Road deaths up 17% in February

On France's roads last month 253 people died  in traffic accidents. A number of factors have been called into account: weather; increase in cycling; destruction of speed cameras; ignoring the 80kph limit etc.
Deaths were also up 3.7% in January and some commentators have suggested a general laxity in observing what are elsewhere considered as reasonable security measures. Many speed cameras were covered up, preventing them from taking pictures, but still recording speeds, giving a 268% increase in infractions.
The very fine weather in February may have led to increase in traffic, especially motorbikes and cyclists (of whom 18 met their death).
A final suggestion regarding motorists' disregard of road safety is the need to redeploy traffic police to controlling demonstrations rather than controlling traffic.

Speed cameras do not reduce deaths

There are more and more "radars" - speed cameras - on French roads and in 2016 yielded 920 million euros to the treasury. But the number of road deaths rose, for the third year in a row, up 2.6% to nearly 3500.
Inevitably this re-ignites the debate that the dreaded radars are only there to milk the motorist and make no contribution to road safety. But one does not know how many more deaths there would be without them. As most accidents are attributed to alcohol or speeding perhaps fewer cameras and more patrols by police and gendarmes would be more effective (increasing fines could finance the extra "moto-flics").
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