Extra police plea to cut road deaths
Traffic officers would be better way to cut toll than abolishing radar warning signs, says union
A POLICE union has joined the protests against the move to banish signs warning of radar speed traps and called for more traffic police as a way to cut accidents.
The move comes as Interior Minister Claude Guéant point-blank rejected complaints from governing UMP MPs that the move “could cost the election” and a call from radar manufacturers for drivers to block the roads on June 2.
Unité SGP-Police official Aymed Korbosli told the Sud-Ouest newspaper that increasing the mobile and more human police presence would have a better effect on driver behaviour than trapping them in unsigned speed checks.
“We have set up automatic radars but the number of road deaths has risen just the same; proof that that is not the solution,” he said as he argued for more police on the roads.
He said that too often radars were sited to collect revenue for the state and not to highlight an accident blackspot, like “one-armed bandits”.
UMP MPs tackled Mr Guéant after bombarding Prime Minister François Fillon with protests at his weekly closed-doors meeting; even managing to knock the story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest off the agenda.
As MPs spoke of a “political mistake” Creuse MP Jean Auclair told the minister: “If we do this we will lose the elections.”
However, Mr Guéant said the decision to take away the warning signs was final and that it was “not a question of annoying people but of saving lives”.
He said that there was room to teach drivers to change their habits and spoke of using more radars which warned of speed limits without a penalty.
Opinion polls say that 79% of people do not believe that getting rid of radar warning signs will cut road deaths and 70% believe the ban on radar detectors will have no effect.
It is thought that all speed check warning signs will be removed before the beginning of the summer.
Radar manufacturers have called for a national roadblock on June 2 to protest against new road security measures that got rid of warning signs, banned radar detectors, increased penalties for mobile phone use and made motorcyclists wear high-visibility or reflective jackets.
More than six million drivers use radar detectors in France, the manufacturers said.
Photo: vekha - Fotolia.com
