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'Speed-camera alley' is pointer to future
IT'S been dubbed the most intensively monitored road in Britain – and Yorkshire is to get many more like it.
Eight speed cameras, four on each side of the road, were recently placed on a stretch of road barely a mile long at Shipley, Bradford.
Motorists' groups have called it heavy-handed and inspired by prejudice against motorists. They warn that the bunching of cameras on short stretches of road is the shape of things to come. However, residents – including drivers – on the A657 Leeds Road are largely in favour.
Last night Shipley residents said the road was used as a racetrack but the new 30mph signs and cameras had reduced speeds.
Resident Lena Tordoff, 88, said: "The cameras are smashing. I can get across the road much easier now."
Local man Neil Smith, 49, a driver since1973, rejected the argument that cameras were there to "milk" motorists of money.
He added: "It used to be a racetrack on an evening. The cameras have really slowed drivers down. I think they are a good idea."
Two women chatting outside local shops backed the cameras. One, a lollipop lady, said there were two primary schools off Leeds Road and children deserved protection.
Her friend said eight cameras were actually too few – they should be installed along the road's full length.
Others take a very different view.
The Association of British Drivers (ABD) said the Leeds Road scheme appeared to be "overkill" and a waste of resources. The cost is put at 400,000.
The ABD is not opposed to all speed cameras. It is against them being used as a "blunt tool" to cut road accidents which may not be caused by speed.
A spokesman claimed "prejudice against motorists" might be motivating those behind the Bradford cameras. The Government was using cameras to raise revenue, he said.
Those claims were dismissed as "nonsense" last night by Ron Miller, of the inter-agency West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership.
He said there was nothing particularly unusual about the Leeds Road scheme and doubted it was the Britain's most camera-saturated stretch.
The numbers of people killed and injured on Leeds Road proved cameras were needed, he said. In the four calendar years, 1998-2001, there were 81 casualties, and eight of those were killed or seriously injured.
Although the cameras were not yet switched on, vehicle speeds and accidents were already down, he said.
Mr Miller says the partnership is not anti-motorist. "I do 18,000 miles a year. We are not prejudiced against motorists. We are against the numbers killed and injured on our roads. Last year 3,440 people were killed on Britain's roads."
Before cameras can be installed the road must meet Government criteria for accidents and rates of speed.
Next year more roads in Yorkshire will get the same treatment as the Shipley road.
Among them will be Dewsbury Road, Wakefield (eight cameras); Horbury Road, Wakefield (eight); Keighley Road, Ogden, Halifax (seven); Cottingley Cliffe Road, Shipley (six); Long Lane, Dalton, Huddersfield (four); and the A643 at Churwell, Leeds (eight).
Mr Miller said eight cameras was considered to be the maximum needed.
"We want people to slow down. People don't believe us when we say we don't want them to get caught speeding, but we don't."
The chairman of the partnership, Steve Thornton, said: "Our sole objective is to reduce the number of casualties, especially deaths and serious injuries."
To achieve this required a series of cameras, not one or two, he said.
"There are four cameras monitoring traffic speeds in each direction. Otherwise, speeding drivers could brake for a camera then speed up again."
andrew.robinson@ypn.co.uk
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