Times Online March 11 2002
March 11, 2002
Police 'leaving law on roads to speed cameras'
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
DANGEROUS drivers are escaping punishment because police forces are increasingly relying on speed cameras to do the work of traffic officers. Police are catching fewer people for stealing cars, drink and drug-driving, and careless or dangerous driving, according to Home Office figures for forces in England and Wales.
The only type of motoring offence to have registered any increase is speeding, which leapt by 18 per cent in 2000 because of the huge rise in the number of speed cameras. Motoring groups said that police were leaving cameras to enforce the law on the roads. Drivers realised there was little risk of being caught for any offence as long as they slowed for speed cameras, most of which are being repainted yellow to give people time to notice them. The number of police devoted to traffic duties has fallen from 15 per cent of all officers in 1990 to less than 5 per cent, research by the RAC Foundation found.
In January the Metropolitan Police switched more than 300 traffic officers to tackling street crime. Edmund King, the RAC Foundation?s executive director, said: ?Speed cameras will not catch drivers who tailgate, overtake dangerously, talk on mobile phones and many other potentially fatal actions. In many areas the number of police on duty keeping the roads safe is almost zero.?
Stopping motorists helped to detect other crimes, Mr King said. More than 65 per cent of drivers committing serious traffic offences had criminal records. A total of 802,000 motorists were caught by cameras in 2000. The figure is believed to have passed one million last year as more forces joined a government scheme that allowed them to keep some of the proceeds of speeding fines to pay for more cameras.
The decline in detecting drinkdriving has been accompanied by a sharp rise in accidents caused by drivers over the limit, up 13 per cent between 1999 and 2000. Police are carrying out fewer breath tests, down from 815,000 in 1998 to 764,000 in 1999.
The number of people killed on Britain?s roads remained at the same level between 1998 and 2000, after falling sharply in the early Nineties. A total of 3,421 died in 1998, then 3,423 in 1999, and 3,409 in 2000.
The Association of Chief Police Officers has justified the concentration on policing by cameras by claiming that speed is a factor in one third of all serious accidents. Mr King said, however, that they had exaggerated the consequences of speeding. One of the few detailed reports on the subject found that speed caused 157 accidents in the West Midlands in 2000, compared with 262 caused by drink-driving.
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Another point worth considering is that Traffic police are normally first to the scene of a RTA. If you cut thier numbers its quite feasible more people will die just waiting for the emergency services to arrive.
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Forces that ran a well manned Traffic Division also contributed to a crime reduction by lifting the 'travelling criminal' after a look in the boot etc. on spot checks. Seems now a days these guys have free reign on our motorways etc.
And Blunketts boob yesterday, if Mr Plod stops and talks to you he has to record it on a bit of paper and give you a copy. Would you bother?
DVD
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I heard Blunkett say that Plod would be issued with Palm Pilots or similar, into which they would enter the information for later transfer at the station. I love my Palm, but I wouldn't want to use it to type on while trying to maintain eye-contact with a (possibly hostile) suspect!
My views about non-driving transport ministers can be extended to cover blind Home Secretaries, I think...
In an effort to be constructive, why not instead simply sound-record the incident on a small tape (or digital) recorder with time-stamping facilities?
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