The Mercedes SLK ambled through the narrow Lancashire roads, its limiter set to the legal limit of 30mph, a tail of cars behind. At the first opportunity most drivers roared past, some giving the finger, others hurling four-letter abuse, their venom aimed squarely at the motorist who had delayed their daily race to work.
Yet the man cruising in the sports car was neither old-age pensioner nor lost German tourist. It was Glyn Worsley, 43, a former Greater Manchester police officer who has spent much of his life protecting the public from just such road menaces.
Now retired from the police, he helps drivers to keep their licences clean. Worsley works for the Bolton-based firm Comtech, where he sells the Beltronics range of radar detectors that warn drivers when they are approaching one of Britain’s 4,500 radar-triggered Gatso speed cameras. Such scanning devices were outlawed under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, but a judgment by the Queen’s Bench divisional court in January 1998 found that the act did not preclude their use.
The former policeman believes that speed limits should be raised, that speed cameras do not stop bad driving, and that seven out of 10 motorists break the law by speeding every day.
Advertisement
“I conducted a rough experiment driving from my home in Golborne the eight miles to Bolton at 30mph on the nose,” he says. “I wanted to see how the other drivers behaved.
“By keeping to the speed limit you actually provoke and annoy other drivers. People pulled alongside and stuck two fingers up. By sticking to the speed limit I found I was causing road rage, so I was doing more harm than good.”
Worsley says it encouraged people to take risks when they would not normally overtake, making decisions based on anger. The case for radar detectors is that they make you constantly aware of your speed.
Driving fast, it is argued, is not a bad thing in the right place. By selling detectors Worsley feels he is making people more responsible. A speed detector, he says, makes you aware about speeding in the same way that a burglar alarm makes you more aware about security.
Comtech is a research and development company that makes a variety of remote transmitting devices for industry, including real-time stock counts for vending machines. Worsley, who at one stage had nine points on his driving licence, has been a sales manager for the past four years.
Advertisement
His licence is now clean and he never drives without one of the £349 scanners. “I think it is terrible the way the government is attacking people for speeding. They really are cannon fodder. It’s easy pickings. It’s just about money and not safety.
“Speed doesn’t kill people, it’s bad driving. The Gatso cameras don’t see bad driving, they don’t stop someone driving around in a deathtrap. They will get the Porsche owner who is driving down a motorway at 100mph at 2am in a car capable of handling that speed, even though he is less likely to hurt anyone. If you look at roads in this country they could support higher speed limits.”
In fact some studies claim that the number of accidents rose at sites with Gatso cameras because of drivers braking sharply when they saw them. Worsley says this is why detectors are so useful.
A Mori survey discovered Comtech’s typical customers were not boy racers but a large number of women in their mid-forties. Many bought the device to help them to stay within the speed limits. Cocooned in their car they find they lose the ability to judge their speed accurately.
Worsley says: “Every time you hear a beep [from the scanner] you keep an eye on your speed and stay more alert. It acts as a constant reminder. My oldest customer is 80 — if some little old guy in a flat hat is still capable of picking up speeding tickets, everyone is.
Advertisement
“When you have a law that so many normally law-abiding people break, there has to be something wrong. I have been able to wear two hats. The only solution is the expensive one and that’s putting more police officers on the roads who can make more accurate judgments than the cameras. However, even that is not perfect. The problem is that police tend not to charge other officers or pretty women, speed cameras do.”
Speed traps: what you need to know