SAFE SPEED WELCOMES IAM SPEED CAMERA STANCE
08 December 2004 - Safe Speed

In a speech at the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) annual lunch today, John Maxwell, chairman of the IAM said: ''Safety on UK roads is at risk because drivers feel targeted, vulnerable and alienated''.

Safe Speed has long been warning about these effects and is delighted to hear that the IAM recognises the problems.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: ''Well over 80% of motorists are generally law abiding and safety conscious. This large and important group are capable of performing far better and driving down accident rates, but to do so they need encouragement, involvement and above all highly accurate safety messages. Many modern official road safety messages are oversimplified to the point of being dangerously misleading.''

Paul continues: ''It''s great to see the IAM recognising some of the problems that we have been highlighting over the last three years. There''s a strong wind of change, and it can''t come soon enough. Our most careful analysis shows that the misuse of speed cameras has cost many lives. People think it is obvious that slower is safer, but crashes only happen when people make mistakes. Road safety entirely depends on the psychological processes that lead to mistakes. All the evidence suggests that we are significantly less effective at avoiding mistakes in the speed camera era.''

Paul continues: ''It''s obvious when you think about it - we''re not going to perform as well if we feel ''targeted, vulnerable and alienated''. In road safety it should be very obvious that bad policy costs lives. Speed cameras are a fundamental part of our modern bad policy. They cost lives.''

www.safespeed.org.uk

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