Don’t treat Kingsway drivers as cash cow

Driving organisations have reacted furiously to figures showing a steep rise in speeding fines on the Kingsway in Dundee. A little over a year ago, a short stretch of the route through the city was reduced from a 50 miles per hour speed limit to 40.

The change was explained as a road safety measure, designed to cut the number of accidents on the stretch between the Myrekirk roundabout and Strathmartine Road.

The three-mile section of dual carriageway has seen its share of accidents, sometimes resulting in fatalities, and should be subject to relevant safety laws.

What it should not be, however, is a cash cow for the authorities, targeting otherwise law-abiding drivers.

A spike in speeding convictions should be expected when a longstanding limit is lowered but a ten-fold increase suggests something more.

As with the erection of average speed cameras in areas such as the A9 between Dunblane and Perth where the need is not obvious, it gives rise to the suspicion that the scheme is for something other than road safety.

Why, it could legitimately be asked, was the rest of the Kingsway not similarly treated?

Road accidents have gone down, from 14 in a little over two years under the previous speed limit, to four in the year since the new one was imposed.

Police Scotland say the mobile speed cameras posted along the route are for the dual purpose of deterrent and detection. The figures show there is far more of the latter than the former.