Free Republic

Fewer people have been killed and injured on roads following a decision by a local council to switch off its speed cameras. Accident data shows that in the first nine months after the devices were scrapped in Swindon, there were 315 road casualties in the area as a whole, compared with 327 in the same period the previous year. In total there were two fatalities – compared with four in the same period previously – and 44 serious injuries, down from 48. The figures were seized on by campaigners who claim speed cameras do little to combat problem driving...

Britain’s network of 6,000 speed cameras could be dramatically reduced after a raft of councils looked set to follow Oxfordshire’s move and switch theirs off. The county’s entire network of 72 cameras will be switched off at midnight tonight after the coalition Government pulled the plug on their funding. The change of heart could usher in a different landscape for Britain’s 33million motorists two decades after the first network was installed. Already, neighbouring Buckinghamshire said it is ‘very likely’ to switch off its cameras, while Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Derbyshire have launched reviews. (edit)  The moves, however, could be just the...

<p>On Oct. 9, a pipe bomb exploded under a traffic-monitoring camera in North Belfast. An act of terrorism? More than likely, it was just another average British citizen furious about the ubiquitous surveillance that has sprung up in Britain over the last decade.</p>