Oxfordshire speed cameras 'don't work' in 20mph limits

Chief Constable Jason Hogg told councillors this week that the devices were ‘not sensitive enough’ to clock drivers flouting new limits in towns like Witney, where a near blanket 20mph limit was imposed last year.

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Appearing before the county council’s Place scrutiny committee, Mr Hogg said: “If we have, for example, a village at the moment where there is a 30mph limit and a speed camera - and I would suggest that a speed camera helps reduce speeding - there is a risk if you reduce the speed limit there to 20mph, with the current cameras that we have it actually might not act as the deterrence we would hope for.”

Buying new fixed cameras sensitive enough to catch 20mph speeders would require a ‘considerable investment’, Mr Hogg said.

Chief Constable Jason Hogg (Image: Oxford Mail)

Any drivers buoyed by the admission and tempted to try their luck on ‘20’s plenty’ streets like Witney’s Woodstock Road should not celebrate too soon, however.

While the fixed speed cameras might not be able to reliably identify low-speed rule flouters, Thames Valley Police’s hand-held speed guns and cameras fitted in police cars and vans were sensitive enough to enforce the 20mph limits.

Mr Hogg told councillors: “I have heard people say the police don’t enforce 20mph speed limits and that is simply not the case. We do, but we do that with our traffic cars and speed guns.”

He said roads policing unit officers tended to conduct speed checks at accident blackspots.

Across the Thames Valley, last year police prosecuted or sent tickets to 163,000 people, he said. By comparison Hampshire Police, which is around a fifth smaller than the Thames Valley constabulary, sent out 43,000 tickets.

The senior officer, who took on the chief constable role at the start of April, urged anyone concerned by speeding in their area to consider setting up or joining a community speed watch group.

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He said the teams of volunteers who take it in turns to don hi-viz vests and monitor vehicles using hand-held speed guns were ‘highly effective’.

However, Witney West and Bampton councillor Ted Fenton said his experience of volunteering with his speed watch group was that motorists tended to speed up as soon as the hi-viz tabards came off.

In a three-hour long session, the committee asked the chief constable and, later, county council environment chief Bill Cotton about progress made on getting average speed cameras trialled in the county.

The devices, which measure drivers’ average speed over a longer distance, are being trialled by Hampshire Police, Mr Hogg told the meeting.

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The council was said to be speaking to the police about where they could do a similar pilot in Oxfordshire, with the A34 at the top of the list.

Director of highways Paul Fermer said of the police: “They are willing to explore and work with us and National Highways…to progress average speed cameras on the A34 for that very purpose because we recognise the significant concerns and impact across Oxfordshire when there is an incident there.”