, they probably are in the black overall, but that’s not how Local Authority budgets work…

I really don’t get the opposition. It’s a very cost-effective means of enforcing the law, and it keeps actual police officers out doing more useful stuff than manning speed traps. Don’t you want to enforce the law? I mean, OK, I’m not exactly a big law-n-order type, but you guys always seem so keen on enforcement in other areas… Why are you suddenly so keen to molly-coddle these law breakers? Let’s bang ‘em up for 6 months for a first offence, 12 months and we crush their car for a second, and if they’re dumb enough to go for a third… Well, hanging’s clearly too good for ‘em!

Speeding is like tax evasion – a socially acceptable white-collar crime.
God forbid if you’re claiming benefits and on your way to do a bit of cash-in-hand window cleaning though!

“Speeding is like tax evasion – a socially acceptable white-collar crime.”

Tax evasion isn’t socially acceptable, not where I live anyhow. But speeding really is acceptable in certain circumstances. It is frankly absurd that I can be fined for doing 100mph on an empty motorway at two in the morning, for example.

@20

Um, I don’t see any campaign to grass up your neighbours for tax evasion by the biggest selling “newspaper” in the country. Nor do I see any leading politicians complaining about the amount of money lost to tax evasion (and/or avoidance (yes I know they’re different things)). Hence “socially acceptable”.
As for motorway speeding: that’s the law, I’m afraid. If you don’t like it vote for people who will change it (I think the Libertarian Party might be to your tastes?) – that’s how democracy works.

“As for motorway speeding: that’s the law, I’m afraid.”

But there are all sorts of laws that we routinely ignore one way or the other, sometimes just because we want to and sometimes out of principle.. The law does not have some special essential character, it can be wrong and people will be less inclined to obey it if it is silly (like having to stop at red traffic lights on a bicycle on empty streets at five in the morning – no doubt you do, but I don’t).

Dunc,

Don’t you want to enforce the law?

Not if it’s a silly law, no.

John Meredith,

It is frankly absurd that I can be fined for doing 100mph on an empty motorway at two in the morning, for example.

Quite – it should be about the circumstances, not merely the speed.

@22

Yes, there are silly laws – but silliness is subjective. I think the laws against possession of, say, class B substances are “silly” but if I’m caught with a couple of grams of speed I don’t think I’ve much of a defence. “Sorry, m’lud, but the law is silly”. I’m sure we could all pick and choose what laws to obey or otherwise but we’d hardly function as a society if we did. The laws against speeding are there for a reason, and as for motorways why not lobby your MP for a different limit between, say, midnight and 6am?

“I think the laws against possession of, say, class B substances are “silly” but if I’m caught with a couple of grams of speed I don’t think I’ve much of a defence.”

Well no, and if you are caught speeding ditto, but it is still absurd that all that state machinery has been put into action at enormous expense and effort to arraign you for those two grams, isn’t it? That is what the complaint is about. ‘The law is the law’ isn’t much of an argument, as you admit.

You get speed cameras in the built-up council estates of the poor? Or are the poor just more likely to go play on 40mph roads?

John @ 25, quite.

@25

Yerrrs… but my point was that speeding is a socially acceptable crime. Whether or not it’s a silly law is, IMO, moot.

“Yerrrs… but my point was that speeding is a socially acceptable crime. Whether or not it’s a silly law is, IMO, moot.”

I agree with you and that is a good reason to do something about the law. Crimes only become socially acceptable, I think, when there is a widespread consensus that they are bad laws. Is it possible to drive these days without speeding sometimes? I don’t think so.

Having said that … if the EU is serious about cutting emissions and saving lives on roads, why not outlaw across the EU the sale of cars that are capable of travelling faster than 80 mph, say, or have a bhp above a certain level. I have never understood why there is no serious campaign in that direction and yet so many fiddly faddly laws, rules and interventions that make no real difference to anything.

@29

Hm, maybe. I think social acceptability can depend on (warning: horrible phrase ahead…) the nature of whatever paradigm you inhabit. So, we live in an atomised, rushed, cash-rich/time-poor society where a car is (nearly) essential and everywhere – so speeding becomes a social norm. You yourself say “is it possible to drive these days without speeding sometimes? I don’t think so” which kinda proves my point. As another example, smoking used to be socially acceptable nearly everywhere but try and light up in public these days and you’ll be faced with shaking of heads and muttered “tsk”s.
I agree about the EU but don’t forget EU law doesn’t extend to speed limits: it would have to be a unilateral decision by the UK parliament. Unlikely, IMO.

Sorry for the sociological bollox in that first para. Gonna wash my mouth out now.

Is it possible to drive these days without speeding sometimes? I don’t think so.

Of course it bloody is. How the hell do you think people who drive for a living manage?

“Of course it bloody is. How the hell do you think people who drive for a living manage?”

Seriously? No van drivers where you are then?

Every child – or adult – road death is a tragedy, and trying to spin this as a front in the class war is sickening. No bereaved parent would be comforted by the death of sufficient numbers of children from another social class.

By all means argue for keeping the cameras, and I would probably agree in most instances. But to suggest the problem lies in the class profile of the victims is to suggest that not all lives should be valued equally.

How the hell do you think people who drive for a living manage?

Never had a minicab driver who didn’t speed. And am ALWAYS overtaken by white van man when driving at 30 in a 30 limit.

why not outlaw across the EU the sale of cars that are capable of travelling faster than 80 mph

Because that would be virtually every model of car made at the moment? Apart from the repulsive G-Wiz, I can’t think of a single car that cannot go faster than 80.

But to suggest the problem lies in the class profile of the victims is to suggest that not all lives should be valued equally.

Erm, it’s mean to suggest that such cuts are disproportionately affecting the poor.

Sunny@36 if the cuts affected the same number of people, but equally shared across the class spectrum, how would that change the issue?

@37

We’re told over and over and over and over again that “we are all in this together” [hence Cameron's repositioning himself as "middle-class" the other day] – articles like this show it ain’t necessarily so.

The lack of harmonized speed limits across the EU would be a bit of a barrier to limiting top speed to 80.

I mean, germany limits to 150 or so, which is all fine and well – they have the autobahns after all – but anyway, cars don’t necessarily spend all their time on public roads.

Car production is already filled with zillions of regulations I don’t understand – and as a result we’re seeing more efficient cars. Aston Martin’s Cygnet is a direct result of EU regulations, for instance. I think we’re getting on top of this one.

S Pill @38 – does it show that?

Were these cameras introduced in the first place to reduce social exclusion or road deaths? Were they a victory in the class war? In which case why did we hear none of it – why were we sold the line that they were to make the roads safer for all of us?

All road safety measures involve a trade-off between safety and cost and/or freedom. [So, incidentally any impact on social exclusion from these cuts should be compared against a baseline of making the same savings somewhere else. And no credit for any spending programme should be given until it is funded by taxation rather than borrowing]

The suggestion here is that the way to resolve this trade-off is to ignore it altogether and instead lump people into social classes, deem one bunch ‘deserving’ and choose the policy that helps them more or hurts them less than it hurts the other lot.

32, 34: Of course I’m not saying that absolutely no professional drivers speed. That’s just both of you being moronically (and I suspect deliberately) incapable of telling “not all x are y” from “all x are not y.” However, if every single professional driver was speeding regularly (as would be required by JM’s statement that it is impossible not to speed) then a good deal more of them would be getting banned.

I know several current and former professional drivers, and none of them speed. At all. Ever. It turns out that the trick is to keep looking at that thing on the dashboard that tells you how fast you’re going, and to be aware of what the current speed limit is. Tricky stuff, I know, but not quite impossible if you actually put your mind to it. OK, it may well be impossible for JM, but that’s his problem, not a universal failing in the entire human race.

Back to the point: will the removal of speed cameras have a disproportionate impact on the poor?

I doubt it.

The removal of cameras from rural sites on A roads in Oxfordshire, Wiltshire etc. (the ones that led to the original Telegraph readers’ revolt) will not impact the poor, who, as I read the OP, tend to get run over on council estates.

Cracking down on teenage joyriders would have more effect than cameras trained to catch someone going at 55 in a 50 limit miles from any human habitation.

@40

There are a few facts to consider: a) poorer children are more likely to be a victim of road traffic accidents; b) speed cameras help stop road trafffic accidents; c) the coalition is cutting funding for speed cameras; and d) the coalition is also cutting funding for up to 1,300 new playground schemes across the country (disproportionatly used by children from less wealthy backgrounds).

When viewed together this policy seems very ill-thought out and merely a sop to the petrolhead/Jeremy Clarkson type who think speed cameras are as evil as ‘political correctness’.

S Pill, your glass is half empty. Some playgrounds are being funded, despite what the last government did to the public finances. Presumably this is a triumph against social exclusion.

Or maybe, things like playgrounds are actually for everybody – that not every public service is a consolation prize for the poor. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that better off kids use playgrounds too, or you might start opposing playgrounds.

But to rephrase my point as a question: what value does the social exclusion angle add to the understanding of a trade-off between safety and cost/freedom?

@Joe Otten

Again: we’re constantly being told by this government that we are all in this together when the plain facts are that the poor are being hit the hardest by these cuts. That’s the “value” involved by highlighting the social exclusion angle. And yes of course things like playgrounds are for everybody and speed cameras help everybody (unless you’re John Meredith – see above) too – but the universal aspect of services and facilities like these doesn’t change that the poor are getting hit a lot harder than the rich.
We are not all in this together.

S Pill

we’re constantly being told by this government that we are all in this together when the plain facts are that the poor are being hit the hardest by these cuts.

Are you psychic?

Almost all the promised cuts in public expenditure (apart from the initial 6 billion cuts in waste) are yet to be announced. Since we won’t know until 20th October what is going to be cut, and since the protection of the most vulnerable is an explicit criterion to be borne in mind by those deciding what to cut, how do you know where and upon whom they will fall?

@Flowerpower

Nope. Just going by what has already been announced. See the Touchstone blog’s “cuts watch” for more detail (I believe it is linked in the OP).
If I was to have an educated guess however I’d say that yes the spending review will also hit the poor hardest. By definition, almost.

@23

Quite – it should be about the circumstances, not merely the speed.

A point disregarded is, that if, as suggested, there was some sort of speed limit watershed after whenever o’clock, the motorways wouldn’t be quite as desolate at 2am would they.

It’d be like waiting until 6pm to use the phone in the bad old days.

S Pill

Just going by what has already been announced

Ah yes:

Bye bye Audit Commission
Scrapping the British Film Council
Merging nanotech research facilities (yet to be confirmed)
Farewell Regional Development Agencies (well, almost)
Ending senior civil service bonuses and golden goodbyes
Scrapping regional “leaders’ boards”
Closing regional government offices
No visitor centre at Stonehenge
Scrapping BECTA
Ending the Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme and the Bio-Energy Infrastructure Scheme
Cutting the Carbon Trust grant
IT project and quango rationalization
Reduction in funding for the National Policing Improvement Agency
£100m cut in funding for Network Rail
Phase out Child Trust Funds
Cutting expenditure on marketing and advertising

The general thrust looks more back-office than front line to me.
But I dare say someone from this blog will soon come up with a research report to show how the wheel-clamping ban is somehow regressive.

“at camera sites [...] there were 100 fewer deaths a year”

The ignorance of statistics is truly scary. Road accidents are a random event. Speed cameras are generally placed at sites where accidents have been high the past few years. If the localised high rate is actually a statistical blip (kind of like tossing 5 heads in a row on a coin) then you would expect the rate to drop in the future regardless of whether you install a camera.

In medicine we conduct double blind trials to ascertain whether a drug is effective, but for some reason we don’t perform similar tests to determine whether speed cameras actually do provide a benefit, or whether the benefit we see is simply a result of selection bias.

This argument is only for camera sites – there is a whole other argument about how speed policy has meant drivers have raised speed up their list of concerns on the road at the expense of other, potentially more important, concerns.

OP, Richard Exell: “On average, one child in 427 in Britain is injured on the roads each year, but there are huge variations from area to area – in Preston the rate is one in 206, in Kensington and Chelsea, one in 1,158.”

A couple of people discussed this before the thread descended into the normal noise about speed cameras…

The child injury figures are pretty meaningless. They fail to distinguish between a child who is run over and one who is in a car that has an accident.

I guess that most people view Preston as a large built-up town (bizarrely, now a city) in Lancashire. The reality is that Preston is a community of small towns around a larger one. Road speed is high, even when drivers observe the limits. Preston also includes nasty stretches of the M6 and M55. Accidents happen so children are harmed, whether as pedestrians or passengers.

What is the daytime road speed in Kensington and Chelsea? 10 mph? How many high speed accidents (>40 mph) occur there?

Comparison of the two locales in a crude way generates silly threads like this one.

A point disregarded is, that if, as suggested, there was some sort of speed limit watershed after whenever o’clock, the motorways wouldn’t be quite as desolate at 2am would they.

Not sure anyone’s suggesting a watershed, just that if circumstances are such that a particular speed is fine, you shouldn’t be fined for driving at that speed, and if circumstances are such that a particular speed isn’t fine, then you should be fined (or worse) for driving at that speed.

I don’t really get the arguments against speed cameras. Clearly it is possible to spin stats to say anything the spinner wants them to say. However, speed cameras must make drivers slow down within the speed camera area. If they did not then there would be many more people caught speeding. Unless we are asked to implausibly accept that they would have slowed down even without the speed camera. If that was the case why are they so angry with the presence of the speed camera? Drivers who are driving slower in a speed camera area must mean pedestrians are safer. Unless of course you believe the laws of physics are suspended in speed camera areas and getting hit at 30 mph is the same as getting hit at 60 mph.

@53 Richard

The argument against is simple enough. Opponents of speed cameras suggest that speed cameras alter drivers’ priorities, making them more concerned with their speed and less concerned with general safe driving, and also that they send out the false message that driving at or below the speed limit is inherently safe, regardless of road conditions.

@50 Mark M: “Speed cameras are generally placed at sites where accidents have been high the past few years.”

That is the case, and I understand the stats sufficiently to observe that many camera locations are essentially random. If cameras are being sited randomly, they are unlikely to reduce accident incidence at their spots. Perhaps we should dispense of the argument that the location of speed cameras reduces the number of accidents.

Speed cameras at random locations, however, are a good thing. If you shift the argument so that it is about law enforcement (ie catching motorists who exceed the limit), randomness becomes good. If the speed limit is 40 mph, wise drivers will observe it. If the camera records a motorist exceeding the limit on a “safe” piece of road, then tough. And there is no selection bias.

On cognitive biases, I suggest that those who argue about driver choice and appropriate speed read this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

@53 Richard W: “However, speed cameras must make drivers slow down within the speed camera area. If they did not then there would be many more people caught speeding. Unless we are asked to implausibly accept that they would have slowed down even without the speed camera. If that was the case why are they so angry with the presence of the speed camera?”

There are devices that flash up a warning notice when a motorist exceeds the speed limit rather than photographing the registration plate. Thus it is possible to measure the effects of advisory notices versus legal enforcement on driver behaviour. Assuming that someone could be bothered.

Drivers who habitually exceed the speed limit are angered by speed cameras because the motorist understands the value of a sterling pound. But do advisory notice devices anger those motorists? I’d like to know.

@54 Mark M: “Opponents of speed cameras suggest that speed cameras alter drivers’ priorities, making them more concerned with their speed and less concerned with general safe driving…”

I would suggest that awareness of vehicle speed and of relevant speed limits are fundamental skills of driving. Anyone who cannot match their driving to those criteria without conscious thought is unlikely to spot the pedestrian weaving close to the kerb or note that braking distances are longer when the road is wet.

Speeding tickets, themselves, are signals. The driver may not be sufficiently aware of his/her environment or driving; or the driver may be fully aware and deliberately choose to exceed the limit. Insurance companies cost their policies based on those signals.

S Pill @ 45

The implications of your argument seem to be that the burden of spending cuts should be calculated not according to how useful and efficient each public service is, but by what demographic benefits most from it.

So, for example, if police and universities benefit the middle classes more, then these should be cut most. State schools clearly benefit more the better-off children in “good” areas, so these also should be cut. Is this really what you are asking for?

Libraries? Who actually uses them? The environment – what is the demographic of people who care most about that?

It’s also worth saying that the spending cuts should be seen in tandem with the recession that largely caused them. (I’m leaving aside the rest of Labour’s excessive borrowing for now.) Who lost out in 2008/9 when the economy shrank sharply? Not the bankers – not as much as they deserved – but workers in the private sector bore the brunt, high earners as well as low. And investors. No picture of burden-sharing is complete without taking all that private sector pain into account.

Not sure anyone’s suggesting a watershed, just that if circumstances are such that a particular speed is fine, you shouldn’t be fined for driving at that speed, and if circumstances are such that a particular speed isn’t fine, then you should be fined (or worse) for driving at that speed.

That’s very nice, almost impossible to legislate, but very nice.

@57 Charlieman

“I would suggest that awareness of vehicle speed and of relevant speed limits are fundamental skills of driving. Anyone who cannot match their driving to those criteria without conscious thought is unlikely to spot the pedestrian weaving close to the kerb or note that braking distances are longer when the road is wet.”

I disagree. I believe that observation should always be a drivers number one priority. Awareness of vehicle speed is important but only in as much as the driver should be able to determine, without taking their eyes off the road, whether their speed is appropriate for the road conditions. Whether that speed is a couple of miles per hour over an arbitrary ‘limit’ doesn’t bother me that much.

But perhaps we may be able to agree on one point. From your argument, the best driver is one obeying the limits. From mine, the best in an observant one. A driver would who satisfy us both is one who obeys the limits yet remains focused 100% on the road. Perhaps the government ought to consider forcing all new cars to be fitted with optional speed limiters – that way when a driver enters a 30 zone they can choose to set their cars limit to 30 and then drive along looking at the road, safe in the knowledge that they will not be caught edging 2 or 3 mph over the limit.

Speed in only one contributing factor to road traffic accidents.

Speed cameras are also a one-dimensional approach to road safety. The most number of road traffic accidents in the UK are on rural B-roads.

Why? Because the roads are unforgiving, they are usually ancient roads with high banks on either side (nowhere to go to avoid collision or in collision), narrow, winding and prone to poor signage. B-roads are also accessible to all road traffic (only where exceptions are posted, these are often inadequate).

In contrast, the safest roads are the fastest roads, Motorway have a much lower accident rate than A or B roads. German autobahns have a 155mph speed limit in place, again, these are the safest roads in Germany.

In terms of causation, driver error is the cause in over 70% of road traffic accidents. Inappropriate driving for the hazards on the road being the main error. Driver education is often cited by the law enforcement community as the main method to reduce this. Next, the actual road infrastructure and organisation of routes is next.

Prevention of speeding and speed limits forms only one part of that effort to reduce accidents. If the road is difficult to tranverse, if signposts do not lend themselves to completing the journey safely, the chance of driver error and accidents increase. Speed again, is only a small part of this issue.

Anecdotally, a speed camera was placed on the M4 near J29, the resultant actions of driver was to brake hard to avoid tripping the camera. The result? More accident, not less.

Might I suggest this document for a more rounded picture other than making speeding and road traffic accidents a class issue (which is rather spurious to make it relevant politically)?

I draw your attention to Table 4.1 on the effects of DFT measures to reduce accidents.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme5/rsrr105.pdf

Road engineering and safety measures in cars will contribute more to reducing accidents than speed cameras.

In terms of investment, speed cameras also offer a much lower return on investment than other traffic and road measures.