A North police chief is on a collision course with Government policymakers after accusing roadside speed camera supporters of "deliberately trying to mislead" over their effectiveness.

The controversial comments by County Durham Chief Constable Paul Garvin came on the day Transport Secretary Alistair Darling claimed casualties at fixed camera sites have fallen by 40pc - preventing over 100 deaths per year.

But Mr Garvin said: "The pro-camera lobby, and a lot of the safety partnerships, deliberately misquote the statistics to try and mislead people to try and justify their position.

"I think it is disingenuous if we are really intent on reducing casualties on the road - as opposed to enforcing speed limits and dishing out lots of tickets."

Mr Garvin estimates the number of accidents caused by speeding at between 3pc and 4pc - far less than those caused by drivers who are tired or drunk.

The chief constable said that more accidents are caused by poor driving

habits than simply speed limits being broken.

But Mr Darling argued that figures from across Britain show 100 fewer deaths and more than 700 fewer people seriously injured last year following the introduction of fixed cameras.

The number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured, he said, fell by 35pc.

He says the average speed of traffic at new camera sites fell by around 2.4 miles per hour.

He added: "These figures prove that cameras save lives. The number of people speeding has come down and there has been a significant reduction in deaths and injuries at camera sites."

Durham is one of only a handful of forces in Britain which does not use static speed cameras.

The force uses mobile speed cameras on 17 routes across the county, while police patrol cars also catch speeding motorists.

In contrast, there are static speed cameras at 48 sites across the Northumbria force area.

Ray King, safety camera project manager for Speed for Life, a partnership between Northumbria Police, local councils, magistrates' courts and the Highways Agency, said: "I would not wish to comment on what Paul Garvin said. The new figures are for forces which have had fixed cameras for three years.

"We have had them for one year and it is too early to say how successful they have been, but we have seen an 11pc casualty reduction during that period.

"All our new fixed cameras are located at known collision hotspots where there is a history of people being killed or seriously injured.

"Safety cameras are not the answer to all our problems on the road, but they do have an important role to play, if they can encourage us all to change our attitudes towards speeding."

Mr Garvin countered: "More accidents are caused by inattention, drink driving, or nowadays, more by driving under the influence of drugs.

"And these statistics adopted by certain forces show a woolly area regarding the proximity of speed cameras.

"Some statistics are taken from an area 20 metres from a camera and others from a two-kilometre radius."

But Mr Garvin insisted: "This force is not soft on speeding motorists. Our officers issue 7,000 speeding tickets a year. We adopt an intelligence-led approach by looking at persistent offenders and also targeting drink and drug driving and bad driving.

"Perhaps the Government should be held accountable for the fact that they have not agreed to fund the upgrading of the A66. That would save many more lives than speed cameras. The speed cameras issue is not a point of principle, it is a fact that they are pointless."

The Journal: Today's Voice of the North

Page 2: Government hits back