Police officers across Europe have today (19 August) commenced a weeklong speed enforcement operation.
During the operation, co-ordinated by TISPOL, officers will use a number of speed detection methods across all types of roads.
TISPOL has been established by the traffic police forces of Europe in order to improve road safety and law enforcement on the roads of Europe. Its main priority is to reduce the number of people being killed and seriously injured on Europe’s roads.
TISPOL says that the purpose of the speed enforcement operation is to “raise awareness of the dangers of speeding, and to remind drivers of the benefits for all road users of driving at speeds that are both legal and appropriate”.
Koen Ricour, TISPOL president, said: “We urge all drivers to challenge their own attitude to speeding.
“Anyone who still believes that speeding is a trivial offence needs to think again. Excessive or inappropriate speed has a singularly devastating impact on the safety of road users, increasing both the risk of a crash and the severity of the consequences.
“It is estimated that speeding contributes to as many as one third of all crashes resulting in death, and is the most important contributory factor to road deaths and serious injuries (ETSC 2008).
“All across Europe this week, police officers will be ensuring that drivers respect the different speed limits. In cases where drivers choose to ignore these limits, officers will take appropriate steps to enforce the law.”
In a similar TISPOL operation in August 2012 more than 554,000 offences were detected in 25 countries across Europe.
Click here to read the full TISPOL news release.
Dave:
You seem to imply that the measure of “speeding” being “safe” is based on whether a collision subsequently occurs. Surely an unsafe speed can occur even when an incident does not arise which would have meant the participants could not have avoided the collision because of the speed. Surely the safety of any particular speed is based upon the probability of such an incident arising and the degree which the speed compromises collision avoidance. Should that probability and consequence be above the level which society will tolerate then the speed is “unsafe” regardless of whether an incident occurs or a collision follows.
Rod King, Cheshire 20’s Plenty for Us
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TISPOL seem to be very confused. Speeding (exceeding the speed limit) is very different to inappropriate speed (too fast within the speed limit). The first is almost always safe yet it’s this offence TISPOL say they will target rather than the second which, by definition, is not safe.
It is misleading for TISPOL to claim “speeding contributes to as many as one third of all crashes resulting in death”. The best evidence available shows that over 86% of fatal collisions occur when drivers are not speeding and I can find no good evidence that contradicts this figure.
http://speedcamerareport.co.uk/01_speeding.htm
TISPOL’s mission statement is excellent. They claim to be “…guided by research, intelligence, information and experience, to produce measurable results…”. So why then do they completely abandon that ideal in their press statements and the activities they pursue?
Dave Finney, Slough
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I assume we are on our own then for the other 51 weeks!
Alan Hale – South Gloucestershire.
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