Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign, said:
"With the news that former roads policing chief Med Hughes was banned for driving at 90mph in a 60mph zone, something is obviously horribly wrong. Mr Hughes and his predecessor Mr Brunstrom have told us repeatedly that speeding costs lives and must be stamped out.
Perhaps Mr Hughes was out on a wild thrill ride knowingly putting his life and the lives of the public at risk? I don't know about you, but I would find that extremely hard to believe of a Chief Constable. I still have faith that Chief Constables are genuinely pillars of society.
Or perhaps he was 'distracted' and didn't notice that his speed had crept up?Again this is highly unlikely - after all he was 50% over the speed limit.
So what is the truth? It's so simple and so awful that many dare not think it or admit it. Speeding in itself isn't dangerous. Everyone knows that it's important that no one should drive too fast, but the speed limit cannot tell us what too fast is.
I'm quite certain that Mr Hughes was not driving 'too fast' in the sense that he was causing a danger. He knew full well that his speed was safe and appropriate according to the prevailing conditions at the time. Any other explanation for his behaviour is unthinkable.
It's obvious to anyone who drives that drivers must vary their speed to suit the prevailing conditions. We do it naturally, we do it easily and we do it accurately. There's room for improvement of course, but attempting to deny this essential road safety skill is not only stupid, it's actively dangerous. One clear side effect of having a nation of drivers who slow down when hazards threaten is that we're also a nation of drivers who speed up when conditions are clear and safe.
It's when conditions are clear and safe that we're likely to be going fastest and most likely to be caught speeding. But such times are also when we're least likely to be involved in a crash. This is why Department for Transport reports that 50% or more of drivers are speeding at sample sites on most road types yet only 5% of crashes involve any speeding vehicle - and for drivers over 25 it's only 2% (1 in 50). This massive under-representation of speeding in the injury crash stats is all the evidence we need to know that routine speeding isn't normally dangerous.
The truth is that the speed limit is no more than a weak proxy for the desired behaviour. But cameras have made the proxy more important than the behaviour we wanted in the first place. The awful tragedy and the awful truth is that speed cameras make the roads more dangerous by replacing effective policies; by distorting priorities; by distracting drivers; by damaging the relationship between Police and public and by giving us false safety messages about speed.
I'm quite certain that Mr Hughes was driving safely. Now he needs to admit the truth and work with the power that be to scrap the cameras which have caused all the trouble and get road safety back on track.
No more lies Mr. Hughes. Only the truth can give us safer roads. Stop pretending that the speed limit gives a safety limit irrespective of conditions. Clearly you know it isn't true, or you wouldn't have been driving at 50% over the limit."
