Latest Update: The 'further afield' list of cameras updated, and an external link to a map of traffic fatalities added.

Cameras - speed cameras. Given the amount of speed cameras in Caversham, you'd be forgiven for suspecting the powers that be think the locals should be paying extra tax.

Dan Campsall, representative of the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership (TVSRP) has confirmed that only one in every 11 speed cameras (GATSOs) across the Reading Borough area is actually recording at any one time. There are 70 fixed and mobile camera sites in Greater Reading. RBC spokesman Chris Branagan says: "Greater Reading has the highest number of speed cameras per square kilometre of any area in the UK". We can only say that that is very depressing, and that it says an awful lot about how the authorities view the ordinary people.

To help you avoid being caught here are the details:

Peppard Road: Derby Road section, up the hill by the garage, by the pond and again up by Courtenay Drive.

Woodcote Road / Upper Woodcote Road: near to Woodcote Way and near Harrogate Road.

Further afield:

There's another camera on Woodcote Road up by the turning to Gallowstree Common and there's one on the Henley Road at Shiplake Cross (by the Plowden Arms). The next one in town is on the Portman Road. Sonning Common, too, has one on the main road as you go through.

Police in camera vans love hanging around on Vastern Road and we're told this is the most profitable one of all cameras - fixed or otherwise - in the area; they are also sometimes to be spotted on the Henley Road near CPV, and at Lower Shiplake on the main road and on Caversham Park Road.

In general, it is a police policy to lurk with a camera near fixed cameras, because they know that people will speed up as soon as they've passed one.

There is plenty of emotive argument to be had over speeding on the roads. The emotive aspects are understandable: every death or injury in a road traffic accident is, arguably, unnecessary and avoidable. However, emotions don't make for clear thinking.

It doesn't help that the data thrown around in the debate is often misleading, with accidents occurring not related to trips made. If a road had 10 accidents on it when there were 10,000 trips on it, and then the next year had 12 accidents on it when there were 12,000 trips made on it, the road is no more dangerous than it ever was.

Compounding the problem is that the fact of an accident isn't related to why it happened. If an idiot drives at speed and causes an accident then what's to be learned, however bad the consequences? Don't blame the road or motorists in general. You can't prevent idiots. Putting cameras or other traffic calming measures in place doesn't slow them down - they're idiots. All the cameras / calming measures do is hamper progress for everyone else. In effect, putting traffic calming measures in place in the light of a crash involving an idiot means road policies are being determined by idiots.

If you do some research into the real situation, the hard facts do seem to be that speed cameras do little or nothing to make roads any safer. (In fact, in some cases accidents have risen in regions where cameras have been installed.) Idiots persist. What that suggests is that speed cameras are a way of being seen to be doing something and keeping emotive lobby groups happy, and they are also a way of raising money, a tax by another name, whatever the money is spent on. Perhaps most importantly, they also criminalize otherwise law-abiding people which in turn undermines overall trust and respect for the police and the law. That's not a good result. Policing only works if the majority of people support the police.

And so no, your editors aren't in favour of speed cameras. And before you wonder, no, we're not mad-keen fast driving motorists and no, we haven't accumulated lots of points on our driving licences. Quite the opposite. In fact, two of the team are cyclists who despise and are very much at risk from speeding motorists. (And don't get us started on moronic drivers with mobile phones clapped to their ears.) No, we're just looking for a sensible way forward, not a knee jerk reaction. And we don't think taxation by stealth is ever right.

If you really want some depressing details, this map created by the BBC shows all the country's fatal accidents. The details are context-less and thus largely meaningless, but that's the nature of news reporting these days.