Ref. 12349Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership has been in the national spotlight for recruiting civilian staff to boost its team but as NIGEL KERTON reports its new mobile speed traps are all about stopping accidents and not making money from fines.

DRIVERS need not worry about hi-tech speed trap detectors on the road, Dave Frampton the chief of the Wiltshire and Swindon Safety Camera Partnership believes.

"Every vehicle on the road has a device that can avoid it getting speeding tickets. If every driver used their accelerators as they should, and in accordance with the speed limits, the staff in the Chippenham-based camera safety unit would be redundant."

Mr Frampton, a former police chief inspector, is the manager of the camera safety partnership housed in the old divisional police HQ in Wood Lane.

It has about a dozen staff including Sgt Nick Blencowe and four PCs who operate the four camera vans.

A civilian team runs the viewing suite where all the pictures of speeders still pictures from fixed site cameras and video from the camera vans are scrutinised.

Two more vans are on order and Mr Frampton is advertising for two extra civilian staff to train-up to operate them.

The unit will also be gaining a motorcycle fitted with the same high-tech cameras as the vans, if an appropriately qualified rider and operator can be found.

It also operates a dozen fixed cameras the pole mounted distinctive yellow boxes in the county.

It's expected the number of fixed cameras will gradually be reduced because they are expensive to operate they use roll-film that has to be developed in a laboratory at the Wiltshire police HQ and are relatively ineffective because motorists get to know where the fixed cameras are and slow down as they approach them.

However, one new one is about to be introduced at the accident black spot at Snow Hill between Hilmarton and Lyneham, where in the last three years there have been eight crashes resulting in two fatalities, one serious injury and six minor injuries.

It is the camera vans that come in for most criticism from motorists and are invariably the subject of conversation whenever drivers get together.

All the staff in the safety camera partnership offices are fed up with hearing the claim that their role is to extract as much money from motorists as it can.

In the first full year of operation the safety partnership vans first went on the road in April 2002 the four camera vans caught 35,000 drivers speeding.

Last year the unit brought in £1.31 million in speeding fines and after deducting its running costs of almost £974,000 sent a third of a million pounds to the treasury.

Mr Frampton who is something of a poacher turned gamekeeper because he previously helped run Wiltshire Victim Support, is quick to dispel the myth that the camera vans are sent out to the most lucrative areas where they can reap the richest harvest of tickets.

He said: "The best camera is the one that does not detect any offenders."

In other words when drivers stop speeding and statistics prove that speeding contributes to accidents the work of the safety camera partnership will be complete.

Statistics are already beginning to show that the safety camera vans are having an effect and that drivers are slowing down.

Ambulance chiefs have reported a three per cent drop in casualties since the safety cameras were introduced.

Safety camera vans are not picked at random nor put where the largest numbers of offenders are likely to be caught.

Each new proposed camera location has to be supported by accident statistics when it's submitted to the Department for Transport for approval.

Every year every one of the 66 current sites in Wiltshire have to be resubmitted with the latest accident statistics for new sanction.

But the number of locations could be increased by 14.

One of the proposed new sites is the M4 at Junction 15 (Swindon east) where there have been 36 accidents in the last three years with one fatality and nine seriously injured.

Initially, prospective sites are flagged up by police computers showing accident cluster areas.

Unit analyst Kevin Bolan's job is to look at each individual area and get a Metrocount installed rubber wires laid across the road that detect vehicle speed for a minimum of three days.

Only when he can show that a site is a proven accident cluster area can he submit it for sanction.

Mr Frampton said no-one in the partnership is driven by the urge to give out more and more speed tickets to motorists.

Rather, he said, they would prefer for motorists to take heed and slow down, which would in effect, make all speed detection devices redundant.

Factfile: road safety statistics

The unit is driven by statistics that show an undeniable need for speed to be driven down.

If you are a driver and you are not convinced then look at these figures for Wiltshire roads for the last three years:

147 fatalities

1,179 serious injuries

8,918 slight injuries

The total of those figures comes to 10,244 or as Mr Bolan prefers to equate it, the equivalent of more than 20 jumbo jets full of passengers.

He said: "If those figures were the results of plane crashes there would be an outcry.

But because they are caused by road traffic collisions nobody bats an eyelid."

For those who would like to know more about the unit or who would like advice, the camera safety partnership has a communications officer, Saira Khan, who is happy to go out to talk to schools, community organisations or fleet operators and their drivers about its work.