PRESS TESTIMONIALS

20TH JANUARY 2005

Daily Telegraph

Treasury makes £20m on speed cameras
By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
(Filed: 02/02/2005)

Speed cameras are generating profits of more than £20 million a year for the Chancellor, new figures show.

The number of fixed penalty fines issued in England and Wales has soared seven-fold from about 260,000 in 2000-2001 to 1.8 million in 2003-2004.

Last night the Tories renewed their call for a review of what they called "a stealth tax" on motorists.

As the result of a decision by the Government to promote speed camera installation by allowing councils to retain fines revenue to cover costs, there are now about 6,000 cameras across the country, 2,500 of them mobile units.

From April, only two areas in England - Co Durham and North Yorkshire - will not be covered by "safety camera partnerships", made up of councils and police, which oversee installation of devices.

The cameras, which first appeared on English roads in 1992, have to be sited in areas with a history of road safety problems.

Under the scheme, councils cannot profit from the revenue and any surpluses that arise go into Gordon Brown's Treasury consolidated fund.

The Government insists that speed cameras are good for safety, with an independent report last year claiming that the expanding network was saving 100 lives a year.

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, said the vast majority of cameras had brought "real benefits in safety and prove that they are justified".

Motorists caught by the cameras have three points added to their licence and pay a £60 fixed penalty.

Plans to introduce variable fees, lowering them to £40 for less serious breaches but raising them to £100 for graver ones, may be included in the Road Safety Bill.

David Jamieson, the road safety minister, said that in 2000-1, with only seven safety partnership schemes operating, receipts from fixed penalty notices - then £40 a time - totalled £10.3 million. After taking into account £8.9 million expenses on installation and running costs, the Treasury made a £1.3 million profit.

But by 2002-03 the rapid spread of camera partnerships and the rise in fines to £60 resulted in a £68 million fines income and a Government profit of £14 million.

Provisional figures for the most recent year available, 2003-04, show that revenue has leapt to £112.2 million across the 35 camera partnerships. An estimated £20 million profit will go to the Treasury when the £91.8 million cost of installation and maintenance is deducted.

Last year John Redwood, the Tories' deregulation spokesman, raised the prospect of a Conservative government scrapping unnecessary cameras as part of wider plans to stop motoring being "regulated to death".

Tim Yeo, the shadow transport secretary, stressed yesterday that the Tories were not against cameras when they helped to save lives.

But he raised fears that the scale of Government profits meant that camera fines were becoming "a stealth tax".

An RAC survey, to be published next week, will say that motorists remain unhappy about the cameras. In a poll of drivers last year, the organisation found that 72 per cent of motorists thought speed cameras were "more about raising revenue" than safety.

The Department for Transport said the income from fines should eventually drop off as the cameras encouraged more people to drive safely.

• English councils raised nearly £1 billion from parking charges in 2002-3, 50 per cent more than when Labour came to power.

Speed-trap cameras are stupid, says ex-top cop...

ONE of Greater Manchester's top former traffic policemen has branded the use of speed cameras on the region's roads as "stupid".

Former chief inspector Neil Longsden, who was second in command of Greater Manchester Police motorway group, hit out at the way cameras are used to raise revenue rather than to improve safety.

He said: "When fixed speed cameras were introduced I thought they were a good idea because they were positioned at accident hotspots. But now the situation is becoming stupid.

"With more than 20 years as a traffic inspector and chief inspector, I always thought that, when decisions were made to prosecute motorists, the police had to prove the offence beyond all reasonable doubt - and that they also had to use a certain amount of discretion and commonsense.

"Now I believe those basic principles are being ignored in pursuit of revenue."

He added: "I am not in favour of speeding, but I am in favour of cameras being sited properly based on proper accident statistics and for using mobile cameras instead of fixed ones where possible."

He said the way police accident figures were calculated had changed in recent years, which must mean the way decisions are made about where to site fixed speed cameras must be "skewed." He believes more mobile speed guns should be used because some fixed cameras may not be useful as road-safety tools.

Mr Longsden, who was a police officer for nearly 35 years and a traffic officer for more than 20 years before his retirement in 1995, spoke out after speeding tickets were issued to more than 20 drivers caught driving at 10 mph over the limit near Oldham.

The camera on the A663 Broadway, near the junction with Eustace Street, had apparently been reset from 40 mph to 30 mph before roadwork's began but the drivers say the change was not properly sign-posted. More than 20 drivers who were issued with fixed penalty fines after being caught driving at 40 mph are joining together to fight their prosecutions. They say they are determined to take their battle to court instead of paying immediate fixed penalty fines.

Mr Longsden said: "This particular camera on Broadway, for example, may have been needed when it was put there many years ago, but it is very close to a pedestrian crossing and might not even be necessary now."

A spokesman for Drive Safe, responsible for the region's 185 speed camera sites, said they are reviewed every year by the Department for Transport.

Friday July 4 2003

The number plate spray that claims it defeats cameras
From George Gordon in New York

A number plate spray, which supposedly defeats speed cameras, is proving a hit with drivers.

The aerosol is said to reflect the flash from radar traffic cameras, turning registration plates into an unreadable white blur.

Its makers, Phantom Plate, say the PhotoBlocker is invisible to the naked eye and that a single application lasts for weeks. The spray is on sale through a U.S. website and is likely to attract interest from British drivers.

Joe Scott, Phantom Plate’s marketing director, said: “I know of no jurisdiction that bans the spray. Most states have laws against obscuring or distorting license plates, but PhotoBlocker only obscures the license plate in a photo, making it legal and difficult to detect with the naked eye.

He said high demand for the £20 product was evidence of growing public anger at the use of the speed cameras to generate revenue rather than reduce accidents.

“Decent folks – law-abiding citizens – are getting penalized left and right for clearing intersections a little too late, or entering and then backing up,” he said.

But RAC spokesman Kevin Delaney warned the PhotoBlocker could be illegal in the UK and might not even work.

“If the intention was to beat the speed camera – and the police could prove it – then it might be illegal to use this product in Britain,” he said.

“More fundamental is the question of its effectiveness.

“A number of similar products have been introduced here and over the last four or five years, and none of them has worked.”

Captain John Lamb, head of traffic police in Denver, Colorado, said the spray had worked in tests he had supervised.

“It proved effective producing a glare over the license plate,” he said.

FOX TV network, which filmed the tests, also reported that it was “surprisingly effective.”

Steve Kholer, of the Californian Highway Patrol, which levies fines of up to £150 on speeding motorists, said “the law would catch up with” any product that proved to be successful.

Phantom Plate’s website boasts: “Make your license plate invisible to cameras. If they can’t read it, they can’t catch you.”

The company also markets the Photoshield, a plastic cover that hides registration numbers.

The website refers to “protection from cameras” but also claimsthe plate covers are “a great way to protect your license plate from dust, dirt and bugs.”

The Photoshield makes the number plate unreadable from the side or above, but not directly from behind.

It is legal to manufacture and sell it in the U.S. but use by drivers is prohibited after new legislation was brought in.

Some 21 U.S. states use traffic cameras and the highly-expensive support work to keep them in action is achieved with help from manufacturers and operators.

They take a percentage of the revenues from fines.

g.gordon@dailymail.co.uk