Helen Wells - The Fast and The Furious: Drivers, Speed Cameras and Control in a Risk Society

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: DRIVERS, SPEED CAMERAS AND CONTROL IN A RISK SOCIETY

Human Factors in Road and Rail Transport

Series Editors

Dr Lisa Dorn
Director of the Driving Research Group, Department of Human Factors,
Cranfield University

Dr Gerald Matthews
Professor of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati

Dr Ian Glendon
Associate Professor of Psychology at Griffith University, Queensland,
and President of the Division of Traffic and Transportation Psychology
of the International Association of Applied Psychology

Todays society must confront major land transport problems. The human and financial costs of vehicle accidents are increasing, with road traffic accidents predicted to become the third largest cause of death and injury across the world by 2020. Several social trends pose threats to safety, including increasing car ownership and traffic congestion, the increased complexity of the human-vehicle interface, the ageing of populations in the developed world, and a possible influx of young vehicle operators in the developing world.

Ashgates Human Factors in Road and Rail Transport series aims to make a timely contribution to these issues by focusing on the driver as a contributing causal agent in road and rail accidents. The series seeks to reflect the increasing demand for safe, efficient and economical land-based transport by reporting on the state-of-the-art science that may be applied to reduce vehicle collisions, improve the usability of vehicles and enhance the operators wellbeing and satisfaction. It will do so by disseminating new theoretical and empirical research from specialists in the behavioural and allied disciplines, including traffic psychology, human factors and ergonomics.

The series captures topics such as driver behaviour, driver training, in-vehicle technology, driver health and driver assessment. Specially commissioned works from internationally recognised experts in the field will provide authoritative accounts of the leading approaches to this significant real-world problem.

HELEN WELLS
Keele University, UK

ASHGATE

Helen Wells 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

The author name has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Wells, Helen.

The fast and the furious : drivers, speed cameras and control in a risk society. -- (Human factors in road and rail transport)

1. Automobile drivers--Attitudes. 2. Speed limits--Public opinion. 3. Speed traps--Public opinion. 4. Risk-taking (Psychology) 5. Liability for traffic accidents.

I. Title II. Series

363.1256-dc22

ISBN: 978-1-4094-3089-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4094-3090-2 (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-4094-8687-9 (ebk-ePUB)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wells, Helen, 1977

The fast and the furious : drivers, speed cameras and control in a risk society / by Helen Wells.

p. cm. -- (Human factors in road and rail transport)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4094-3089-6 (hbk) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-3090-2 (ebook) 1. Speed limits--Great Britain. 2. Automobile drivers--Great Britain--Psychology. 3. Photography in traffic engineering--Great Britain.

4. Legal photography--Great Britain. 5. Traffic monitoring--Great Britain.

6. Traffic safety--Great Britain. 7. Risk-taking (Psychology) I. Title.

HE5663.A6W45 2011

388.31440941--dc23

2011030402

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, UK.

I would like to thank Matthew Millings, Susanne Karstedt, Helen Beckett, Michael Fiddler and Bethan Loftus for their continued support and encouragement throughout this project and beyond. Also the ESRC for the funding that made the project possible and all the participants in the research who offered their views so enthusiastically.

Finally, to the little girl on her bike who, as I drove past her in my car, waved to warn me of the presence of a mobile speed camera ahead: thank you for reminding me why this was a topic that needed researching.

To Matthew (who was there from the start)
and Daniel (who came as quickly as he could)

Helen Wells sets out on an important and timely quest to place roads policing through speed cameras in the context of a risk society. Rightly, she avoids a debate about their effectiveness. Rather, she looks at changes in policing through greater use of technology and at the roles played by researchers, pressure groups and experts. As an expert cited, I found this a fascinating survey of a controversial topic.

Robert Gifford, Executive Director, Parliamentary Advisory Council for
Transport Safety, UK

Weve waited a long time for this fresh perspective on a topic that touches us all in risk society. Using a multi-method, multi-site empirical study as her basis, Wells unpicks the many and contradictory strands of the speed camera debate, deliberately retaining a neutral stance and positioning the whole enterprise within a risk narrative. As such it delivers a powerful analysis of what was seen to go wrong through giving voice to drivers, and serves up timely insights for the enforcing authorities. A real tour de force!

Claire Corbett, Brunel Law School, UK

A real thought provoker for anyone who has ever had an opinion about speed cameras! Through the voices of drivers, enforcers, persuaders, and decision-makers, this is an insightful look at the debate on arguably the most contentious of techno-fixes. In explaining how, in many peoples eyes, safety cameras became speed traps, Wells reminds us that opinions cannot be changed by scientific evidence alone and that public acceptance is a prerequisite for any intervention.

Lindsey Simkins, Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, UK

This book does not seek to answer the question of whether or not speed cameras work, nor does it seek to contribute to the ongoing arguments for and against speed camera use on this basis. Indeed it deliberately side-steps such questions of effectiveness in favour of an approach that seeks to explain why this may be largely irrelevant given the individual and social context in which speed cameras are deployed and experienced. The work draws on various literatures to explain how they, in conjunction with the speed camera as the central iconic image in this road safety debate, provide the means, motive and opportunity for the debate that has been set in motion. The research focuses on the period of the life of the National Safety Camera Programme (NSCP) which operated between 2001 and 2007, but explores speed limit enforcement both before and after that period, up to and including the decision, in July 2010, to withdraw funding from local authorities with the knock-on effect of some cameras being switched off. The books aim is to suggest ways in which interested parties in road safety contexts and beyond can learn from the speed camera debate and can better understand the significance of the human factor, in this case the driver, in enforcement efforts that are largely dehumanised.