Kent Safety Cameras Cut Accidents

Safety cameras have dramatically reduced the number of people killed or seriously injured on the county’s roads, new research shows.

Latest figures from the Kent & Medway Safety Camera Partnership reveal that deaths and serious injuries at Kent and Medway’s crash hotspots have dropped by 77%, down from 347 in the three years prior to the yellow fixed safety cameras being installed to 80 between 2008 and 2010.

Now the Partnership is launching a campaign to raise awareness of the positive impact safety cameras continue to have in reducing serious and fatal crashes.

“Information boards will be going up at roadside camera sites across Kent and Medway clearly showing how many lives have been saved and serious injuries prevented at each site. It means drivers will be able to see exactly how effective a particular camera has been,” says the Partnership’s Communications Officer, Katherine Barrett.

There are 79 fixed safety camera sites in Kent and Medway, all of which were installed at specific locations because of their history of speed-related crashes in which people have been killed or seriously injured.

“Crash fatalities and casualties across the county continue to fall year on year and this success has been achieved through a combination of educating drivers and encouraging them to slow down, effective publicity campaigns, and enforcement,” says Katherine.

“Unfortunately there are still some areas where drivers are failing to heed speed warnings, and where fatal or serious injuries have remained the same or slightly increased. We will continue to review the effectiveness of cameras at these sites and look at other ways of reducing speeds and casualties.”

A recent survey by the Institute of Advanced Motorists* showed the majority of people were still in favour of safety cameras, with more than 80% of those questioned in the South East agreeing that cameras were an acceptable way of identifying vehicles involved in speeding offences.

Over half of those surveyed in the region also believed that injuries and deaths on the road would go up if safety cameras were switched off to save money.