A NEW speed camera has been installed near Minchinhampton Common in a bid to “stop the needless death of so many cows and calves.”

The camera, installed by the Rodborough Road Safety Working Group, follows the success of its other camera stationed on the A46 near Stroud Enterprise Centre.

If this scheme is also a success in slowing speeding motorists the cameras may be rolled out across the county by the police and crime commissioner Martin Surl.

Last year seven cows were killed in collisions, three dying in just one week.

“The Rodborough Road Safety Group are delighted that we have now installed a second camera to make this area safer for people using the beautiful Common and to hopefully stop the needless death of so many cows and calves every year by drivers often travelling at considerable speed across this area,” said Rodborough parish councillor and chairman of the group Charles Pedrick.

“This reckless behaviour, by far too many drivers, is so dangerous and unacceptable that if this problem is not addressed, someone will be killed or seriously injured.

“What people might not appreciate is that every single day up to five people are killed or seriously injured after being hit by a vehicle and the majority of all fatalities happen in rural and built up areas, not on the motorways.”

The speed limit on Cirencester Road, which stretches past the Bear of Rodborough and across Minchinhampton Common, is 40mph, with many motorists seen to have exceeded this speed.

Last month the Gloucestershire Road Safety Partnership chose the common as a priority spot for a mobile speed camera due to the high rate of reported speeding offences.

The camera, stationed on a telephone mast, is equipped with ANPR technology which tracks number plates to gather a profile of each motorists’ speeding habits – these cameras also work in the dark.

Members of the working group, and police, can access this camera to search for repeat offenders.

“The selfish minority, who feel they have a right to speed and then cry crocodile tears, when they kill or seriously injure someone, will I hope, in time, be severely dealt with in the same way, that drink and drug drivers are today – by being punished in the Courts, by either taking away their licence to drive or even imprisoning them if the offence is serious enough,” said Charles.

Speeds of up to 86mph were tracked at the working group’s Stroud camera spot – where the speed limit is 30mph - and the data collected from the driver profiles has been used when pulling motorists over for speeding offences.

Police and Crime Commissioner Martin Surl, who has made safe and social driving a priority, said: “I probably have more correspondence about speeding, particularly in rural areas, than just about anything else.

“That’s hardly surprising when the harsh facts are that anyone hit by a car doing 30 mph has a 1:5 chance of being killed; at 40 mph it’s about 9:10.

Camera data from the Stroud site has noted a 10 per cent decrease in speeding vehicles in the past year – from February 2016 to April 2017 – from 33.5 per cent to 23.9.

There has also been a 37 per cent decrease in the number of vehicles driving over 35mph in the zone – 6,210 down to 3,896.