Will average speed cameras finally ease A127 traffic congestion?

New speed cameras which measure drivers’ average speed over a stretch of road, are now planned for part of the busy arterial road.

The aim is to ease congestion, cut accidents, catch out rogue motorists and perhaps also make life a little less frustrating for drivers.

The cameras will enforce speed limits of between 50 and 70mph and should be working by next January.

Essex County Council is spending almost £1.2million on the road safety scheme and expects a very real return on its investment – the halving of serious injuries on the road.

Cameras will enforce a 70mph limit for 2.4miles, between the Nevendon interchange, in Basildon and the Dick Turpin pub.

Just past the pub, drivers will be expected to slow down to 50mph for the four miles leading past Rayleigh Weir and as far as the 40mph limit at the Southend borough boundary Most drivers will have a view on the likely success of the scheme and what needs to be done to cut congestion.

However, it is hard to argue with the results average speed cameras have already achieved on about 40 roads across the UK.

In July 2007, cameras were set up on the A14 in Cambridgeshire with the aim of reducing accidents. In the first week, 91 drivers were caught speeding. A year later about 30 drivers a week were being ticketed.

The overall number of accidents was down by 21 per cent and the number of casualties by 25 per cent.

Interestingly, the number of drivers caught speeding was also down.

Cambridgeshire Police, which operate the cameras, also believes congestion on the busy north-south route between Huntingdon and Cambridge has been reduced.

Back in Essex, on the stretch of the A127 where the cameras will go, the past three years have seen four fatal crashes and 179 other accidents resulting in more than 250 casualties.

The scheme is being financed by the Department for Transport and Southend firm KeyMed.

Geoff Collins, sales and marketing director of Speed Check Services, the company installing the new cameras explained how the cameras work.

He said: “It is relatively straightforward. The cameras read a number plate at one location and then at another.

“We know how far apart the two cameras are and then we can calculate the speed of the vehicle.

“But it’s never as simple as just one camera at the beginning and one at the end.

“The road is broken into sections and typically, there will be cameras every two or three kilometres.”

Average speed cameras have been used since 1998, and Mr Collins says they are an effective solution to accident hot spots on certain roads.

He explained: “They are a way of rapidly addressing a collision history on a route. They work very well.

“If people are driving uniformly, without braking and speeding up, we get fewer collisions.

“The cameras also change driver behaviour, because drivers think they are being monitored and act accordingly. Very few people get hurt, very few people get caught and they improve congestion.”

The A127 cameras will be the first of their kind in Essex and will be fitted with infra-red lighting, so they work at night as well as in daylight.

The AA – not always a champion of speed cameras – has backed the use of the cameras on the A127.

Andrew Howard, head of road safety, said: “We have been incredibly pleased with the average speed cameras. People tend to comply with the law in those areas and do not get caught. It seems they provide a very good deterrent.

“If they are cutting the speeds and not resulting in the prosecution of huge numbers of drivers, they are very good news.”

But support for the cameras is far from unanimous.

The lobby group, Safe Speed, campaigns for the removal of speed cameras, claiming they do not contribute to road safety. It describes cameras as a “phantom solution” to the problem of speeding.

Claire Armstrong, its co-founder, said: “In our minds, these average speed cameras are bad news because they don’t do what they claim and they turn drivers into zombies.

“Although you might make a driver slow down, the reality is they stop paying attention to the roads.

“They over-adjust their speeds upwards and downwards and start driving at inappropriate speeds.

“Because there is a constant flow of traffic, people can’t pull out of slip roads, so back roads block up.”