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Thank you for your letter dated 5 March enclosing a letter from your constituent about speed management. I am replying as I have responsibility for road safety policy. One of the very real problems local authorities face in trying to improve safety on the roads for which they are responsible is to decide what measures need to be put in place and where. Road accidents are by their very nature random events and sites and stretches of road only become targets for treatment once accidents have occurred. For example, roads where traffic speeds are generally high may never suffer accidents while other roads on which vehicles travel far more slowly might contain far greater danger due to their construction and the prevailing conditions. We have in place a speed management policy that incorporates a range of measures that can be taken to counter the dangers of excessive and inappropriate speed. Many of these measures formed the recommendations of the review of speed policy that were incorporated within our road Safety Strategy to achieve identified casualty reduction targets by 2010. We will continue to promote the use of these measures and develop others to improve the effectiveness of our speed management policy. The better use of technology is one application of speed management that we are pursuing, most obviously by instigating and managing the cost recovery system for safety, speed and traffic enforcement cameras. The rules of the scheme seek to ensure that the best possible road safety benefit accrues from camera deployment. There is also sufficient flexibility to use cameras in limited circumstances to help allay local peoples' concerns about speeding traffic despite there not having been collisions and casualties. Safety cameras are proving to be highly effective at reducing speeds, accidents and casualties in certain circumstances, In February 2003, the two-year evaluation report of the safety camera cost recovery scheme was published. It found a 35% reduction in people killed or seriously injured at camera sites, equating to around 280 people in the areas covered in the study. The report covering the third year of the scheme is to be published shortly. I fully expect the results to show a continuation of the road safety benefits of cameras. A combination of an effective speed management policy combined with a penalty system with sufficient deterrent effect underpinned by a publicity and education programme is most likely to have the greatest effect on reducing speed related accidents. I hope this is helpful. |