Speed camera drive to help cut deaths to zero
● New target to eliminate fatal and serious injuries within 30 years
New speed cameras have been announced at 24 locations across Scotland as part of ambitious plans to end all road deaths and serious injuries by 2050.
They include two new average speed camera zones in and around Glasgow, where vehicle speeds are measured over set distances.
Mobile speed camera vans will cover 14 of the sites, with the remaining eight featuring fixed cameras.
The cameras will join nearly 600 speed and red light camera sites in Scotland.
They include average speed cameras on the A 9 between Inverness and Dunblane, the A90 between Stonehaven and Dundee, and A77 in Ayrshire.
The new cameras were announced as part of the Scottish Government’s new Road Safety Framework to 2030 which sets a target of zero road deaths and serious injuries by 2050, or “Vision Zero”.
There are also interim targets for the figures to be halved within five years compared to 2014-18.
Last year ,168 people were killed, seven more than in 2018, after the total dipped to a new low of 145 in 2017.
However, the 2019 figure is half the total in 2003, and less than one third of the 1990 total, of 546. Transport secretary Michael Matheson said: “Road deaths are not an inevitability. We believe they are preventable. Our ambition for Vision Zero by 2050 is achievable.”
On speed cameras, Mr Matheson said: “An exercise has been completed to identify new sites that would benefit from safety camera enforce - ment.
“Our investment of £675,000 will improve speed limit compliance, encourage better driver behaviour and reduce the numbers of people killed or seriously injured across the road network.”
The IAM Roadsmart motoring group said the cameras were a “small but important start” towards the 2050 zero deaths taget.
Neil Greig, its Scotlandbased policy and research director, said: “Average speed cameras tend to beam ore effective tool but there is still a role for a site-by-site approach if speeding has been identified as the main problem at a location.
“Changing entrenched human behaviour will always be the key challenge. With flatlining in road death, drink drive and speeding st at istics for almost a decade, real progress is still some way off.”
Living Streets Scotland, which campaigns for pedestrians, said :” People have become immune to the daily toll of tragedy on our roads. It’s time that reducing road casualties is treated as a health emergency.”