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Could speed cameras save cyclist lives?

A new study from Imperial College London finds that speed cameras reduce crashes by 30%

According to a new study from Imperial College London the number of road traffic collisions falls by 30% in areas that feature speed cameras.

The study is the first of its kind in road traffic accident analysis to use a particular type of statistical analysis that takes extra variables into consideration, other than the basic factors of whether an accident happened in a particular location.

The findings come from the Department of Civil Engineering at ICL. A team of scientists from the department took data from 771 camera sites across England, from Sussex and Dorset all the way up to Lancashire and Greater Manchester, alongside a control sample of 4,787 points randomly sampled across the same areas.

>Read more: West Country faces complete fixed speed camera switch off

The method employed by the team led by Proessor Dan Graham was called a Bayesian doubly-robust estimation method, which they say offers "a promising approach for evaluation of transport safety interventions."

The Bayesian method allowed the team to consider not only measure the statistical likelihood of an accident happening in the areas that happened to have cameras, but whether the fact that speed cameras were present had an impact in the accident happening or not.

>Read more: Watch Cardiff cyclist trigger speed camera

The paper concludes that the model the team used could be used more generally to estimate crash factors and their distributions, to better understand how our roads work.

“Our case study results indicate the speed cameras do cause a significant reduction in road traffic accidents, by as much as 30% on average for treated sites," the paper reads.

“This is an important result that could help inform public policy debates on appropriate measures to reduce RTAs.

“The adoption of evidence based approaches by public authorities, based on clear principles of causal inference, could vastly improve their ability to evaluate different courses of action and better understand the consequences of intervention.”

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36 comments

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Gourmet Shot replied to ktache | 7 years ago
1 like

ktache wrote:

They only generate income from those who are stupid enough to blatently break the law, as they are set well above the limit for that particular road, where there are websites and satnavs telling them about their placement, when they have been told by big signs that there are speed cameras, where the speed cameras are painted bright yellow and where there are callibration lines painted on the road.

I think there should be more of them.

That assumes it isn't a copper hiding in a bush.  Plenty of them where I live usually on stretches of road where pedestrians are non existing but where there's a nice big juicy road that 99% of cars would struggle to keeping below 30mph...it very much smells of gouging the average motorist. 

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DoctorFish replied to Gourmet Shot | 7 years ago
5 likes

Gourmet Shot wrote:

That assumes it isn't a copper hiding in a bush.  Plenty of them where I live usually on stretches of road where pedestrians are non existing but where there's a nice big juicy road that 99% of cars would struggle to keeping below 30mph...it very much smells of gouging the average motorist. 

Why would a car struggle to keep below 30mph?  I've heard the excuse from someone who has been caught twice by the same camera that it is because the camera is at the bottom of a hill and the car doesn't slow down that much.  So what are they saying?  Their car doesn't have brakes?

Getting fed up when I stick to speed limits of people over taking me, who I then gererally catch up with at the next junction anyway.  I've taken to waving to them, but of course this kind of driver doens't look in their mirrors.

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Grahamd | 7 years ago
2 likes

Cameras can't replace police officers, they don't see close passes and don't identify distracted mobile phone users, all they do is slow the traffic in a given area. Slower traffic results in less accidents, who would ever of thought of that?

They are a blunt tool to address the complex issue of how to keep roads flowing whilst safe for all,   a income generating mechanism. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/03/britains-lucrative-speed-came...

Plough these proceeds directly into road improvements and then I'll be more inclined to listen.

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to Grahamd | 7 years ago
11 likes
Grahamd wrote:

Cameras can't replace police officers, they don't see close passes and don't identify distracted mobile phone users, all they do is slow the traffic in a given area. Slower traffic results in less accidents, who would ever of thought of that?

They are a blunt tool to address the complex issue of how to keep roads flowing whilst safe for all,   a income generating mechanism. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/03/britains-lucrative-speed-came...

Plough these proceeds directly into road improvements and then I'll be more inclined to listen.

But if they raise so much money, why the heck don't income-starved local councils install more of the things? The funds could go into road improvements, but I'd also be happy if it helped fund local services.

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brixton hatter replied to FluffyKittenofTindalos | 7 years ago
7 likes

FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Grahamd wrote:

Cameras can't replace police officers, they don't see close passes and don't identify distracted mobile phone users, all they do is slow the traffic in a given area. Slower traffic results in less accidents, who would ever of thought of that?

They are a blunt tool to address the complex issue of how to keep roads flowing whilst safe for all,   a income generating mechanism. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/03/britains-lucrative-speed-came...

Plough these proceeds directly into road improvements and then I'll be more inclined to listen.

But if they raise so much money, why the heck don't income-starved local councils install more of the things? The funds could go into road improvements, but I'd also be happy if it helped fund local services.

The fines go to central Government, not the local councils.

If the proceeds were used more intelligently, the money could go directly to reducing danger on the roads. Also, you could say to drivers "every time you get caught breaking the speed limit, your fine builds a metre of cycle lane."  3

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to brixton hatter | 7 years ago
3 likes
brixton hatter wrote:

The fines go to central Government, not the local councils.

Didn't realise that. Always assumed it went to the authority responsible for the road (who, after all, have to pay for the damage done when drivers drive into street furniture). Guess that explains why there are no cameras at the spots round here where they'd clearly raise a lot of money.

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