A director at enforcement and ANPR camera technology provider Jenoptik says recent figures showing the extent of speeding in the UK emphasises that automated enforcement is needed more than ever.
The RAC found eight-in-ten drivers say they regularly see people ‘excessively speeding’ on all types of roads, including those with a 30 or even 20mph limit. On top of this the researchers found more than half of people believe there is a culture among UK road users that it is OK to break the limit.
“This is deeply concerning research,” commented Jenoptik’s UK Sales and Marketing Director John Piper. “As the RAC points out, more than one-in-five fatalities on the roads are due to speeding – that’s hundreds of lives lost every year – many of them innocent victims who had been driving safely – because some people don’t stick to the limit.
“We know that our average speed cameras have contributed to casualty reduction by halving the number of crashes where someone was either killed or seriously injured – independent research has proved that,” he continued. “If drivers are continuing to think it’s acceptable to speed when it demonstrably isn’t, then we need to maintain our focus and increase our efforts to utilise the proven methods we have to keep the rest of our road users safe, which automated enforcement unquestionably is.”
Jenoptik’s SPECS technology uses highly accurate Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to monitor the number plates of vehicles as they pass fixed points on the road, then calculates the time taken compared with how long it should take if the vehicle was driving at the speed limit. Vehicles taking less time can therefore be shown to be going too fast.
“Research published last year by R James Hutcheon Solicitors showed speeding reduces reaction time, increases stopping distance, impairs vehicle control, magnifies the power of a crash, decreases the effectiveness of a car’s safety features and limits time for error correction,” Mr Piper explained. “Just one of those is dangerous enough, but put all six together and you can see why, with every one per cent increase in speed, the risk of a crash increases two per cent and that crash leading to a fatality increases four per cent.
“The public understand speed cameras, and Road Safety GB has found that three-fifths of them agree they save lives, while more than half think average speed cameras are preferable to fixed speed cameras. The argument for automated enforcement has been won, but the road safety battle is still being lost and that angers me when there are extremely cost-effective, off-the-shelf solutions ready to be implemented, meaning more people will get home safely at the end of the day.”
(Picture – Jenoptik)
