SPEED cameras which fleece drivers but don't stop accidents are to be scrapped throughout the West Midlands. Independent consultants are reviewing 300 cameras across the region.
 And the ones seen as moneymakers rather than life savers will be taken out. The review was ordered after the West Midlands Planning and Transportation Sub-Committee voiced concerns that all cameras should be there only to stop accidents. Chairman Coun Les Kyles said: "We have to ensure these cameras are in the right place and equally we have to ensure that if they are not, then they are removed." "They are there to keep the speeds down and certainly not to raise money, so we as the authorities have a duty to make sure that is the case. "It is worth remembering that the local authorities don't receive any money - any not used to fund the scheme goes straight to the Treasury." But road safety campaigners said that accident rates had dropped drastically since the widespread introduction of cameras and warned against taking too many out of action. In the last 12 months alone, 55,000 West Midland motorists paid fines totalling £3.29 million, compared to 46,000 drivers paying out £2.76 million the previous year. Nigel Humphries, Midlands spokesman for the Association of British Drivers, today welcomed the new independent survey. He said: "A very high number of speed cameras do nothing to serve road safety, but are simply there to raise money.
GONE IN A FLASH
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"I just hope this survey doesn't turn out to be a whitewash. If it isn't we will see large numbers of cameras taken out - and good riddance." But the West Midlands Casualty Reduction Partnership, which runs the near-300 camera sites across the conurbation, claims there has been a 39 per cent reduction in casualties at areas covered by cameras. Spokesman Adam Warwick claimed the sites were regularly reviewed and that seven were currently being considered for removal. He added that three had already been taken out because the cameras weren't visible - one on the A45 Stonebridge Flyover, Solihull, and two on the Coventry Ring Road. | 
