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It has been thirty years since the first speed camera was installed in the UK

27 June 2022

Thirty years ago, the first fixed speed camera was brought into use on Twickenham Bridge in West London, catching 23,000 drivers speeding in just 22 days. The first prosecutions were a year later.

Now, three decades on, the number of speed cameras on UK roads has grown to around 7,000. 

In a recent interview on BBC Radio 4 You and Yours, Richard Allsop, Professor of Transport Studies at the University College of London and a member of the team that first recommended the government should bring in speed cameras, spoke about the impact that speed cameras have had on road safety. 

He said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s been really quite substantial. If you think back, for those of us who were there think back to the early nineties, we were then killing about 5,000 people a year in road collisions. Now, that is still too high a figure at 1,700 or 1,800 but that’s only a third of what it was at the time when speed cameras came in.”

RAC spokesperson Rod Dennis also weighed in on the discission, debunking the myth that if you travel just 10 per cent over the limit, the police will let you off. He said, “These were guidelines that were given by what was the Association of Chief Police Officers, which was given to police forces and it was justified as a means of saying ‘well, if people are too focused on their ‘speedos’ they might actually miss some other safety risks’. But it was only ever guidelines. It’s up to police forces how they decide to enforce, and people need to remember these are speed limits, not targets. So, if it’s a 70 limit, that is the limit of what you should be driving.”

He added, “I would never trust the 10 per cent plus two rule.” 

Rod Dennis did, however, confirm that speed cameras must be painted yellow in order for drivers to see them clearly. He commented, “That came in about six years ago. As of 2016 they do have to be painted yellow now. If they’re not, there’s a good chance that’s an old camera that probably isn’t working anymore.”

It could be argued that the most effective speed cameras are those that record a driver’s average speed, because the driver is forced to maintain the speed limit over a longer distance, rather than simply slowing down and speeding back up.  

Professor Richard Allsop commented, “It’s certainly true that the average speed camera is a very powerful further development from the early years of speed cameras, and it is tackling a different problem. The average speed camera is tackling the need for speed compliance over long stretches of road where collisions are not concentrated at particular points, and the average speed cameras achieve very big reductions in speeding. The biggest example in Britain is on the A9 in Scotland, North of Perth, where the proportion of drivers found to be speeding has been reduced from about 1 in 3, to about 1 in 50.”

He added, “This is complimentary to the earlier kind of speed camera and most of the 7,000 are still of that kind where there is a historic problem at a place. And of course, to some extent, drivers slow down just there, and they may not slow down everywhere else. But just there is a place where experiences show that it’s particularly important for them to slow down. So, both types of cameras are important”. 

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We at Marshall Leasing are always interested in the latest news and industry comments on road safety, and we trust that you find the above information useful.

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