If anyone is in any doubt if the DSCP has any objectives other than income, this should clear things up. This is almost certainly the most ridiculous speed enforcement ever set up, anywhere. Is this a "toys out of the pram" reaction to the fiasco at Chideock, perhaps?

Please email your thoughts about this, positive or negative: info@dorsetspeed.org.uk . Don't just leave it to others, a good number of complaints will make a strong case that this operation is a failure and cannot be continued or introduced elsewhere. 

Please contribute to the online news article, Lights, camera – and action over speeding drivers in Poole

From 1st July 2009, "Speed on green" speed enforcement will start on the Holes Bay road at the junction with Sterte Road.

This has one of the most inappropriate and therefore widely ignored 30 limits in the area. It is not an accident blackspot, and yet it will be enforced with rigid 30 detection 24 hours a day. The income generated will be huge, the benefit to road safety virtually nothing.

So far, there has been little publicity about this, DSCP seems to be trying to introduce this “on the quiet” so they can rack up huge numbers of fines before people start to realise what’s happening.

If their aims were to reduce speed, they would obviously be shouting load about this, making it clear that the red light cameras will be triggering for speeds a tiny percentage over 30, but the quiet introduction can only mean that their aims are financial (we already know this of course, but this is a completely new level of highway robbery). This seems to have been also introduced to coincide with increased holiday traffic. The DSCP seems not to care a bit that it is completely obvious that they are only aiming for maximum possible numbers of fines.

Meanwhile, standards of driving and real accident rates continue to deteriorate. Driving through this junction at 40 is normally about as safe as you could possibly be. In contrast, dangerous driving of all types which actually directly causes the bad accidents so frequently seen on our roads is ignored, obviously, because the work / profit ratios are not so attractive.

Mostly for the sake of those who are killed and seriously injured, who would not be if efforts were properly focused on the real problems instead of numbers of fines, this has got to stop. This will further damage the relationship and support of the decent public for the Police and the law, and reduce the respect for speed limits (including the ones which are reasonable) and other road safety efforts.

This is a seriously wide open road, anything below 50 is likely to be completely safe (certainly in the middle of the night when deserted).

Here is the nearby junction at PC world, which has a 50 limit, but is more busy, with wait to turn right areas within the junction, and less pedestrian friendly, with hardly any barriers and no crossing over the main road, even though the road runs through a busy shopping area with PC World, Currys, etc. on one side, and B+Q, Staples, etc. on the other side. Here is the proof that speed limits seem to be "picked out of a bag" rather than based on the characteristics of the roads, and that rigid enforcement of the silliest limits is therefore about profit, not safety.

Confirmation from a freedom of information request about this operation:

"There are Speed on Green cameras installed for both North & South cameras at the A350 Holes Bay Road , these cameras will detect vehicles travelling through the junction in excess of 30 mph with effect 1^st July."

Press release on the DSCP web site: 

Speed on Green Safety Cameras