POLICE today announced details of sites across East Lancashire which will be targeted by mobile speed cameras, as part of a drive to reduce death and serious injury on the region's roads.
The 19 sites, which have been chosen are all crash 'hotspots' or areas where local residents have expressed concern about drivers' behaviour.
The cameras -- part of the £10million Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety launched in November -- are placed in the back of police vehicles and have obvious advantages over fixed speed cameras in that they can be moved at short notice to any area.
Linda Sanderson from the Lancashire Partnership for Road Safety said: "We are announcing the locations of these cameras in a bid to show drivers that we are not trying to catch them out and that we are being very open about the fact that traffic cameras are in place across Lancashire.
"They are there for one reason and that is to try and change driver behaviour and reduce speed, particularly on roads that have the highest casualty rates." The road safety partnership is a joint scheme between the police, local councils and health authorities and is the culmination of more than four years of planning and co-ordination to develop a long-term strategy for cutting the number of traffic accidents.
About 9,000 people were killed or seriously injured on the roads of Lancashire last year -- with 1-in-3 deaths on the roads is speed related.
In the most common band for speeding, between 30-40mph the fatality rate jumps dramatically from 45 per cent of pedestrians hit by a car killed at 30mph, but 85 per cent at just 10mph more.
About two-thirds of all accidents where people are killed or injured happen on roads where the speed limit is 30mph and 70 per cent of drivers regularly break the speed limit on these roads.
Owner of Lynwood Wines on Blackburn Road in Darwen, Habib Khan said: "At night time especially cars can come along this road really fast.
"There's always accidents on it. Whether it is down to speeding or something else I don't know, but it is a problem. I can see one accident a week here."
Manageress of Wedding Days of Darwen on Blackburn Road, Kathleen Bentley said: "I have witnessed a few accidents here and people come into my shop to calm down.
"One time a car left the road and went through the window of the cake shop next door."
Lancashire Chief Constable Pauline Clare, has given a commitment to reach the Government targets for a 40 per cent reduction in fatal and serious injuries, a 10 per cent fall in slight injuries and a reduction in child casualties of 50 per cent by 2010, five years ahead of schedule.
A survey by the ORC International group, which questioned almost 2,000 people in the county in the months before the strategy launch, revealed more than 80 per cent agreeing that speed cameras would encourage drivers to keep to speed limits, 80 per cent arguing for tighter enforcement of seat belt legislation and 80 per cent saying they found it unacceptable to drink and drive.
Although more than 50 per cent said speed cameras were an easy way for the police to make money police have stressed that all money made from fines must be ploughed back into road safety schemes.
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