What a waste of money
Occasionally I need to drive into the office, which involves a soul-destroying slog along the A40 into London - today was one of those days. Whilst sitting practically motionless in traffic I noticed the new ‘average speed camera’ system all the way along the A40. The first thing that struck me was I’d like to find any person who’s managed to exceed the speed limit and give them a medal. Surely the only time it’s possible to sustain a speed above the limit would be late night through to the early morning, so why on earth are we spending so much money on this system? It certainly doesn’t look like it came on the cheap and I can’t see how it’ll ever pay for itself. For 18 hours of the day drivers will be creeping by at single-digit mph. I think road safety is a very important issue, but I don’t see how this system will do anything to help. Going by TFL’s own figures, only 21% of fatal accidents in London involved ‘speed as a contributory factor’. That’s still a lot of people dying, but as a proportion it’s low. Now if these cameras had some sort of detection for people texting, updating facebook or taking selfies on their phone as they drive then I’d be far more supportive – I’d bet my life that is now a far higher contributory factor to fatal accidents. If you don’t believe me then just do the journey I did this morning and have a look around, nobody seems to be looking at the road. Surely there were better ways to spend money on the A40, as long as I can remember it’s been like a big car park and I can’t imagine average speed cameras will do anything to improve that. A more cynical person might feel that they're just a bit more state surveillance in the name of health and safety, but either way it seems to me it’s a huge waste of money.
Philip Slater ● 4022d18 Comments ● 3886d