Speed cameras reduce deaths
and serious injuries
Analysis of data for 551 fixed speed cameras in nine areas shows that on average the number of fatal and serious collisions in their vicinity fell by more than a quarter (27%) after their installation.
There was also an average reduction of 15% in personal injury collisions in the vicinity of the 551 cameras.
The data was released in 2011 as part of a government move to make speed camera operations more transparent to the public. The analysis formed part of work - commissioned by the RAC Foundation and carried out by Professor Richard Allsop of University College London - to provide advice on interpreting speed camera data.
The estimates for collision reduction were made allowing for the more general downward trend in the number of collisions in the 9 areas in recent years, and for the effect of regression to the mean at sites where collision numbers were unusually high in the period before the cameras were installed.
The study comes in the wake of the 2011 instruction from government that speed camera data going back to 1990, detailing accident statistics before and after fixed speed cameras were installed, be made publically available.
The RAC Foundation asked Professor Allsop to produce a guide for local authorities and other interested parties to help them interpret the data. As part of his work Professor Allsop studied data from nine of these authorities (with the data from one area being divided into two groups of cameras) and the results are as follows:
Partnership area
Cameras in partnership area
Average % fall (rise) in collisions near cameras
Fatal or All personal
Serious injury
Number of cameras worthy of investigation
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
47
42
0
4
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
15
53
29
0
Lincolnshire
50
15
9
0
Merseyside
33
(5)
(10)
9
South Yorkshire
56
16
0
1
Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent – 1
42
44
32
3
Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent – 2
26
29
23
0
Sussex
55
36
21
1
Thames Valley
203
24
20
1
Warwickshire
24
38
25
2
TOTAL
551
27
15
21
Note: The Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent cameras naturally split into two clear groups. The first group contains cameras at sites where there were relatively few collisions and the second has sites at which there were relatively many.
Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said:“At the end of 2010 we published a report by Professor Richard Allsop which concluded that without speed cameras there would be around 800 more people killed or seriously injured each year at that time.
Speaking about the latest study he said: “This is an intensely complex issue, but there is no one better placed to carry out the task than Professor Allsop and he has now produced a technical guide to help those interested in the subject try and better understand the numbers published for their areas.
