SPEEDING IS STILL NORMAL BEHAVIOUR
24 May 2005 - Safe Speed

Department for Transport Figures, released, show that speeding is still normal behaviour for drivers

After twelve years of speed camera enforcement of speed limits, and
despite £700,000,000 pounds of fines issued, driver behaviour remains unchanged.

One of the stated objectives of the speed camera system is to change drivers'' speed behaviour. Clearly this is still not happening.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (www.safespeed.org.uk), described the news as ''a blessed relief'' and explained: ''Our road safety systems absolutely
depend on the vast majority of drivers selecting a safe and appropriate speed according to the conditions. If the Government had managed to persuade them to give up this behaviour
and blindly drive at the speed limit there would be utter carnage on the roads.''

Paul continues: ''A number of the spot figures contained in the new report show that three quarters of our drivers are exceeding some of our speed limits. It is frankly absurd to
suggest that this behaviour may be dangerous. Our roads are still the safest in the world. The competent and careful actions of a large majority of responsible people should
obviously be considered legal.''

Paul continues: ''Speed enforcement has completely lost touch with reality. Clearly the camera partnerships are not making the roads safer, yet, meanwhile, millions of drivers are
being penalised for doing exactly what we need them to do, and that''s drive at a safe and appropriate speed according to the conditions.''

Paul continues: ''Speed limit laws are good - we need them - but we certainly don''t need digital enforcement with absolutely no regard for the circumstances of the offence. Speed
cameras and digital enforcement didn''t even exist when we earned ourselves the safest roads in the World. We didn''t need speed cameras then, and we don''t need them now. That''s
because you can''t measure safe driving in miles per hour.

Example figures:

87% of Large HGVs were exceeding their 50mph dual carriageway speed limit. (unchanged from last year).

56% of cars were exceeding the 70mph motorway speed limit. (down 1% on last year)

78% of Articulated HGV were exceeding their 40mph national speed limit on single carriageway roads. (up 4% on last year).

53% of cars were exceeding the 30mph urban speed limit. (down 5% on last year)

Safe Speed does not believe that the 5% drop in cars exceeding the 30mph speed limit represents a real change in behaviour - it''s more likely that increased traffic volumes and slight
alterations in method caused the change. We need to know why 4 sites were DELETED from the sample set in 2002 - were they sites that were showing a year on year increase in
speeds?

Yet we only have one roads fatality per 140 million kilometres driven - and only one fatality associated with speeding in every 3.7 billion vehicle kilometres driven. Clearly when
speeding is so very commonplace it is unreasonable to suggest ''normal speeding'' distinguishes such rare events.

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