A33 Kingsway-Evans Street now protected by Speed cameras
Speed cameras have been installed on the A33 from Kingsway to Evans St in central Southampton and will be operational from Monday 28th February. The site has had a history of injury accidents along its length – 24 accidents between 2001 and 2003 of which 5 resulted in serious or fatal injuries.
Julian Hewitt, spokesperson for the Safety Camera Partnership for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight said: “This site was initially identified by Southampton City Council as a high casualty cluster and the Partnership has spent some time ensuring that the site meets the demanding DfT criteria before a camera has been installed. We take care, with every new camera location, to ensure that the cameras are best placed to prevent speed-related accidents in the future, because at the end of the day they are there solely to make the roads safer for all road users. This site is focused on a fairly short section of road that has a high casualty rate and evidence of excessive speed. The route has streetlights denoting it as a 30 mph road – in addition the road-signs highlight the speed limit and the fact that speed cameras are operational on the road. Our ultimate aim is to issue no speeding tickets at this site as that will mean that drivers are keeping to the limit and driving safely. If they do this they can help to reduce the misery for individuals and the cost to community that road accidents cause.”
Camera enforcement in the Partnership area has resulted in a significant reduction in injuries and in particular fatal and serious accidents at camera locations: the average reduction in fatal/serious accidents for the Partnership as a whole was 59 percent in 2003-4, against benchmark levels. In Southampton the fatal/serious injury rate on mobile routes fell from an average of 4 per year to 2 in 2003-04, and over the same period at fixed camera sites the fatal/serious collision rate fell from an annual average of 9 to 6.
Research by the Transport Research Laboratory shows that for every 1 mph reduction in average speed there is a 5% reduction in injury accidents so that even small reductions in speed can make a big difference to both the likelihood of having a collision and the severity of an accident.
Posted: Thursday, February 17 2005
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