Speed Cameras (Hansard, 17 January 2002)

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Rooker)
My Lords, the police have long been empowered to ascertain the speed of any vehicle travelling on the public highway. But the Government believe that enforcement activity should normally be targeted only at accident hotspots.

Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware of a report from the Commission for Integrated Transport which said that illegal and inappropriate speed kills 1,200 and seriously injures 100,000 people every year? The regulations to which he referred surely mean that where there is not a brightly painted yellow speed camera, motorists can speed with impunity. Are not the Government condoning yet more road deaths for fear of upsetting motorists?

§ Lord Rooker
No, my Lords, the exact opposite is the case. The fact is that cameras should be located at accident problem areas—accident hotspots. They should be highly visible to motorists and they should be properly signed in advance. The idea is to slow down the motorist in the targeted areas where accidents occur; it is not to catch motorists per se or to collect extra money for the Treasury. The aim is to make those roads in particular safer.

§ Viscount Tenby
My Lords, how many county forces have signed up to self-financing roadside speed cameras, and are there any plans to make such a scheme compulsory?

§ Lord Rooker
My Lords, the pilot scheme was run in eight areas of the country and is due to be rolled out all over the country. The idea is to place cameras only at accident problem areas. The money from fines should finance the cameras; it will be netted off. The cameras are highly visible and well signed. There is a plan to make the roads safer; it will apply in those areas where there are known problems. Cameras will not be placed on certain roads, such as motorways, which are the safest roads in the country.

§ Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the new published criteria for siting and signing are much higher than those applied by many counties? 1181 They are so high that it is impossible to site cameras in the accident areas to which he referred. They are simply too high.

§ Lord Rooker
My Lords, I do not have any evidence about that. All the evidence shows that the cameras have been extremely successful. When questioned, 70 per cent of motorists agreed that having cameras at such accident hotspots is a very good idea. The scheme is not a fund-raising affair and I hope that there will not be any difficulties. When the new scheme is rolled out across the country it will work to criteria, save lives and prevent accidents in the first place without being seen simply to penalise motorists.

§ Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very intelligent response to the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. However, following on from the question raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, in relation to the introduction of self-financing, or self-funding, cameras by police forces, is this another case of creeping hypothecation?

§ Lord Rooker
No, my Lords. I believe that motorists and others have always complained that the fines go to the Treasury and that they are therefore simply intended to raise revenue. It is not the function of this programme to raise money for the Treasury. Through co-operation with magistrates and following a decision on where accident hotspots are located, the scheme is used initially to finance the cost of installing the cameras. If the cameras operate automatically, that will save police time and allow the police to do the job that they should be doing—that is, keeping our streets, our homes and our workplaces safe. At the same time, it will make the roads at those locations even safer.

§ Lord Cobbold
My Lords, given the ever-increasing volume of traffic and the inadequacies of the national road network, does the noble Lord agree that the number of road accidents is remarkably low and that the beleaguered British motorist deserves to be congratulated rather than subjected to more interference from the nanny state?

§ Lord Rooker
My Lords, I do not accept that. Motorists can become extremely angry. One once said to me that he considered the most unsafe car on the motorway to be a police car patrolling at 69 miles per hour because, as those of us who use the roads see, that causes bunching. Statistically, motorways are the safest roads in the country. The motorist is not beleaguered. We are trying to save motorists' and pedestrians' lives and, indeed, we are doing so in a targeted way. No surreptitious photography takes place. The cameras will be highly visible and they will be well signposted in advance so that motorists can slow down. That is part of the issue. If they do not slow down, they will be photographed and subsequently prosecuted.

§ Baroness Hayman
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that, although we have a very good record on 1182 road safety, our record on child pedestrian casualties is not one about which we should be complacent? I endorse absolutely the Government's priority in focusing cameras on areas with particularly high accident rates. But is it not essential to avoid diluting the overall message that excessive speed at any place can be extremely dangerous? That is why we need the types of advertising campaign being run at present.

§ Lord Rooker
My Lords, my noble friend is right. Excessive speed on the road is a greater factor in respect of accidents than any other, including drink-driving. Some people believe that it is safer to drive at night because traffic travels at a greater speed, but all the other factors mitigate against that. Perhaps I may mention to the House the number of speed limit offences that have occurred over the past five years. In 1996, there were just over three-quarters of a million; in 2000, there were one-and-a-quarter million. There is a problem. We are trying to address it in a targeted way that is in the interests of everyone concerned.