Peter Vosper: Cutting speeding increases safety and income

The number of fixed penalty notices (fpn) has gone up by over 80% in a little over 10 years.

The number of people taking speed awareness courses has more than doubled in 13 years to 1.85 million in 2024. The number found guilty of speeding has also come close to doubling to 206,000 in 2024. British roads are far safer than they used to be. The year with the most deaths was 1966 when almost 8000 people died.

Although the population has been constantly growing, deaths have plummeted. There are any reasons why this has happened. Drink – driving has lessened drastically because of police activity and a change in social behaviour. The motor cars of today have far more safety built in including anti-lock and automatic braking, warnings for speed, lane discipline, and imminent hazards.

Air bags and stronger cockpits surrounded by crumple zones, better tyres and handling characteristics have also played their part. One of the biggest gains came from compulsory wearing of seatbelts in 1991. In recent years the drop has plateaued at around 1700 deaths a year and many people think more should be done.

The Welsh introduced a default limit of 20mph on “restricted roads”, typically residential, which would previously been at 30mph. Critics say this is much too broad and a YouGov survey last year showed seven in ten people in Wales disagreed with it, and a petition opposing it raised 470,000 supporting this. The Welsh government said the move has made the roads safer. The ‘20’s Plenty’ said 882 fewer people were hurt on the roads in crashes in the year after the limit was lowered.

Some councils have taken the opportunity to reduce speeds and in Bournemouth on the Ringwood Road the speed limit was reduced from 40mph to 30 mph in 2023. It was revealed 11,594 fines were issued to people clocked speeding by the camera in 2024 which was the first full year.

Only 32 tickets were issued in 2022. The Bournemouth camera has generated £1.6 million in fines since the limit was cut. The government says all money raised from fines goes into the “consolidated fund” which is effectively its central bank account.

One-way police forces raise revenue is through the speed awareness courses. They cost between £80 and £100 of which forces can keep £45 – a rate set by the Treasury – to cover administration costs. The courses raised about £87 million for forces in 2023.

Cousens of the AA says the “boom” of speed cameras is not necessarily a bad thing if it makes roads safer, but he wants to see more “cops in cars” rather than fixed cameras. “What a camera can’t do is stop a driver in the act and understand the reason they’re speeding is because they’re under the influence of drinking or drugs.” He adds, “they can pull people over and stop things happening before a more tragic thing occurs……it acts as a deterrent”.

Is the best solution fixed controls in the car automatically reducing the car’s speed to the limit?