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DfT 'missing point' on road safety
Published: 27/09/2007
The Department for Transport (DfT) is placing far too much emphasis on vehicle speeds and is therefore missing the opportunity to save lives on Britain's roads, UK lobby group Safe Speed has claimed.
Safe Speed quotes a passage in the DfT's new Road Casualties Great Britain 2006 report as support for its assertion. The passage reads: "Exceeding speed limit was attributed to three per cent of cars involved in accidents, while travelling too fast for conditions was attributed to six per cent. For fatal accidents these figures are ten per cent and 13 per cent respectively."
Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, commented: "While Department for Transport fiddles with 'speed management policy', their own figures reveal that speeding contributes to very few crashes.
"The problem is that DfT's 'speed management' is a massive distraction from the things that really matter. We have catalogued 40 negative side effects arising from speed cameras alone," he added
"At its simplest, some drivers are too busy looking at their speedos to pay proper attention to the traffic around them.
"Department for Transport road safety policies have been missing the opportunity to save lives for a decade or more. This must stop."
Safe Speed claims that recent DfT figures provided to the Transport Select Committee demonstrated that 98 per cent of crashes involving drivers over 25 did not have 'exceeding speed limit' as a contributory factor.
Safe Speed quotes a passage in the DfT's new Road Casualties Great Britain 2006 report as support for its assertion. The passage reads: "Exceeding speed limit was attributed to three per cent of cars involved in accidents, while travelling too fast for conditions was attributed to six per cent. For fatal accidents these figures are ten per cent and 13 per cent respectively."
Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk, commented: "While Department for Transport fiddles with 'speed management policy', their own figures reveal that speeding contributes to very few crashes.
"The problem is that DfT's 'speed management' is a massive distraction from the things that really matter. We have catalogued 40 negative side effects arising from speed cameras alone," he added
"At its simplest, some drivers are too busy looking at their speedos to pay proper attention to the traffic around them.
"Department for Transport road safety policies have been missing the opportunity to save lives for a decade or more. This must stop."
Safe Speed claims that recent DfT figures provided to the Transport Select Committee demonstrated that 98 per cent of crashes involving drivers over 25 did not have 'exceeding speed limit' as a contributory factor.
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