I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish revised guidance on the deployment, visibility and signing of speed and red-light cameras for traffic enforcement; to require that guidance to include amended site selection criteria for safety cameras, including a lower threshold for the number of collisions in which a person is killed or seriously injured; to require that guidance to provide for a process by which local communities can express support for the installation of safety cameras in areas of concern; and for connected purposes.
A 2007 circular from the Department for Transport recognised speeding as one of the
“most significant dimensions of unlawful, disorderly and dangerous road vehicle use”.
It provided key guidance on the use of speed and red light cameras for traffic enforcement to improve the safety of road users and pedestrians. It encouraged changes in driver behaviour, paved the way for local authority partnerships to support their communities and outlined criteria for site selection to help decision making regarding any new cameras.
I want to get ahead of the keen journalists in the Gallery and confess that I currently have three points on my licence for speeding, but I emphasise that I was caught by a camera and modified my behaviour—proving that cameras do, in fact, work.
Fifteen years on from the introduction of the guidance, speeding motorists are arguably the No. 1 local issue highlighted across Dewsbury, Mirfield, Kirkburton, Denby Dale and, I am told, many of my colleagues’ constituencies. Alongside the concerns that my constituents regularly raise, that is something I have seen myself, with the Dewsbury ring road in particular occasionally resembling an Indy 500 track.
Speeding became significantly more noticeable during the pandemic, when fewer people were driving, with some drivers taking advantage of the emptier roads to drive at reckless speeds. I pay tribute to West Yorkshire police for all the work it continues to do to keep our roads safe, but it cannot be everywhere at once, especially given the vast expanse of rural roads.
According to the current guidance, the primary objective of camera deployment is to reduce deaths and injuries on roads, with a study conducted by the London School of Economics finding that, from 1992 to 2016, traffic enforcement cameras reduced accidents by between 17% and 39%, while reducing fatalities by between 58% and 68%.
Since April 2009, the criteria for fixed and mobile camera deployment have been based on the number of accidents in which someone is killed or seriously injured, with a scoring system in which each KSI accident scores five points and each slight injury accident scores one point.
Sixty-five people died and more than 5,000 people were injured in collisions on the roads of West Yorkshire last year. The majority of these collisions were entirely preventable, with excessive or inappropriate speed being one of the most common factors in fatal and serious injury collisions. However, the guidance in West Yorkshire still requires at least three people to be killed or seriously injured within a three-year period—at least three people need either to die or suffer a serious collision, with potentially life-changing injuries—to satisfy just one of the criteria to install a speed camera. This means that at least three families need to have their lives changed forever before a preventive measure can be implemented.