Wetherby Road traffic speed petition handed to Council

Cllr Andrew Waller has today handed a petition to the City of York Council asking them to address speeding concerns on Wetherby Road.

The move comes only a few days before work at the nearby roundabout junction with the A1237 is due to reach its final stages. Residents are concerned that the easier access to and from the roundabout will result in higher speeds in the built-up area.

About twelve months ago a flashing speed warning sign was removed form the road. The petition calls for it to be reinstated and the Police mobile camera van to pay occasional visits to the street.

When the flashing sign was working around 39% of passing vehicles trigger it, suggesting that there was already a speeding issue on the road.

Some residents have suggested that any new sign should display the actual speed of the passing vehicle. This type of sign has proved to be effective in neighbouring counties in reinforcing the speeding message to motorist.

The petition will now be considered by the Council prior to a report and recommendations for action being published.

Freedom of Information: some excellent responses but others evasive

Let’s start with an example of good practice.

The York Council was asked, via the “What do they know” web site, for information on the numbers of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN) issued for Fly tipping, Fly posting and graffiti.  Similar information for other offences was already posted by the Authority on its open data website.

A response was provided within a few days with the Council agreeing to add information for fly tipping and flyposting to the Open Data website. This means that information will be updated regularly. The question about flyposting was prompted by an epidemic of “Fair” posters which appeared on the west of the City.

We look forward to the open data website being updated shortly

The York Council says that it does not hold statistics on the number of prosecutions for graffiti which have been undertaken. It points to the police as a potential source of information claiming that the force could extract graffiti cases from the more general “criminal damage” heading.

We have had less luck with North Yorkshire Police.

We have been attempting for over a year now to get speed and casualty information from them in an attempt to understand how it drives the deployment of their speed camera vans.

We wanted to see trend information for sites regularly monitored by the vans. We expected that management information would demonstrate that the mean/average speeds recorded showed a downward trend, that the number of vehicles exceeding the prevailing limit would be falling and that accident levels on the monitored roads would also be showing a downward trend.

The most recent report from the police indicates that they don’t hold any of this information nor have they tried to correlate the stats provided by NYFR when they deploy their speed monitoring equipment on road around the county.

We find it astonishing that objective results figures of this sort are not being regularly monitored by those managing the, very expensive, camera van programme.

Nor can the York Council bask in any glory. In February, we asked which businesses had not paid their NNDR (Rates) bills in each of the last 3 years.

The request was turned down on the, entirely specious, grounds that it might influence the result of a by election which was taking place last February. Eventually the Information Commissioner ruled that the information had to be released and it duly was on 26th September.

It revealed that the Council were chasing £576,803.04 in arrears that had accumulated over the last 3 years.

The response did not reveal the names of the businesses involved.

We asked for that information on 1st October but, as yet, we have had no reply.

Speed camera vans – Warning over scam Notice of Intended Prosecution emails

PCC Julia Mulligan with a mobile speed camera van

North Yorkshire Police say they have been made aware of a scam where people are being emailed with false Notice of Intended Prosecution letters (NIP) regarding alleged speeding offences.

North Yorkshire Police is keen to alert people to the fact that these are scam communications and are not sent from their Traffic Bureau department.

A genuine NIP (Notice of Intended Prosecution, Section 172 request for driver details) is sent by first class post or recorded delivery, along with a request to identify the driver at the time of the offence. There would not be a request for any form of payment at this stage. The letter would also carry the North Yorkshire Police crest.

People are urged not to make any payment in response to these emails and not to click on any links contained.

Police are advising that if a member of the public receives a NIP and is unsure of its legitimacy, they can visit the FAQ section of the Safety Camera pages on the North Yorkshire Police website https://northyorkshire.police.uk/what-we-do/road-policing/safety-cameras/

Alternatively North Yorkshire Police Traffic Bureau can be contacted via email TrafficBureau@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk or  by dialling 01904 618968 Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm.

York police rolling out mini speed camera vans

The number of camera vans operating in North Yorkshire has doubled.  Six new, smaller sized, vehicles are expected to concentrate on villages and “more built-up areas”

They’ll be added to the six transit-sized vans already in the force’s mobile “speedcam” fleet. Chief Constable Dave Jones says the new vans mean drivers are likely to be caught on camera “in areas they didn’t previously expect”

The announcement will reawaken the controversy about how effective the police policy is on controlling vehicle speeds.

The force says, “Our mobile safety camera vehicles aim to reduce the number of collisions, deaths and serious injuries on our roads”.

FOI requests asking for trend data on average speeds – and accident rates – on roads subject to regular speed camera visits were ignored last year.

So all we know is that around £1 million a year is being taken in fines and “speed awareness course” income. This effectively pays for the camera vans and is a powerful incentive to use them where non compliance is at its most likely (essentially on trunk roads)

North Yorkshire speed stats

In effect the only success measure that is published is the number of vehicles found to be exceeding the speed limit on a day. This data can be viewed by clicking here

The Police site also lists the roads which are currently liable to be monitored

In York the list currently is:

York

  • Tadcaster Road Dringhouses York
  • Strensall Road Huntington York
  • Church Lane, Wheldrake
  • Millfield Lane Poppleton York
  • A64 Eastbound Heslington York
  • A64 Westbound Heslington York
  • A64 Westbound Murton
  • A64 Westbound a Fulford
  • A64 Claxton
  • A19 Skelton
  • A64 Jack Daw Crag Overbridge-Westbound
  • A64 Jack Daw Crag Overbridge-Ebound
  • B1222 Cawood Junct of Kelfield-
  • B1217 Saxton
  • A59 Poppleton Road (Holgate)
  • A59 Boroughbridge Road (opposite shops)
  • A1036 Huntington South Moor