A ROW has broken out between road campaigners and the county

council over the use of a second unmarked safety camera van on

Derbyshire's roads.

Derby and Derbyshire Road Safety Partnership has given its

unmarked safety camera van a colour change to stop it being

identified, and will soon get a second van to use.

The unmarked van has been used to carry out speed checks

since March this year and the council said it was aimed at

making the county's roads safer.

But campaigners against speed cameras said it was a

money-making move which did nothing to improve road safety.

About 20,000 drivers in Derbyshire are caught by speed

cameras each year.

The original safety partnership van has been used to check

the speed of all traffic but it was introduced as part of

Operation Focus – Derbyshire police's response to the high

number of motorcyclists who are killed and badly hurt in the

county.

Robert Hill, manager at the partnership – which includes

organisations like the council, police and health trusts –

said: "Motorcycle casualties are down by almost a third

compared to last year and we want to make sure they stay

down.

"For us, the aim of using safety cameras is to prevent

people from travelling too fast, rather than to catch them.

"Vans featuring the partnership or the police logo have been

used for speed checks ever since the cameras were introduced –

but we hope to discourage more people from speeding by creating

the impression that any vehicle could be performing speed

checks."

But the use of the unmarked vans has been criticised by Safe

Speed, a national group which campaigns against speed cameras.

Spokeswoman Claire Armstrong said the vans were not making

roads safer.

"Unmarked vans are only meant to be used to target a

specific group in a covert operation but that seems to have

been applied loosely to entire groups of road users, like

motorcyclists.

"What is more, they do not work. Speed cameras are a flawed

road safety policy. If you want to change someone's driving

behaviour, you need to stop them when they are spotted doing

something wrong, not send them something in the post which they

don't get until 14 days after the offence.

"We do think it is a money-making scheme now. We have had 15

years of cameras and we have not seen any benefits from

them."

Mr Hill disagreed and said they did make the roads

safer.

He said: "Since safety cameras began operating in the

county, the number of people killed or seriously injured has

been reduced by 40% on roads where cameras are in use.

"Unmarked camera vehicles are now also being used to target

particular problems such as motorcycles and high-speed drivers

on problem routes where casualties remain particularly high. As

well as reducing deaths and injuries, safety cameras are

capturing fewer motorists each year, indicating that people are

making a conscious effort to stick to the speed limits in

place."

The partnership's criteria for using unmarked safety camera

vans will remain the same: they will be used to detect

high-level speeding offences, of all vehicles, on routes where

high numbers of people are being killed or badly hurt in

crashes.

Roger Lawson, of the Association of British Drivers, said

the group wanted to see all unmarked cameras removed from the

county's roads.

He said: "Obviously, any attack on speeding is to slow

people down and, if vehicles are unmarked, then there is no

visual impact on speeders."

The safety partnership says its mobile camera vans normally

carry coloured livery and reflective strips and are "highly

visible" but it says that there will be "special occasions"

when there will be a need to operate with unmarked

vehicles.

Four mobile safety camera vehicles are operated at about 100

sites across Derbyshire. Up to now, only one vehicle has been

unmarked.

Click on the button to share this story with a

friend

"addthis_url = location.href; addthis_title = document.title; return addthis_click(this);"

target="_blank">

"http://s9.addthis.com/button1-addthis.gif" width="125" height=

"16" border="0" alt="Bookmark and Share">