SPEED cameras are gradually being discontinued in accordance with the government’s plans to reduce the deficit.

SPEED cameras are gradually being discontinued in accordance with the government’s plans to reduce the deficit.

Depending on how you look at it, that may or may not be a good thing.

Recently speed cameras were set up along the Forty Foot road, the scene of several fatalities when vehicles plunged into the river.

I must say these long-sighted cameras seem to be having no effect. Driving along the river bank is a much more re-assuring experience and a marked absence of speeding drivers.

A similar dangerous situation exists along the Sixteen Foot road where tragedies have occurred.

Too many drivers use the Fens’ arrow-straight roads as if they were speed tracks. An error of judgement and failure to allow for the hazardous nature of cross-winds can project them into the deep drain.

Many people, especially visitors to the Fens hate driving alongside the waterways. Crashing from elevated roads onto fields can be equally disastrous.

In the nature of cut-backs I hope the local authority will leave existing riverside cameras in situ and consider introducing them along the Sixteen Foot and other potentially hazardous bank roads in the Fens.

Ours is a unique case in the interests of safety. A maximum speed of 50 miles per hour is ample along such roads.

Drivers, aware of the cameras, will travel at moderate speeds knowing that failure to do so, penalties will hit them hard.

Speed cameras along bank roads are essential and make sense.

TREVOR BEVIS

St Peter’s Road

March