Speed, camera and no action
From The West Australian
By Clyde Russell
June 19, 2004
Speed cameras are
nothing more than roadside revenue collectors or an essential part
of the drive to save lives, depending on your perspective.
Are we getting value for our
money and are the correct policies being pursued?
The first thing that strikes
you is that speed cameras actually raise what is really an insignificant
amount of money.
In WA they are expected to raise
$33 million in 2004-05. This may seem like a lot of money, especially
to the half million or so motorists they will catch, but in overall
terms it is a spit in the bucket.
The overall State revenue for
WA is forecast to be $12.72 billion in 2004-05, making the contribution
from speed cameras only a tiny part of government revenue.
But there are some big numbers
when it comes to road safety. Try $15 billion for size. This was the
amount the Australian Transport Council estimated was the cost of
road fatalities across the country in 1996, the latest figure they
cited.
In WA, the Liberal opposition
said road accidents cost the State $1 billion a year, a figure that
seems rather low if you accept the national cost as being as high
as $15 billion.
One can conclude from this that
road safety is therefore very important, not only in terms of saving
lives, but also in terms of economic costs. To put it into perspective,
$15 billion is enough to scrap the top two income tax brackets altogether,
meaning the top rate would then be 31.5 per cent for everybody.
For those who hate the idea
of handing anything to the so-called wealthy, how about this: $15
billion is enough to raise the tax-free threshold for income from
its current $6000 a year to about $10,000 a year. So, any saving we
can make from lowering the road toll would be very good indeed.
The question then becomes whether
the correct tactics are being followed, and here it becomes much more
contentious.
You divide the road safety lobby
into roughly two groups. These are the “speed kills” group
and the “other factors are more important” group.
Both sides have copious amounts
of statistics to back their positions – and both tend to ignore
the other’s research in favour of their own.
But there are some hard facts.
The most important one is that the road toll in Australia, after declining
steadily for decades, has plateaued in recent years.
In global terms, our death toll
of 9.3 deaths per 100,000, while well down on the 30.4 per 100,000
in 1970, is mid-range for developed countries. It is perhaps no coincidence
that the decline in the road toll ended when speed cameras became
widely used.
Research from overseas countries,
particularly Britain and Canada, show that speed cameras have had
little impact on reducing road tolls, and the Australian experience
so far bears this out. It is also interesting to note that most road
safety campaigns across Australia focus almost exclusively on repeating
the speed kills mantra, with some focus on weariness as a driving
risk.
Research from the Canadian province
of British Columbia, which did away with its speed cameras, found
that more than two-thirds of accidents occurred at speeds below the
posted limits.
Driver mistakes and inattention
were far more often the causes of accidents than speed, the research
said.
The other major killer is road
conditions. In fact, the ATC says the most effective way to reduce
the road toll is to improve the quality of roads.
But fixing up roads and building
better highways costs lots of money, way more than buying speed cameras
for example.
Governments across Australia
also appear to be trapped in the speed kills view of road safety to
the exclusion of other ideas.
What’s more dangerous,
a person traveling at 120kmh on a near deserted freeway or a person
driving at 55kmh in the rain in an old technology four-wheel drive
without anti-lock brakes and tyre tread just the right side of legal?
However, our freeway speeder
will be caught by a camera and fined while our four-wheel driver could
plough into a school bus while theoretically driving quite legally.
Why aren’t governments
legislating the compulsory fitment of anti-lock brakes and airbags?
Like seatbelts they are proven technology, but still many new cars
are sold without them.
Again, to do this is difficult,
and far harder than buying speed cameras.
No sensible person would argue
for no speed limits. So let’s be sensible. Urban speed limits
at 50kmh may well help save lives, but at least make sure that good,
divided urban arterials enjoy higher limits.
Evidence from overseas suggests
that higher speed limits, of up to 130kmh, makes no difference to
the death or injury toll.
But taking on the “speed
kills” lobby is hard. They have an almost religious zeal that
speed is the single most important factor in road safety, rather than
just one of a series of important factors.
In economic terms, speed cameras
raise little money and don’t appear to have helped reduce the
road toll at all.
But I have a feeling the main
cost of speed cameras is social. They encourage people to watch their
speedometers more than the road ahead. They are also viewed with justifiable
cynicism by the public, and I imagine they erode the respect that
the public has for law and order.
Visible policing, better roads,
safer cars, better trained drivers and fair application of the laws
all work more effectively at improving road safety than speed cameras.
But these cost money and take hard effort, something speed cameras
don’t.
