Courier Exchange

Speeding fines are multiplying quickly

A huge number of speeding fines are being issued each year to courier drivers and other motorists because of the government's 'unnecessary' road safety policy.

According to statistics seen by the Daily Telegraph, the number of speeding fines has almost tripled from 700,000 a year when Labour first came to power, to more than 1.9 million today.

This means that many couriers and owner drivers, who are simply going about their business and not driving dangerously in many cases, are being given penalty notices.

As well as this, couriers are having to deal with the fact that the basic speeding fine has been increased, and most of the revenue is simply ploughed back into putting up more cameras.

Paul Smith of road safety group Safe Speed said: "Speed cameras have been a road safety disaster. Despite millions of fines each year we have not even seen the road safety improvements that we expected.

"Safer vehicles, improvements to road engineering, improvements to post crash medical care and rescue are major factors that are expected to lead to around a five per cent reduction in road deaths each year, even after allowing for the growth in traffic. But we have only seen a seven per cent improvement in the last eight years. This is absolutely terrible performance."

For the latest in courier and transport news, please visit Courier Exchange's Online Courier News Homepage.

User Comments

So called "safety cameras" are nothing of the sort, they are only about raising revenue.This is yet another stealth tax,there are cameras everywhere, very few in so called "accident" blackspots.But like the good subjects we are, we just accept this with the usual whimper.