SPEEDING motorists in Bracknell Forest are paying hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in fines.

A Freedom of Information request by the News can reveal that a total of 1,250 drivers were snapped by the borough's seven permanent speed cameras in 2014, the last full year figures are available - nearly four a day. 

One camera in South Hill Road nets £44,200 a year from drivers and until Thursday, July 16 this year had caught 526.

The full list of permanent cameras in the borough includes Opladen Way, Binfield Road, The Ring and South Hill Road in Bracknell, Yorktown Road and High Street in Sandhurst and the B3348 in Dukes Ride, Crowthorne.

Brian Lawton, a road safety scientist at the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne, said that fixed speed cameras have a limited effectiveness.
He said: “A fixed speed camera is very effective, at the specific location of the camera, at reducing speed and accidents. 

“They are not as good as average speed cameras. The issue is they quite specific.

“Fixed location cameras are probably effective a few hundred metres either side of the camera. There’s a little bit of a halo effect around them.

“If you have a specific location with crash history or a feeling there is going to be a speed issue in the future they can be really effective.”

He said that they were less effective at reducing speed across the whole length of a road.

He added that the average speed camera works well on motorways because it is easy to track where each car joins and leaves the road. It becomes much harder in a town as the road layout means an average speed will be low even if a driver speeds between junctions.

Research by the laboratory showed that most drivers who build up a stack of points reformed their behaviour and did not lose their licence. A driver’s licence will be revoked if they build up 12 points in a period of three years.

Michelle Nichols, a spokeswoman for Thames Valley Police, who controls the cameras across the region, said a driver caught speeding had a number of options.

She said: “If a driver has been caught by a speed camera and their speed is within permitted eligibility range then they will be offered a National Driver Education Course.

“If they choose to accept and complete a course then a proportion of the course fee goes to the service provider to cover their overheads and costs, National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme, who maintain the national training database for administration of the course, and the police to cover our process administration charges and support road safety."