I’ve seen some right berks who get “surprised” by a GATSO in roadworks, and the result can be terrifying, so the following does not surprise me very much:

[groups.yahoo.com]

PR233: Hidden report reveals serious speed camera dangers

News: for immediate release

TRL report number 595, commissioned by the Highways Agency and delivered in early 2004, looked at motorway road works crashes and evaluated the effects of various safety treatments. Safe Speed obtained a full copy and found the following information:

• Where fixed speed cameras were installed at road works the risk of personal injury crashes was increased by 55%.

• Where fixed speed cameras were installed on open motorways the risk of injury crashes was increased by 31%.

• Average speed cameras also increased the risk of crashes by 4.5% at roadworks and 6.7% elsewhere.

• Conventional Police patrols reduced the risk of crashes by 27% at road works and 10% elsewhere.

• Speed cameras were associated with an increase in crash severity with fatal and serious crashes being 32% more likely where speed cameras were operated.

• Motorway road works are no more dangerous than open motorways.

In the executive summary, the seriously damaging information presented in the report isn’t calculated out – except as an aggregate with Police patrols included. The police patrols showed a positive benefit while the speed cameras showed a negative effect. These two were allowed to cancel out to show zero as a net benefit.

(continues…)

An analysis of the report in question is available at [www.safespeed.org.uk] ; I feel some of the demands on the website are OTT to the point of damaging their argument, but by and large I agree with the meat of the argument, and the sentiment. I particularly enjoyed the explanation of the misuse of statistics to try and present benefits, by not comparing like with like:

How has the truth been hidden away?

We have identified no less than 5 different attempts to keep this information under wraps.

1. Report not announced to the public – With the summary report mislinked on TRL web site (here) (at time of writing TRL595 summary link produces TRL594 summary instead!)

2. Report (paid for with public money by the Highways Agency) not available for public download (we had to pay £40 for it).

3. The report’s conclusions lump together the benefit of Police patrols (called ‘other’) with the disbenefit of the cameras to yield a neutral result – as reported in the executive summary.

4. The disbenefit of cameras has not been calculated out, highlighted or made clear – although the source figures are there.

5. The executive summary comparison groups are not “road works with camera : road works without camera” instead they are “road works with camera : open motorway without camera” this is how they get to claim the 1% and 2% benefits in the executive summary. In fact serious injuries are down in all road works sections irrespective of camera use.

Go read. Decide for yourself.