Around 400 vehicles and many more supporters on bridges turned out for Saturday's demonstration against the use of speed cameras on the M4. Even though the protest had only been planned just ten days before and had barely had time to generate publicity, the high level of attendance shows the very serious concern about the practices of the local camera partnership.
 

ABD Road Safety Spokesman Mark McArthur-Christie said:

"These weren't high-performance car and bike nuts, these were normal, working, tax-paying members of the public who have simply had enough. As I talked to the protesters one thing became abundantly clear — this was the first time many of them had ever taken part in a protest. The actions of the local camera partnership had just pushed them too far."

The ABD believes that the Partnership's comments 'we have about 12% of all people being killed and seriously injured on Wiltshire roads happening on this stretch of motorway' and 'We are charged with reducing death and injury on the roads. If we ignore the motorway we are ignoring a major part of that problem' miss the issue completely.
 
This stretch of the M4 carries far more than 12% of traffic in Wiltshire so this percentage does not in any way show it to be a significantly dangerous road. More importantly, the campaigners are certainly not asking Traffic Police to ignore the motorway. They want it policed properly, carrying out education and enforcement procedures against all manner of unsafe driving practices, not simply cameras criminalising drivers travelling at safe speeds for the road conditions.
 
ABD's Chairman Brian Gregory endorsed McArthur-Christie's comments:

"The partnership have come up with no evidence that a significant number of crashes are being caused by drivers travelling above the speed limit, yet the ignore all the other accident causes, many of which can be exacerbated by forcing drivers to travel artificially slowly such as inattention, tiredness, traffic bunching and poor lane discipline. It's no wonder drivers are now taking to the streets in protest."

The ABD calls upon the partnership to listen to the public and to reconsider the practice of using speed cameras on motorways immediately.