Average Speed Cameras – Coming To A Road Near You?

I’ve recently took a journey which took me quite a way southbound down the country. En route to my destination, I managed to have the misfortune of being in not one, but two average speed camera zones. If you’ve never been through one before, it’s a very simple setup.

There are cameras positioned along a route that monitor your progress. Should you exceed an average given speed (indicated at the start and throughout the route) then you’ll get a speeding ticket at the end. Quite commonly these average speed cameras are for 50mph roads.

I appreciate that these are the new ‘thing’ for the safety camera brigade, as they must vastly reduce the number of drivers that slow down just for the camera, only to speed up shortly afterwards when they are past a single one. However, they can be utterly infuriating to other motorists. Let me tell you why.

One of the average speed camera routes I took a journey on appeared to be set up because the road was not finished. I have been informed by someone else who regularly takes this route that this has been the case for approximately two years or more. So, an alteration to a road that takes three years plus, meaning that everyone (which is no doubt quite a large number of people) slowed an inconvenienced, despite the fact that no-one was working on the road either on my outward or return journey.

I am now thoroughly convinced that, short of there being a very good safety reason (is there such a thing as a bad safety reason), national speed limits should be moved to 80mph. Not only that, but any works project that involves major redesign of routes should be reanalysed to ensure that contractors are actually providing value for money as well as realistic timescales for work, given how much we all need to travel these days.

So, in answer to my own point, I really do hope that average speed camera routes are not coming to a road near you.