Department for Transport figures released yesterday have been an amazing revelation for many, but not for Safe Speed. We have been telling you for years that 'speed kills' road safety policy was wrong. Yesterday's contributory factor data proves us right.

DfT said in their PR: "* Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths)."

This was deliberately misleading and confused many news services. It's hardly surprising because many find the truth stranger than the fiction. Government has been telling us for years that 'speed kills' and we must suffer speed cameras for our own good. (That's the fiction)

The truth is that nothing in government policy seeks to reduce 'inappropriate speed', so it is entirely unreasonable to add inappropriate speed to exceeding the speed limit to make the 'excessive speed' category that the DfT press release quoted.

These are the true figures for crashes involving speeding are:

Fatal crashes 12%Serious crashes 7%Slight crashes 4%All crashes 5%

These are no surprise to Safe Speed. We have been quoting similar figures for years. See for example: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/lie.html written in 2003 or http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr110.html and http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr112.html both published in April 2004.

Policy Failure

'Speed kills' road safety has failed. After 15 years of 'speed kills' road deaths have not fallen as expected and road crash hospitalisations are static.

Speed cameras have failed - they are based only on false assumptions and dodgy data. There is no visible casualty reduction that can be reliably associated with speed cameras.

Department for Transport has failed and is not fit for purpose.

Department for Transport have failed to consider:

- side effects of speed camera policy- the process of safe driving- the psychological foundations of road safety

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "'Speed kills' is dead. Long live road safety."

"I cannot stress enough about the importance of getting back to policies that deal with the root causes of road crashes - shortfalls in skills or attitudes from road users. 'Speed kills' policy has failed. and must be scrapped along with speed cameras and associated misleading data."

The greatest sins committed by DfT have been to ignore: Speed camera side effects, the process of safe driving and the psychological foundations of road safety."

"If speed cameras worked perfectly we would only reduce injury crashes by 5% ONCE and then no further improvement would be possible. Of course the reality is that they don't work at all.

"Speed cameras are 21st century snake oil. The benefits claimed by the salesmen never materialise unless you have great faith. If you have faith, you might think you see a benefit. That's the power of the sales pitch."