Road safety strategy kicks can down the road on speed cameras

After nearly a year of the Labour Government saying that it will deal with guidance for speed cameras in its new Road Safety Strategy, the strategy has finally been published, and contains no update.

Instead the document simply says that the Government will “publish a new edition of the best practice guidance ‘Setting Local Speed Limits’ and update separate guidance on the use of speed and red-light cameras”.

Lisa Smart, the MP for the Hazel Grove constituency said: “This guidance is woefully out of date, and both Labour and the previous Conservative Government have kept on saying ‘we’ll deal with this soon’. 

“For the past year, every question about this has been met with the answer that it will be included in this Road Safety Strategy. Well it hasn’t been. I can’t believe this has simply been kicked down the road again.”

While local changes have meant a slight improvement in identifying locations where speed cameras should be set up, the MP has argued that more needs to be done to identify sites before accidents happen, and get safety measures in place.

Liberal Democrat MP Lisa Smart added: “Local people know where the problems are. If the guidance is not identifying them until it’s too late, that’s simply not good enough.

“Sadly the Labour Government is failing to take action, in exactly the same way the previous Government did. It’s just not good enough.”