When my local newspaper published an article about Bradford's most dangerous roads I was instantly intrigued as to how that fit in with speed enforcement cameras (both fixed and mobile). We are constantly told by the authorities that speed cameras and mobile vans are used on stretches of road that are known to be dangerous even if the general consensus is that they are placed where they can make the most money... Us Brits are a cynical lot, aren't we?

Another common issue that comes up a lot in our forums is that you can make statistics say anything so my aim for this article is NOT actually to have a conclusion – I simply want to point out the facts and see what conclusions you, our readers, come to.

In response to the article I have gone through the locations that were released by West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership and mapped these alongside our CamerAlert Speed Camera Database (as well as the official speed-enforcement areas). What I found was quite interesting – 8 of the top 10 most dangerous roads in Bradford did not have any speed-enforcement at the areas in question. Straight away my mind said "so that proves that speed cameras make roads safer" but neither the SCP nor the reporter mentioned this. The article did, however, state that "Nine of the top ten roads for number of accidents have speed enforcement cameras on them." This didn't match what I was seeing, so I looked into it a bit more and their wording is quite clever: they say ‘roads' as opposed to the actual area they are looking at. For example #8 Whetley Lane does not have any enforcement areas but Mayo Avenue and Killinghall Road both do – these areas are miles away from each other but are all the A6177.

Why aren't they shouting out about how much more dangerous roads without speed cameras are instead of implying that they already have speed enforcement and the roads are still dangerous? Without doing any research into it, this almost gives the "speed cameras are there for the money" camp a good argument.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 most dangerous roads in Bradford (NB: I've been unable to obtain the finer details for #6-10, only the total number of accidents):

1) Great Horton Road, Great Horton

2) Skipton Road / North Street, Keighley

3) Haworth Road, Heaton

4) Manningham Lane, Manningham

5) Leeds Road, Bradford

6) Barkerend Road, Barkerend

7) Leeds Road, Thornbry

8) Whetley Lane, Bradford

9) Killinghall Road, Bradford Moor

10) Allerton Road / Pearson Lane, Allerton

When I set about looking into this I was planning on it being a "speed cameras don't make things safer" article. As it happens, it looks like it is the complete opposite – but surely it can't be that simple otherwise the SCP would be shouting from the rooftops – so what other facts are stopping them from doing so? Why are they implying that these roads are already speed-enforced? Are they fearful of criticism about why they haven't already targeted these areas or worried about extra workload? Surely if our safety is the number 1 concern, then these areas should be monitored.

So, what does all this actually tell us? If I'm perfectly honest I don't actually know. You can make statistics say anything really and here are a few possible conclusions:

1) 8 out of 10 of the dangerous roads have no speed-enforcement therefore speed-enforced roads are safer

2) 2 out of the 10 most dangerous roads have speed-enforcement so this shows it makes no difference

3) Speed is not really a contributing factor to road safety – otherwise these areas would already be speed-enforced

Have you driven around Bradford? Do you know these areas? Feel free to add your own conclusions and comments in the forum.

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Comments Posted by alan_sh on Tue Nov 10, 2015 5:44 pm Are you going to send this information back to the article authors? Alan   Posted by Oscargrouch on Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:16 pm I think the Chief of Police for Bedfordshire dismissed the theory that Speed Camera's are operated to save us from accidents. Last week it was reported that due to cut backs in Police Budgets, he/she was considering using the Variable Speed Camera's on gantry's in his/her area of the M1 to be used for anyone doing over 70 mph. Apparently, at present they are only used to catch motorists via camera if they do not abide to the displayed limit. This will happen to save police jobs, not to reduce accidents. So much for the original theories. Garmin Nuvi 2599 LMT-D   Posted by MaFt on Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:20 am alan_sh Wrote: Are you going to send this information back to the article authors? Alan Yup   Posted by DennisN on Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:57 pm They've got a terrific chip shop though. I hope they put a camera there because I never saved it as a POI! Please call it chipcam in the database so I can find it next time. Dennis If it tastes good - it's fattening. Two of them are obesiting!!   Posted by MaFt on Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:52 pm DennisN Wrote: They've got a terrific chip shop though. I hope they put a camera there because I never saved it as a POI! Please call it chipcam in the database so I can find it next time. The In Plaice, it's already in the POI database (Food & Drink / Fish & Chips) "Bradford, The Inplaice" (I've submitted the correction to it's name): 53.79339, -1.75409   Posted by DennisN on Wed Nov 11, 2015 9:54 pm Hey, that's right. I parked opposite in the pedestrian zone one night when there was nobody about. I forget how much it cost, but up north it's always about half the price of the rubbish down here. Dennis If it tastes good - it's fattening. Two of them are obesiting!!   Posted by RobBrady on Thu Nov 12, 2015 8:24 am Oscargrouch Wrote: I think the Chief of Police for Bedfordshire dismissed the theory that Speed Camera's are operated to save us from accidents. Last week it was reported that due to cut backs in Police Budgets, he/she was considering using the Variable Speed Camera's on gantry's in his/her area of the M1 to be used for anyone doing over 70 mph. Apparently, at present they are only used to catch motorists via camera if they do not abide to the displayed limit. This will happen to save police jobs, not to reduce accidents. So much for the original theories. It was the elected labour police and crime commissioner, not the "Chief of Police", who made those comments. The post of police and crime commissioner is often confused with the police rank of Commissioner, held by chief police officers. Interesting opinion from a real police chief here http://www.policeprofessional.com/news.aspx?id=24769 Robert Brady   Posted by M8TJT on Thu Nov 12, 2015 8:41 am I particularly liked the comment Patrick McLoughlin Wrote: “yet another example of a Labour politician punishing drivers.” And also the indication that Quote: The cameras are usually only ‘on’ when speed restrictions are in place. but Dirty Harry Wrote: You've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk? Although the really interesting bit of the article is the first paragraph Quote: A plea to MPs for a speed camera blitz on the M1 to bolster police funds by £1 million has been described as “ludicrous” – and illegal. Illegal to fine people for speeding?????? Or illegal to intentionally raise funds from fining people for speeding??????   Posted by Bunty1948 on Thu Nov 12, 2015 11:12 am Sadly I did a similar exercise in areas of North Yorkshire where there are known accident black spots due to the attractiveness of the roads to motorcyclists and motoring journalists. There are a number of very good roads but with very high accident rates and guess what, there are no camera sites on the database and despite travelling on these roads very regularly I have never seen a camera van or officer with a speed "gun". No they sit on the likes of the A19, which was a trunk road until a few years ago, and is designed to current standards with a design limit in excess of 70mph. To add insult to injury they are placed on straight stretches of clear wide overtaking sections of the road where that are no accidents. Plenty of rubber skid marks mind you, but no accidents. If I sound cynical and suggest that this is because they are adding funds to the coffers then ok I'm cynical, but they are not in the right place to reduce accidents.   Posted by lenfish on Sat Nov 14, 2015 12:50 am Manningham Lane is a strange one, fair number of speed cameras that are generally observed, pelican crossings for pedestrian safety but still a poor accident record, although there are a number of side streets that can be tricky to get out of. Would also be interesting to know the time of day of the accidents, night time in Bradford brings out the lunatic boy racers, especially Friday and Saturday nights.   Posted by DennisN on Sat Nov 14, 2015 4:56 pm lenfish Wrote: night time in Bradford brings out the lunatic boy racers, especially Friday and Saturday nights. I thought that was just maft on his way to use the free wi-fi in MacD's? Dennis If it tastes good - it's fattening. Two of them are obesiting!!   Click here to view more comments...