Safety for Everyone
Statistics are quite alarming. Figures show that there is a 20 percent rise in the number of children killed on the country’s roads. With this fact in mind, most safety organizations are beginning to doubt the UK Government’s speed camera program. Although braking technology has been constantly incorporated in every automobile, they are still not enough to ensure maximum road safety.
The latest statistics by 2006 were released by the Department for Transport, triggered serious questions about their effectiveness, especially when fatalities were separated from serious injuries. The cameras which raise more than a billion pounds in fines a year have been a key plank in the Government’s drive to cut deaths and injuries.
There was also a five per cent rise in the number of motorcyclists killed, with the total reaching 599 and pedestrian deaths were also up by one per cent, reaching 675. On a positive note, There was a four per cent fall in the number of car users killed, with last year’s total dropping to 1,612. But speed camera critics said that this drop – which contributed to an overall one per cent reduction in road deaths – said this was more to do with improved car technology.
Paul Smith, an advocate and ceaseless campaigner against the speed camera program, said that the government should have been looking for a much more effective and dramatic casualty reduction if its policies were succeeding. He also adds that the the underlying story of the new road casualty figures is that we have received part of the benefit of improved car brake systems. “Road safety policy appears to have made matters worse because the only gains are in car occupant deaths. The problem is pedestrian, child and motorcyclist deaths are up. If the Government’s policy was really working all these figures should have been coming down.”
However, the Department for Transport defended its performance.
According to the department, serious injuries are down by 35 per cent over the same period and the latest figures show that overall casualties are five per cent down on 2005.
“But any death or injury is one too any and we are working hard to reduce road casualties as far as we can.”