Comment: Speed Cameras may be the hot topic - but it is cyclepaths that we should really be talking about

A recent online article from UK comic (non-driver) David Mitchell about speeding fines has attracted a huge number of impassioned comments, some not without venom and a certain…ahem… ‘hot-blooded intensity’ (i.e. lots of swearing). Almost every statistic and perspective has been endlessly re-positioned, questioned, supported and dissected in the few hours since the post appeared. What fascinates me however is just how much energy we are wasting labouring a point so very wide of the mark…

After all there is one statistic that is being unfortunately ignored in the whole debate - it is that on average nearly one third of all Britain’s roughly 3,000 annual road deaths are comprised of cyclists and motorcyclists. The overwhelming majority of these involve collisions with a motor vehicle, be it a car, van, bus, whatever.

Now the big picture in the whole speeding fines debate is ultimately road safety - both for those who advocate the use of cameras etc - and for those that don’t (they feel the cameras do nothing to reduce actual road deaths but that this is instead used as an excuse for a revenue raising scheme). So basically the way I see it, if we had far fewer road deaths we wouldn’t need speed cameras and traps - and those who support them currently would have no need to call for them. So far, so obvious - but how to bring about this seemingly impossible situation of drastically reduced road deaths AND fewer speed cameras?

Well since overspeeding is only a factor in 5% of road deaths (gov figures) then clearly we are maybe guilty of over-emphasising the role of speed cameras in keeping roads safe. Instead why not look at the evident stupidity in mixing very large and fast vehicles like vans and cars, with small and vulnerable ones such as bikes, mopeds and scooters on our roads? Doesn’t it seem obvious that if we had proper dedicated cyclepaths alongside all major roads for these small and vulnerable road users, we could knock a good 600-700 off that annual road deaths figure pretty quickly?

It wouldn’t suddenly make road deaths a thing of the past, but it would comprise a very significant step in the right direction. Many would say that such a move would prove extremely expensive - but consider the massive amount saved from fewer NHS treatments of crash victims (it would cut not just deaths, but also treating expensive injuries in general - of which there are some 16,000 a year JUST in the case of cyclists, not including mopeds etc).

Nonetheless it would still costs a fair amount for the gov’t to launch such an initiative - but then isn’t the whole principle of a speeding fine that human lives are more important than a few quid?

Dejan Levi

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