DRIVERS'' NEEDLESS VIGIL
19 July 2005 - Safe Speed

The modern UK driving experience requires drivers to maintain a constant vigil on their speed - not for safety reasons - but in order to comply with the law.

Safe Speed says this attention is being misdirected by a wholly unjustified obsession with one particular and rather insignificant.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: ''We have been unable to identify any other law where simple compliance requires constant vigilance. This alone is a warning sign that speed limits are unlike other laws - there''s a risk that too much enforcement will remove attention from something more important. And of course that''s exactly what''s happening.''

Paul continues: ''We get quite a few emails from people who have acquired 9 licence points. They describe their driving experience as paranoid. We can''t understand why anyone would be foolish enough to that such paranoia makes good drivers. And it''s just the same for all of us, only less so.''

Last year, Safe Speed revealed that speeding is involved in rather less than 4% of all road crashes, and that even within the 4% we find many behaviours that are far removed from normal responsible motoring. (For example speeding drunks, speeding joyriders, and nutters racing on the highway.)

Paul concludes, ''Speed cameras are wasting precious driver attention and making the roads more dangerous. The DfT appears to be waking up to the facts. How much longer do we have to wait until the infernal devices are removed from our roads and drivers can end their needless vigil?''

www.safespeed.org.uk

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