Read the given case and answer the questions given at the end.
'More than half of car drivers are complying with 30mph speed limits for the first time, according to official figures, which suggest that speed cameras have altered drivers' behavior.The proportion of drivers who break the limit in built-up areas fell from 72 per cent in 1996 to 49 per cent last year.The improvement in compliance appears to have contributed to a sharp fall in pedestrian deaths, down by a third in the past decade, from 997 in 1996 to 671 in 2005.The Department for Transport monitored the speeds of different types of vehicles in free-flowing conditions on several types of roads.The measurements were taken well away from speed camera sites to ensure that the results were not distorted by drivers slowing down briefly. The proportion of drivers in a 30 mph area travelling fasterthan 35 mph, the lowest speed at which cameras are triggered, has halved from 37 per cent in 1996 to 19 per cent last year.However, the proportion travelling at more than 10mph above the 70mph limit on motorways has fallen only slightly over the same period, from 19 per cent to 17 per cent.''Paul Watters, the AA's head of roads policy, said that the big increase in speed camera fines, from 260,000 in 1996 to two million in 2004, had made drivers pay more attention to the limit. More than a million drivers have six or more penalty points on their licenses and are only one conviction away from an automatic six-month ban, according to a survey last week.Mr. Watters said that satellite navigation systems which inform drivers of the limit on the road they are on may also have played a part in improving compliance.''The RAC Foundation said that a greater police presence was needed on the roads to deter a hard core of car drivers and motorcyclists who obeyed the limit only when they spotted cameras. Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed anti-speed camera campaign, said that the fall in pedestrian deaths was partly the result of a 16 per cent decline in walking."It's not exceeding the speed limit that causes the crash – it's driving like a nutter," he said. "Just because people are driving more slowly on some types of road does not mean those roads are safer."'
(Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent The Times, 6 April 2007)
a. The passage discusses speed cameras and their impacts on drivers' behavior. Does the writer in the passage think that speed cameras help in reducing road accidents and killing of pedestrians?
b. Road accidents and killing of the pedestrians are common in Nepalese contexts as well. In your opinion, what are the causes of road accidents? Can we minimize such accidents setting up speed cameras in the street? Discuss.
