Why would you want to rely on your GPS, Thommo?
Suggest you rely on your speedo and stick to the limit.
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Sean,
Good question and let me explain. The cameras are ONLY placed at accident black spots, that is, very dangerous parts of the road, so my GPS alerts me to this fact and I am extra careful.
Easy...
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A lot of people might take the view that roadworks are accident blackspots! They are for the people working in them that's for sure!
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If we're not careful this will turn in to a speed camera thread but anyway...
I agree roadworks can be inherently dangerous but as always the problem is approriate speed rather than a set level of speed.
I have been through these roadworks on many occasions lately and due to the timing they have either been jammed in which case I passed through at walking pace or empty (4am in the morning) in which case 50mph is too slow.
In any case the most dangerous things in the road works are the dumper trucks which pull straight out in to moving traffic on the principle that they are a hell of a lot bigger than you, but the Police don't get a slice of dangerous driving fines so that irrelevant.
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Hear Hear! Mr Armitage Shanks sir!
Be interesting to see the reactions of the " I'm just so skilled, and why should road works speed limits apply to ME!" brigade if they had traffic zapping past at 40/50 mph 15 feet behind *their* desks.
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Agreed - did the A2/M2 run last weekend and there was quite a long stretch of roadworks around the Medway Bridge.
Kept to the 50mph limit but found myself being overtaken by all and sundry ! The only places at which the limit was observed were adjacent to the cameras and I certainly wouldn't fancy working so close to the traffic with just a line of plastic cones to protect me.
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On the A2/M2, VM?
If I was working there on the roads - I'd be more concerned that the continental truck drivers knew which lane was coned off!
It's obviously sensible to have limits down to 40/50 through these but there is no limit that is totally safe to work next to.
After all, many of these accidents around hard shoulders and roadworks involves people falling asleep.
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Living in the middle of these roadworks (MK/J14) as I do there has been quite a bit of local news coverage on this recently. 2,000+(?) tickets issued last month alone for exceeding the 50 limit. Cameras a plenty ? everywhere (side of road, middle of road, atop of bridges). And quite right too. I mean, if you can't/won't take the time, expect to pay the fine...
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What this probably means is that they'll extend the life of the roadworks to get more wonga, sorry achieve more safety. Why give up on a good thing...
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Well, if speeders help pay for the roadworks then that's great for the rest of us. Thanks chaps.
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Some hope. The wonga from the cameras goes to pay the wages of those who operate the system and to buy... more cameras. They'll get you sooner or later and you know the definition of a conservative, a liberal who'se just been mugged...
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I have no doubt they'll get me eventually--with any luck I have at least forty years of driving ahead of me. But they'll get me because I make a driving error, not because I deliberately aim to break the limit (which is of course also a driving error of a sort). I see cameras as a positive thing; an incentive to sharpen up and stay alert. If they get me then I should have been paying more attention to the hazards: what else have I missed besides the posted speed limit? In the mean time I'll be sticking to the limit where safe to do so as far as is possible.
This will no doubt go to another thread, but if the revenue raised doesn't actually benefit "them," (whoever they are) or go into the general taxation pot, why do you persist in calling it a tax? For reasons of spin, I suspect.
Chris
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I am sure soon cameras will become cheap enough to be on every road and every traffic light.
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LOVE the idea that someone can decide "50mph is too slow".
Not.
Funny, isn't it - it's the people that think that somehow the limits should not apply to them, who are the ones who label fines as "tax".
Are you "taxed" for not having VED? or not having TV licence? Or illegal parking?
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Trev,
4am Monday morning. Two lanes both empty, only about two other cars in sight. No one working in roadworks. Overhead lights on (Buckinghamshire section, Northamptonshire too cheap to pay for them).
Yep I say 50mph is too slow. And your point is?
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Not unknown for hazards to be in the active lanes in road works even when no workers present, or should I say you think there were no workers present. For true example see (pun unintended) a displaced road works sign edge on to traffic. Reckon you can avoid that in unlit conditions at 70mph?
I guess the family of the individual concerned wish he'd slowed down.
Think about it!
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Fair point but what is the chance of that! I mean, he could have been doing any speed between 30 and 50 and not seen that. What if I have a blow out at 70mph and I lose control, I may have been able to retain control if I had been driving at 40mph. So let's make the limit 40mph. It's all a matter of probability.
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If we cut away the smokescreen/sales pitch about safety, speed camera detectors are just a means of reducing the risk of being detected, when flouting speed limits. Its about time they were made illegal. Moving the cameras around is fine by me, and a response probably to the increasing use of these detectors. If you don't like speed limits, elect a party that will remove them.
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And if we cut away the smokescreen/sales pitch about 's************s' plus all the doctored statistics to show they work then they are just revenue raisers n'est pas?
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You spin your way ChrisR and I'll spin my way. Everyone else is a tourist, your a traveller eh?
Yes you will get caught and it will probably be a minor lapse as you say and no one will have been in any danger at all and you will get a fine and points on your licence and if you are prepared to suck that up as a lesson then good on you. I will also no doubt get caught despite my electornic devices but I will scream blue murder and ask why the police who I pay for are prepared to persecute me for what I consider to be a minor offence whilst they do not even investigate burglaries these days, you just get a crime number over the 'phone, and I will make the point that I pay the police's salary and yes I damn well do demand the right to tell them what their priorities should be and I am not alone.
A state in Canada has removed all speed cameras because it has destroyed the relationship between the police and the public and in the absence of public support for the police you need to create a police state to maintain law and order.
Finally, I don't think I ever called it a tax and I'm not sure that its important but one definition of a tax is a payment made to an arm of Governmnet, which this is.
And to DD, yep this has turned in to a speed camera thread, you might want to move it over.
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Well said Thommo, I agree 100%. You missed a bit though about your insurance costs increasing because of it!
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Finally, I don't think I ever called it a tax
No but you did say they might increase the length of time the roadworks were there to raise more "wonga." But what would they do that for given the cost to the country of congestion, much of it caused by roadworks? Isn't this exactly the reason why the money from fines raised by cameras has to go to road safety schemes, so it can't be exploited? You can disagree about what constitutes a road safety scheme but I can't see that any reasonable person could object to the principle.
Chris
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I'm not sure how I got myself in to this as I was only making a statement about the cameras on the M1 not being in the GPS database, so one more sally and then I must do some work. By the way the crack about extending the roadworks was a joke...
This ground has been gone over endlesly on this board and others.
NO ONE objects to real safety related speed cameras, if they were all located outside schools/OAP homes/genuine accident black spots then so be it and if you get caught then you get the book thrown at you but they are NOT and we ALL know it.
Generally you can't speed past a school anyway because its in a highly congested urban area. Only a lunatic would try it and if that lunatic was caught then whoopee but one lunatic a week is not major wonga and those cameras cost. So they have sited the cameras for maximum wonga raising ability.
If your objective is to reduce car speed why hide a camera behind a bridge support. If the cameras are only sited at known accident black spots how come NEW roads open with cameras in place? Why have roads that have been a 60 limit since limits were introduced now been changed to a 40 limit even though there has been no change in the level of accidents?
You may be pursuing your anti-car agenda and you may not wish to admit it in public but you must know this.
Finally, why have the police been so enthusiatic to take this on and so keen to push the boundaries of what can be called 'safety' as it is clearly destroying their relationship with the middle classes who frankly were/are the only group prepared to give them any support at all these days? I don't know. I suspect that there are plans in the future to upgrade these cameras to number plate recongition devices as well as speed cameras and then you have... a police state. Maybe thats the secret dream of every policeman.
Would I vote for a party that vowed to remove them, you bet cha! Does that party exist? No, so much for democracy.
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> By the way the crack about extending the roadworks was a joke...
The usual excuse after the event from people who realise they've said something dumb and regret it.
But anyway, I'm very far from anti-car, Thommo. It's an unsustainable extreme position and I doubt there are actually many people who hold it; probably in the hundreds rather than the thousands. However I do see cars as just one form of transport among many, all of which have their advantages and disadvantages in different situations. If you're planning on starting that political party you mention (this is a democracy and nobody is stopping you after all) you would do well not to alienate potential voters by immediately assuming they are attacking your agenda when in fact they just don't take such a "pure" approach. To attack me on this basis is spin of the most unproductive sort. In fact it could be that "your" pro-car lobby is actually assisting an anti-car lobby by using these tactics; I'm certainly less likely to vote for your "policies" now I've seen your colours, yet what I'd like to see is a sustainable and fair roads policy and I'm quite sure you do too.
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"I suspect that there are plans in the future to upgrade these cameras to number plate recongition devices as well as speed cameras and then you have... a police state."
YES please.
Like in Geneva (where I worked for a year).
As a foreigner, you are required to carry your passport as a substitute for Swiss ID card.
Problem? What problem?
What is this irrational fear of tactics against law-breakers?
So, according to this "logic", as I welcome ANPR, I am "anti-car"?. Rubbish. I am anti-criminal.
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Chris,
1. If I think that I have said something stupid and an apology is necessary then I say I have said something stupid and I apologise. If I say it was a joke then it was a joke. Hopefully we are clear on this point now.
2. There are hundreds of thousands of people who share my views if not millions, you know it and I know it, why deny it? Also, there are likely to be more people who share my views than yours as your views can only (reasonably) be shared by the urban elite. If you are a farm labourer in Norfolk there is no alternative to the car and if you are priced off the road, as this government seem to be seeking to do then likley you will no longer have a job. Simple as that.
3. I think you must have had some media training from Alastair Campbell as you have completely ignored what I wrote, invented something you seem to imply that I wrote and then sought to rubbish it. You witter on about me forming a political party and you not voting for it. What? It is of course your right to witter on but if you want a debate you have to respond to my points, you can read them again but the two key ones were:
a) siteing of cameras
b)alienation of the public from the police and the consequences thereof
Trev,
How about a police state like Iran? You see the trouble with police states is that you don't know how they'll turn out until your there and then its a bit too late, plus history has lots of examples of powerful men sitting back whilst the machinery of a police state is put in place (with all good intentions) and then taking over the reins of power to use them for their own ends. To quote the Americnas the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Off now, back tomorrow.
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I have to agree with Thommo,
What we had was a free country.
I'm not sure what were going to end up with, but it wont be free for the average motorist thats for sure.
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,i>"There are hundreds of thousands of people who share my views if not millions, you know it and I know it, why deny it?"
Enough to form a political party then? Off you go. Lead away.
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Thommo
2. There are hundreds of thousands of people who share my views if not millions, you know it and I know it, why deny it?
I didn't deny it. I said the extreme ANTI-car view was unsustainable and held only by a few hundred. Do keep up. Then again, maybe you thought I was joking...
more people who share my views than yours as your views can only (reasonably) be shared by the urban elite.
Firstly, you've shown no sign of actually knowing what my views are. But actually I'm a country bumpkin born and bred who happens to have landed up (on purpose) within five minutes walk of a rural commuter line railway station with a regular, reliable train service to the nearest city. I need a car or bicycle for other journeys though. In fact the car does 12K a year even without a commute, and using it only very occasionally for work; that's how much we need it.
>> 3. I think you must have had some media training
I am very, very flattered...but no.
To quote the Americnas the price of freedom is eternal >>vigilance.
Plus a bill of rights and a written constitution. I absolutely agree with you about the ways in which police states develop, by the way and have been involved in successful civil disobedience protests myself over many years. I have the court orders and injuries to prove it in fact. But even so I don't think we're anywhere near a police state yet. And given that something has to be done about the traffic/pollution situation, what do you suggest as an alternative to the policies we have in place?
Chris
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Chris,
You clearly have no intention of responding to the points I made so further discussion is pointless.
One last thing, you live within 5 minutes walk of a railway station and commute in to a city. Probably to a well paid white collar job. This does not make you a country bumpkin. This makes you a tourist. Try explaining your views to a guy who lives near you in a village with no rail/bus connections and who works on a farm.
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Oh, forgot, suggesting you had media training from Alastair Campbell (let me repeat just so you get the point Alastair Campbell) wasn't a compliment you know, try to keep up...
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Guys, guys... chill Winston! A fascinating dialogue has ensued during the past 24-hours but in a nutshell ? have those pesky cameras moved any overnight?
We need to know...
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From a personal point of view, the 50mph limit thro roadworks is the one limit I stick to rigidly - why?
1/ Its the most heavily enforced part of a motorway
2/ I read of a worker, late at night, who got sucked out of the roadworks zone by the wake of a lorry passing at 65mph onto the carriageway and was run over by following traffic.
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Thommo
I would be interested in hearing your experiences of living in Iran on which you base your comparison.
I would be interested in hearing your driving experiences in that state in Canada.
I would also be interested how the 'Americans' could say 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilence'. Was that what one American said or? There are many millions of Americans. Surely they didn't all say that to you?
While I don't have any problem with your views I cannot understand why you cannot limit your arguments to things you know about.
If you do have these experiences I apologise for any offence caused.
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Gen,
I did say I would leave this thread alone and after this I will, promise, but your post is just so stupid I could not resist replying.
No I have not lived in Iran. I did visit frequently at one point in my life but that was before the Shah fell. So what? I watch the news, I read papers and books and I have read the Amnesty report on human right abuses in Iran. Pick a country you have never been to and decide whether you know nothing about it.
No I have never driven in the state of Canada that removed its speed cameras (unless it was Alberta). So what. I did not install, remove or give the reason for the removal the cameras in that state, they did that themselves and then reported it on the news. Plus I discussed it with some Canadian friends of mine. But wait! I have never been there maybe the state does not exist, maybe Canada does not exist. Maybe it's all just a big conspiracy theory.
The actual quote is 'Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom', by Raymonde Uy if you must know. Much quoted in books/newspapers and debated in many medias, plus there is an annual US essay competition based on the quote. But no it can’t be I've never met Raymonde Uy and who are all these school kids? I've never met them either. Conspiracy!
So basically your position is if I have not been there/drove there/met the person who said it then I don’t know about it. You are a moron (no offence).
Last word, promise.
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Yep Ricky, they moved again. They've got them on sort of little trailers and each one has its own (quite large) generator as well.
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Thommo
I think you'll find I've already said I'm broadly in agreement with you on the issue of road transport. We disagree on whether or not we should stick to the speed limit and whether cameras are a good way of making people do that. I also think that the tabloid press is a more significant force in undermining confidence in the police than speed cameras. But that's an area for debate elsewhere.
However you do insist on not reading what I've written. Here's yet another example:
One last thing, you live within 5 minutes walk of a railway station and commute in to a city. Probably to a well paid white collar job.
Leaving aside the fact that most well-paid white collar workers are also motorists, citizens, and taxpayers, even if they commute by train, you'll find that at no point did I say I commute to a city. I said that I live within five minutes' walk of a commuter line railway station. As it happens I run a small business. I don't think anyone would call it well paid and as for white collar, well I haven't worn one of those for twenty years. You really should drop these prejudices. People do not fit the boxes you seem to want to put them in: I like my car, I use my car, I don't want to give up my car, but I don't think that the car is the best form of transport for every occasion, so I don't use it for every journey. How unreasonable is that?
As for the M1 cameras: keep to the limit where safe and you'll be fine. Otherwise, it's your choice and your problem.
Chris
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Since you two are broadly in agreement and are pretty much arguing semantics, and since you have both set out your point of view, I'd say that it was time to calm down ?
Pretty please.
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Thommo
So in fact you can tell us nothing about (motoring) law or practice in Iran? How is speeding dealt with in Iran? We are none the wiser.
And you can tell us nothing about where the speed cameras were located and the roads and the consequences in that state in Canada? Again none the wiser.
And as to your quote that 'Americans' say. In fact an American called Raymonde Uye said it, and it is hotly debated suggesting it is not something all 'Americans' would say or support. I hope in the future you will have more confidence to be able to have your own opinions, and not hide behind others (the 'Americans').
I take no offence at you calling me a moron since you have as little knowledge of this as the other things you wrote on.
My personal opinion is that speed cameras are a good idea, though the danger is of alienating people and putting them as traps to catch people out (as opposed to stopping speeding and safety problems). I think roadworks are an area a sensible driver would slow down and speed cameras are justifiable.
Sadly you will not post again, so I will not know if you have a personal opinion from personal experience or merely rely on the opinions of 'the Americans', Amnesty International and journalists you do not know.
PS There was a time that people would defend drink driving but you rarely see that anymore. I wonder if in 20 years there will be noone defending (excessive) speeding...
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Fine.
This thread will move to the Speed Camera Thread in a little while.
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I've got to add this,lads.
What we regularly see in roadworks, with little trailers to pull them around and accompanied by big generators are NOT CAMERAS at all.
They are the floodlights used by the work crews to let them work at night.
Wouldn't it be funny if we had gone through all this verbage to find out the root cause was nothing more than floodlamps, surprisingly not listed by GPS camera trackers?
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Hilarious. Do you think this should be moved to the "Floodlight Thread" or the "Law Breakers' Guilty Paranoia Thread"?
Chris
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