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Speed cameras polarise opinion, dividing any dinner party as surely as private schooling or the usefulness of Twitter.
Thus some will be delighted at the news that the capital's biggest camera operator, the London Safety Camera Partnership (LSCP), is in trouble after Transport for London slashed its budget by almost half.
Equally, the glee of the petrolheads will enrage those of us who see in cameras some hope of taming the capital's reckless drivers.
But the answer isn't more cameras: it's a sea change in the way we tackle driving offences.
Let's get one thing straight: speed cameras save lives.
At the sites in London with cameras operated by the LSCP, accidents have fallen by
55 per cent.
I'm not saying every single camera is essential: it's hard to see the ones enforcing the 40mph stretch of A12 dual carriageway in Hackney doing much good, and they're annoying too. Elsewhere, though, the great majority of London's cameras are in places where pedestrians and cyclists, as well as other drivers, are put at risk by the appalling driving of a minority.
Opponents of cameras — and many on the internet are obsessive — are fond of quoting studies that supposedly show speed as the causal factor in only a fraction of crashes.
In fact, an oft-quoted Transport Research Laboratory paper relied on alleged causes written down on forms at the scene by police officers; it's pretty obvious that accidents put down to being “in a hurry” instead of speed were mostly a question of driving too fast.
In any case, adjusting to cameras is no great hardship. Want to drive at more than 30mph on Brixton Road towards Oval? You're a jerk risking lives for the sake of saving 20 seconds.
But cameras aren't the only answer — because breaking the speed limit isn't the only problem.
Travel for 20 minutes on almost any of London's roads and you are guaranteed to see a piece of crazy driving — like the guy weaving past me and other cars a couple of days ago, early in the morning in Clapham, or the nutter accelerating through the junction as I tried to walk my children to school. Neither of those was doing as much as 30mph.
The problem is the steady increase in dangerous driving. Some of it is by the estimated 400,000 uninsured drivers in the capital.
But there is plenty by otherwise upstanding citizens who become selfish monsters behind the wheel.
The net effect is roads so lawless that on visits to Paris and Istanbul, for example, I've been surprised at how well behaved the traffic seems.
We're more on a par with Beirut, I'd say. The only way to change that behaviour is by zero tolerance.
Yet when was the last time you saw a traffic cop? Two years ago, a report by the Green Party showed that the number of Met traffic officers had dropped over the past 30 years from more than 1,000 to fewer than 700 — while vehicles on roads had steadily increased.
Between 1984 and 2004, the number of drivers punished for careless driving plummeted by almost two-thirds.
The Met's record is now steadily improving: it went from seizing no uninsured vehicles at all in 2004 to taking almost 32,000 off the road last year. And since late 2007, almost 9,000 serious traffic offenders in London have been disqualified from driving.
But it's not enough. More than 3,500 people were killed or seriously injured on London's roads last year.
That's down by nearly half since the late 1990s, thanks in large part to speed cameras — but it's a lot of dead bodies.
The only way to cut those numbers is by more traffic cops cracking down. The petrolheads should just stop whining — and kill their speed.
Reader views (11)
I think speed cameras should be where pedestrians are like near schools and hubs of pedestrian activity. I don't believe speed cameras are needed on motorway / motorway standard routes where no pedestrians go. I'm worried because I was travelling at 50 mph on the A12 coming into London from Eastern Avenue and went through the Hackney junction where the route becomes part of the East Cross Route. I failed to see the 40 mph sign and went through the first speed camera at 50mph obliviously. Then to my horror I noticed small 40 mph signs after this camera which meant I'd gone past the camera at 50 in a 40. Ok,I made a mistake, but why should I be penalised because I am human. I kept to the limit after this camera - why can't the police check that and say fair enough - I made a mistake at that instance. Why does it deem as such a bad offence anyway when the road is at motorway standards? It's crazy to me!
- Phil, Norwich, East Anglia
More needs to be done to make it safer and make London a better place.
It doesn't take long to be on the streets of London to notice how dangerous it is to vulnerable users. 30 minutes max and you'd have a long list of selfish drivers that the authorities are willing to turn a blind eye to.
- Adam, London
The people criticising cameras refer to filling 'government's empty coffers', a 'money making scam' and 'cash generating'. Given that governments are not plcs and do not 'make money', revenue comes from us, in the form of taxation or in other ways. Isn't it better that some of this comes from fines, rather than general taxation on the rest of us? If you don't want to pay, then don't break the speed limit.
- M Priest, Fulham
>>Let's get one thing straight: speed cameras save lives.
At the sites in London with cameras operated by the LSCP, accidents have fallen by
55 per cent.
Let's get one thing straight: speed cameras don't save lives. They shift accident down the street. The numbers killed and seriously injured has remained virtually static for the past 10 years. You are more likely to dies as a result of a collision between your vehicle and a bus or your body and a bus or you on a bicycle and a lorry than car/pedestrian. The police do a good line in running over people as well.
Speed cameras are in place to raise revenue. Speed is not the problem. Inappropriate speed is.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
More speeding drivel from Mr Neather. There are many varied reasons for some of the accidents that occur in our capital, and they are not all connected to speeding. The state of our roads are a disgrace, the neverending obsession to turn all roads into single lanes a recipe for disaster, and a little education for the pedestrian to watch out when crossing roads wouldnt go amiss. As for the cyclist, i cannot remember the last time i saw one stop at a red light. Cameras do not fix these problems. There are many examples all over the city of cash generating cameras and not life saving cameras.While we have the anti car lobby designing the road network in our capital,the roads will never be safe enough.
- Mr S.Port, London
The speed camera has not eliminated deaths on the road and never will.
Yes it's a money making scam at 3 o'clock in the morning !
- Joe, Swanley Kent
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. EVERYDAY THE NORTH CIRCULAR ROAD IS CLOSED DUE TO AN ACCIDENT CAUSED BY SOME IDIOT DRIVING IN AND OUT OF THE TRAFFIC LANES AT HIGH SPEED. CONVINCED IF THE SPEED LIMIT WAS CUT TO 30MPH TRAFFIC WOULD FLOW FAR EASIER. AS TO MOBILE PHONES I AM BEING HUNTED BY LADIES IN 4 BY 4S WITH A PHONE CLAMPED TO THEIR EARS.
- Alan Green, Woodford Green
Don't agree with the other comments. Tougher rules and penalties for speeding offences and of course mobile phone users. More visible policing on the beat (cut out all the Met's desk bound admin). Zero tolerance for offenders. Most speed cameras are cash cows to fill the government's empty coffers whichtyhey they then spend on more jobsworths.
- Strongbow Sullivan, Paris,France.
Despite his pro-cycling image, you can now see where Boris Johnson's priorities lie, when he cuts the funding of an organisation that saves lives and makes our streets more user-friendly for pedestrians, cyclists and law-abiding drivers.
- Austen, London
I agree with this article, though surprised that there is no mention of the issue of mobile phone usage when driving, which still is often seen. Why do so many flout the law here ? Because, apart from being selfish and cocky, the drivers in question can be quite confident that they are unlikely to be spotted by a traffic cop or constable on the beat.
The penalties ought to be a lot higher as well. Given the tendency towards the self-confident belief "it won't happen to me", there should be a consistent punishment for dangerous driving, whether causing death or not.
- Andrew, London
Speed cameras work, those who claim otherwise are dubious crank internet websites populated by people pretending to be engineers whose pretty graphs demonstrate nothing. Speeding is anti-social, aggressive behaviour and kills twelve hundred people a year. Just get out of bed earlier, and stop whining about speed cameras, you can easily avoid a fine by obeying the law and making this city more pleasant to live and work in. Thirty years ago it was thought acceptable to drink-drive. Now drunks behind the wheel are villified as selfish, dangerous scum. Gradually speeders are being viewed in the same light.
- Sam Burton, SE England
