Warwickshire village fighting back against speeding drivers

A NEWLY-formed Community Speed Watch (CSW) group is hoping to get the message out to potential speeders to slow down – or risk getting caught.

Campaigners in Brailes say their rural idyll is being ruined by hundreds of drivers regularly speeding through their village every day.

Resident Roy Rogers, speaking on behalf of the group, explained the situation to the Herald: “Brailes village is dissected by the B4035 that directly links the main towns of Banbury and Shipston.

“The village has two static speed cameras that record all traffic speed data 24/7. The data shows the speed, the date and time of day and highlights when vehicles most often exceed the speed limit and so this is what is used to determine community speed watch activity. On average 45,000 vehicles travel through the village every month and 7,000 of these exceed the legal speed limit. This equates to an average of 230 vehicles speeding every single day.”

Mr Rogers said the busiest times on the road through was between 7am and 9am, and again between 4pm and 6pm, which he says suggests it is non-village commuter traffic.

He continued: “Speeds of up to 70mph have been recorded on the cameras – through a village!

“As a result of our activity, 500 vehicles have now been noted on the police database for exceeding the speed limit in the last few months and the hope is that this will be enough to make those drivers more conscious of their speed in future. There are some, however, who have been recorded multiple times and if this persists then they can expect further action to be taken by the police.”

The group have been given assurances by the police, who have said that traffic speed enforcement vehicles will provide a more visible presence to slow down traffic and educate road users on appropriate legal speeds.

The Herald understands the vehicles will be strategically positioned using the traffic speed data collated by Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership with the aim of reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads.

The traffic enforcement vehicles are fitted with state of the art technology including high specification cameras that provide the police with clearer mobile enforcement images.

Mr Rogers observed: “Statistically 56 per cent of all road traffic accidents are caused by speeding. It’s encouraging that actual speed data from the cameras and the CSW monitoring events is showing slight improvement, it remains a serious problem and so other physical traffic calming interventions that are effective 24 hours a day are being investigated.”

In the meantime he ended with a plea: “Please respect our village, drive within the law and help us to keep each other safe.”