Commissioner publishes first annual report about the use of safety camera vehicles
Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire has published the first annual report about the use of safety camera vehicles.
The report Saving lives, preventing injury explains how safety camera vans were used in North Yorkshire in 2014/15 and what contribution they made to enforcing the laws of the road and reducing speed-related death and serious injury.
The number of people killed or seriously injured on the county’s roads each year has gone down significantly over the past 25 years– from more than 1,600 in 1990/91 to under 600 in 2014/15. However, North Yorkshire still has one of the highest accident rates in the country.
Last year, 44 people died on our roads. There is proven evidence that nine of those deaths were the result of speeding. However, speed was a probable factor in many more of the deaths and serious injuries that took place.
While speeding is dangerous, it can harm our communities in other ways too – with many people reporting that their neighbourhoods are blighted by the noise and intrusion of speeding traffic. Little wonder, therefore, that residents say road safety is such a big issue and want more to be done. However, improving road safety is not an easy job.
In North Yorkshire a range of agencies including local authorities, the fire service, the Highways Agency and the police come together in 95 Alive – a partnership whose role is to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on the county’s roads through education and training, road improvements and enforcement of road traffic laws.
In the past, road improvements and traffic management schemes have played a large part in promoting road safety. Be it better signage, non-slip surfaces or new road layouts – where they have been possible,these engineering solutions have all largely been done and account for much of the steep fall we have seen in casualty numbers.
North Yorkshire police began piloting safety camera vans in July 2011 – deploying a single vehicle at key accident sites. In April 2013 the fleet was increased to three vehicles and in April 2015 it was increased further to six vehicles.
Key facts from the report
- Number of safety camera vans: Three (one was out of action for three months after being in a collision).
- Purpose: To reduce speed-related collisions by monitoring all vehicles for offences such as speeding, no seatbelt, crossing white lines, using mobile phones and dangerous driving.
- Running cost: £886,000
- Use: Monitored 130 different sites over more than 3,823 hours.
- Impact: Processed 40,377 road safety violations – the equivalent of 11 for every hour they were in operation. Of those violations, 34,419 led to motorists attending a speed awareness course.
- Money generated: £1,049,000 – enough to run the vans with a surplus of £163,000 strictly ring fenced for road safety initiatives.
- District with the highest number of violations: Hambleton, with 8,666.
- District with the fewest violations: Craven, with 3,472.
- Site with the most violations: A19 southbound at Kilvington near Thirsk.
- Site visited most frequently: A59 Blubberhouses with 145 visits during the year.
- District with the most violations per site: York with an average 1,035 violations per site. (Mainly due to sites located on the A64)