1984

Yet another step closer to 1984 this week, in fact two steps.

First we here that the surveillance of emails and internet usage is to be stepped up a few notches, predictably with the excuse of tackling terrorism.

Now we learn that speed cameras are to be linked together to catch motorists who speed anywhere on long stretches of roads. Allegedly to reduce accidents, on what are already the world's safest roads by far.

This is very ill-advised. People in the UK already suffer from the most intense surveillance in the world. Any notion of privacy is historic. And the only people affected are generally law-abiding people. Criminals will not get caught, because they use false number plates, or haven't registered with the DVLA, or have nicked your car, or they just ignore the speeding fines when they come. So law-abiding people live increasingly in a digital prison, while criminals walk around free. Isn't it meant to be the other way round?

Having wall to wall speed cameras wil save very few lives, if any. Constantly watching the speedometer instead of the car in front does not improve safety. There is very little evidence that speed cameras save lives. They are usually installed just after a random local peak in accident rate, for obvious reasons, so it is no surprise that the figures drop afterwards, they would have anyway. If rates are compared country-wide, or even with the same location averaged over many years, there is no significant drop.


In any case, spending millions to roll out cameras is a waste of money. If the purpose is to save lives rather than to oppress motorists, then it would be far better spent in the NHS to inmprove ward cleanliness. Tens of thousands of people die in hospital because of negligence or avoidable infections. Even a small proportional improvement here would be far larger than the tiny number that could ever be saved on the roads.

And no-one ever counts the human cost of forcing people to drive slower. The average person spends 40 minutes in a car every day. Increasing that by 5 minutes a day by slowing everyone down sounds trivial, especially when advocates of cameras always talk about the hypothetical life of the child saved. But 5 minutes x 365 days x 60M people is 2750 person lifetimes per year. You will spend 95 days of your life longer in your car as a direct result, 3 months of your life wasted that could have been spent doing something you enjoy! If the government were to tell you that you would now die 3 months early as a result of a new policy to save 5 lives a year, because they don't want to tackle another problem that would save thousands of lives a year, you might not be so convinced that speed cameras are such a great idea.

In fact, the emergency services have themselves stated many times that 'traffic calming', and the resultant delays in getting sick people to hospital, costs dozens of lives every year. Hundreds of the deaths marked down to traffic accidents are actually caused by the time it takes to get an ambulance to the scene and on to hospital.

So this new policy is extremely badly thought through. It is stupid in the extreme, not only by making the situation worse that it claims to help, but also bringing a backlash against 1984 a bit closer. There is no winner, but we all lose.