3 October 2008

Statement for Surveyor Magazine on Safety Cameras

David Frost, Press and Public Relations Officer for the Local Authority Road Safety Officers' Association said:

As road safety professionals, we use a wide range of engineering, enforcement and education measures in our efforts to improve safety on our roads and safety cameras are just one of these.

LARSOA fully supports the use of both fixed and mobile safety cameras, where the strict criteria laid down by the Department for Transport are met, as a proven method of reducing speed related collisions and the subsequent casualties.

Safety cameras can play a valuable role in reducing driver speed and modifying driver behaviour at sites where excess speed kills and injures drivers, passengers and pedestrians.   However, LARSOA maintains that it is always the responsibility of motorists to ensure that they are driving in a manner appropriate to the road and the conditions, on any length of road, whether or not there are cameras installed.

Until we reach a stage where excess speed no longer causes serious road collisions, safety cameras should remain as an integral part of road safety.

In addition, when contemplating their removal, careful consideration should be given to the possible implications under the new Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act of removing a safety measure at a known accident site.

ABOUT LARSOA

LARSOA is a national road safety organisation representing road safety officers (RSOs) employed in local government across the UK.

LARSOA represents 185 of the 200 eligible local authorities across the UK, assisting RSOs to fulfil their statutory role to reduce the number and severity of road casualties through education, training and publicity programmes.

LARSOA publishes an up-to-date round-up of road safety news from across the UK on its website www.larsoa.org.uk .

LARSOA also aims to influence national debate - government policy and action together with public opinion. The association works to achieve national recognition for road safety issues, commissions research into behaviour which contributes to road collisions and develops national road safety campaigns.

The association assists in identifying achievable national targets to reduce the number of collisions on the country's roads.