Is this the work of a Motorists' Resistance Army?
By Adam Lusher
(Filed: 08/02/2004)
It is little more than a church overlooking the Mendip hills where the sheep may outnumber the 50-odd souls living there. Who could possibly be afraid of Emborough?
Yet for those in authority, the Somerset hamlet creates a sense of foreboding, because it appears to be the birthplace of what some have called a new "Motorists' Resistance Army".
The latest act of the fledgling "MRA" was one of sabotage. An "explosive device" was detonated last week inside the speed camera that welcomed motorists to Emborough.
As dawn broke over the A37 on Monday, the £40,000 camera wasn't photographing anybody.
Avon and Somerset Police insisted: "It was probably an isolated incident."
Local residents were not convinced: Hadn't 12 cameras been destroyed in nine months?
Why, just six months ago hadn't that very same Emborough camera been turned into a "burning necklace" by the judicious application of a tyre, some petrol and a match?
Hadn't there been other "burning necklaces": at Farrington Gurney, at Temple Cloud, (twice) . . . This was organised resistance, surely?
If so, Dick Bowen, the project manager of Avon, Somerset and Gloucestershire Safety Camera Partnership, who controls an empire of 50 speed cameras, was determined to see the MRA defeated.
"This is a real escalation," he said, "And it worries me to death."
In an annexe of County Hall, Taunton, Mr Bowen, heads the camera campaign that has a budget of £5.3 million and a staff of 80...................
.............It may not be that simple. A long way from County Hall, Emborough showed its other face.
It seemed to consist, it must be said, mainly of speed camera signs: 13 in six miles between Emborough and Shepton Mallet..............
............His inn was built in 1640 and became England's first post office, the place where the mail from the coast got stamped.
"The last accident here probably involved a mail coach. It's not an accident blackspot, so why is the camera there?" he said.
"You ask anyone round here: a lot of these speed cameras are just for revenue. They are only going for the ones where there's no need for a camera.
"No one took any notice of the necklaces, so they blew one up."
Robin Hood figures? "Yes." As for who "they" were, his gaze was unwavering. "I haven't a clue."...........
.........."We only put a fixed camera up where at least four people have been killed or seriously injured. Last year the safety cameras produced an 11 per cent reduction in casualties in Avon and Somerset."
[So fatalities have gone up then?!]
Don't bother arguing about Transport Research Laboratory Report 323, the 1998 one that found speed a factor in only 7 per cent of accidents, not 33 per cent as claimed by the Government............
From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/08/nmra08.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/08/ixhome.html