I read the BBC News website occasionally and, more often than not, find my blood pressure on the increase due to the complete lack of journalism on display in many of their stories.

To illustrate my point, I have chosen the following story on speed cameras in Oxford :

Oxfordshire speeding increase after cameras turned off

The number of drivers speeding past Oxfordshire’s deactivated speed cameras has increased by up to 88%, a road safety partnership claim.

Thames Valley’s Safer Road Partnership monitored drivers on two roads in the county for five days.

The cameras were axed at the end of July after the county council withdrew £600,000 in funding due to budget cuts.

Road safety charity Brake said it was “extremely concerned”. The council said it was too early to draw conclusions.

‘Financial position’

The tests were carried out in Watlington Road, Cowley, and the A44 in Woodstock from Thursday till Monday.

In Cowley, 62 people were clocked speeding, representing a rise of 88%, the partnership revealed.

In Woodstock 110 drivers were caught doing more than the 30mph limit, which is 18% more than the average for 2010.

Although the coalition government ended central funding to pay for the speed cameras, it was the council’s decision not to find funding from elsewhere.

Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said the test had only been completed at two sites out of 72 over five days.

He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “You need a much longer look at the statistics before we can decide whether there is an increase in danger or not.

“Unless the funding from government comes back, I think there is little chance of us being able to fund this, relative to the other priorities we have.”

Those caught speeding during the trial will not receive fines or points.

Insp Paul Winks, from Thames Valley Police, called the results “disappointing”.

He said: “It clearly means switching off the camera has given a green light to a small number of people to break the law.

“The consequence is more death and more death is unacceptable.”

Ellen Booth, campaign officer for Brake, said: “This is people’s lives we are talking about.

“What we would like to see is councils looking at the issue of speed cameras, not only at how effective they are in reducing death and serious injuries, but also how cost effective they are.”

The main thrust there is that speeding has increased “in some cases by 88%” since the cameras were turned off.

The group flogging this fact are Thames Valley’s Safer Road Partnership who are in direct line of the axe due to fall any time soon from the withdrawal of central funding – a vested interest if ever there was one.

The findings?

Well  “In Woodstock 110 drivers were caught doing more than the 30mph limit, which is 18% more than the average for 2010.”

So, 110 drivers were exceeding the limit on an A road in a 5 day period. Nothing said at all about the volume of traffic in that period and nothing said about the number of drivers who were actually observing the limit with no cameras in operation.

We also have a rent-a-quote from the relevant pressure group – BRAKE in this case.

You can almost imagine the various “reporters” having the numbers of the likes of Don Shenker (google him and enjoy the first result for amusement) and BRAKE on speed dial as they are guaranteed to fill a few column inches when given opportunity.

Talk about slack as a bag of knackers (as they say in these parts).

As an aside, I particularly liked this bit :

Insp Paul Winks, from Thames Valley Police, called the results “disappointing”.

He said: “It clearly means switching off the camera has given a green light to a small number of people to break the law.

“The consequence is more death and more death is unacceptable.”

Well, you would be disappointed wouldn’t you. After all, it’s all you ever heard from your last masters in Government when they get caught with their trousers down!

One point of sanity in all this is that the leader of Oxfordshire County Council actually makes a damned good point about the stupidity of such a small sample. The fact that he even had to go and defend this on Radio 4 though is a further example of our bloated public service broadcaster making “news” from shite.

Damned fabians!