Van insurance news roundup: 7 days ending 28 March 2014:
Almost half of British drivers find speed cameras useless, whilst police stops for careless driving have been off the charts over the past six months.
If there’s one singular thing that’s the bane of the white van man, it’s most definitely speed cameras. Well that and insane cyclists, really. However, it’s not just van insurance policyholders that are fed up with speed cameras – almost half of the entire motoring public in the UK is ready to bin the whole speed camera system entirely according to a recent research study.
In fact, some 45 per cent of survey respondents said that the speed camera does absolutely nothing to make the roads safer. Some felt that it could even be making things more dangerous, what with motorists keeping a close eye on their speed instead of the rest of the traffic they share the road with – those damned cyclists included.
Other drivers polled said that they could imagine motorists braking suddenly after spying a speed camera, leading to the most notorious road traffic accidents – rear-end collisions – that have a nasty knock-on effect of raising car insurance rates for everyone. At the same time, there’s even more evidence that speed cameras aren’t making a lick of difference either way according to another independent research study that was published this week.
What has been on the increase, according to the research data, is careless driving. Six months ago, new regulations went into effect that carried much more stringent penalties for being an arse behind the wheel of your vehicle, and since then there’s been in excess of 5,000 police stops for that specific reason.
So yes, everyone hates reckless drivers, especially when they’re lane-hogs or tailgating you for miles. At least now you can get fined or earn a few penalty points on your licence for the activity; you would think that with all the ire that motorist have towards speed cameras they wouldn’t have time to be pillocks whilst driving but apparently some old habits die a bit hard, don’t they?