Richard Brunstrom loves blogging. He’s the North Wales Chief Constable who spends his days off nabbing drivers for whatever he can pin on them. His favourite is to book motorists for going a few miles an hour over an unrealistically low limit, and once declared that “drifting over the speed limit is no different from drifting a knife into someone”.
I’d beg to differ; I reckon sticking a knife in someone is guaranteed to get results. But breaking the speed limit is something most of us do every time we get behind the wheel; usually with no harm done. I’m not saying that anarchy on the roads is okay – merely claiming the Mad Mullah’s comparison doesn’t bear even the slightest analysis.
Brunstrom is on a high right now, declaring in his latest blog that persecuting drivers is saving lives. He claims that his hard-line stance has seen casualties tumble on his patch – so what a pity that this statement also doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. He starts by playing the usual game of lumping deaths in with serious injuries; while the latter have fallen thanks to some deft reclassifying, it’s harder to brush a fatality under the carpet.
By the start of December 2006 there had already been 42 deaths on North Wales roads – equal to the tally for the whole of 2005. Look solely at the deaths over the past few years and you can see that the tens of thousands of fines, acres of red paint and hundreds of reduced speed limits have produced no tangible benefit whatsoever. There have been no reductions in fatalities, but there have been some sharp increases in the five years since Arrive Alive was launched – that’s Brunstrom’s beloved speed camera partnership.
I’d argue that speed cameras are not necessarily saving lives – and it’s time for a new strategy. Before you write in to disagree, here’s one thought. Twenty more people died on English roads in 2005 than in 2004 – despite thousands of reduced speed limits over the past decade, with increasingly hard-line enforcement in that time. Does that sound like a policy that’s working to you?
He should skip the blog blarney and record a ‘plodcast’ instead.
autonut | 02 Jan 07 - 18:17