Interview in todays paper with Richard Brunstrom, North Wales Police Chief and the leader in the rush to put a speed camera on every corner.
Note the reference to "You buggers". Surely he is not suggesting that a driver doing 32 mph in a 30 is on a par with sexual deviants.
Discuss.
Rhyl Visitor February 6th 2002. Report begins??..
Brunstrom on speeding.
Richard Brunstrom is fond of citing 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill?s views on civil liberty ? that people?s freedoms should only be constrained to prevent them harming others.
?If you choose to damage your body, that really is a matter for yourself. If you choose to damage society then there is a different issue in play.?
?If you choose to damage yourself in a car, society probably has much less interest ? or right to intercede. If you slice sideways into a bus-stop and kill my wife and family , then I take a very different view?
?We have got lots of rock-solid evidence now that speed kills. We know exactly how much speed kills, we know why it kills, we know where it kills. Around 3500 people die every year on Britain?s roads, the equivalent of 10 jumbo jets crashing.
Speed is the major cause in about one third of all road crashes, killing about 1000 every year and injuring 100,000 more. Our society ? including the police ? have tolerated road deaths too readily in the past.?
?We take a great deal of interest in drunk driving but not enough in speeding which is a bigger killer. Now we are re-evaluating our methodology. This is not a hopeless case, we can save lives here. We?ve worked out how?
?In North Wales extra cameras will focus on routes where excessive speed has contributed to the number of road casualties. With the drugs debate, I say perhaps we ought to think about changing the law.
With speeding, I?m saying the law is already there and you buggers won?t comply with it. If you drive like a prat, you have got to expect the police to come looking for you.
Brunstrom on controversy.
Does our Chief Constable enjoy controversy? I wondered? (wrote the reporter)
? I am mischievous?, he acknowledges with a grin. I have to recognise that in myself. I do enjoy controversy, almost for it?s own sake, in a naughty boy sort of way?
As an appointed person, I don?t have to worry about an electorate. I can therefore say the unthinkable in a way a politician is quite rightly unable to do.?
? I think I have a duty to sit here and think about these issues and put them in the public arena to move the debate on and particularly with things like speeding, to say ? Look, I know as your professional senior police officer that I can keep you alive, and it?s my duty to persuade you to change your mind, to make you behave differently, so that more of us are alive in the future. My job is to keep citizens alive?.
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The man is plainly obsessed.
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If the guy is "an appointed person" who doesn't "have to worry about an electorate", then it's high time he was dis-appointed. Why should we pay our taxes to employ him?
HJ
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Quite right on both of Brian and HJ's points, who does this copper think he is? Bush Junior!
We elceted a government to whom he is accountable, we pay taxes to keep him feed and in work.
Speed cameras are just another device for the state to pursue us endlessly, no matter where we are or what we do, they will be someone watching. Privacy and civil liberties used to be the corner stone of British culture, but my town has already some 300 CCTV, they even have one on a country land near my house, apparently people dump cars there and they want to be able to watch them do it!
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Hmmm.... I personally have no problem with speed cameras or CCTV. The only people in my opinion who worry and campaign against these are people who probably are up to mischief or breaking the law anyway. These 'Civil' Liberties groups go too far and are bringing down society. I think cctv is great and in Warrington, near to where I live, since cameras have been installed around the town centre, crime has fallen. Then there are the liberals......
Ziiiiiiiipppppppp...Flame suit on!
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95% of the police Hiarchy live ina different world to the rest of us,enjoying chauffer driven cars with no problems about drinking and driving or losing their job due inadvertingly just breaking the speed limits three times.On my last visit to the UK I had the chance to talk to an assistant chief constable he made Ladas are cool appear normal the man was on another planet ,he could not answer the question"How many officers have you approx at any one on duty.?".
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The man's off his trolley. So if I go at 31 in a 30 zone, I'm likely to 'slice into a bus stop' am I?
All those roads that used to be limited to 40 but are now Gatsoed at 30 used to be scenes of slaughter, did they?
As for those figures on road deaths and injuries, we all know they are as bent as a £2 note!
Why do we put up with this?
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Richard - no doubt crime has fallen, but they always quote figures only for the area covered by cameras. It would be interesting to see the figures for the areas beyond!
As for speed cameras, I think you'll find that most drivers are not against them at accident blackspots (although wouldn't we be better finding out why the spot is so badly engineered?), but so many roads that carried perfectly good 40 or 50 limits have now been reduced and 'Gatso'd' that traffic just can't get a move on.
Even out of town, we're starting to see lower limits and cameras on dual carraigeways where there are no pedestrians!
What we need are fewer stupid/dangerous drivers - this is different to slowing ALL traffic.
Regards,
Andy.
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Andy, I agree, there are many roads by where I live which could have higher limits without compromising safely. However, what needs to be clamped down, is brainless morons who blast through residential areas at 40mph+. I live in a large Village (Culcheth) on the A574, just outside Warrington, and this is a busy road with many pedestrians and 3 schools along this particular stretch of this road. But it is not just stupid, inconsiderate 'boy racers' who come down this road at 40mph plus, it is also mums with kids in the car, the local vicar, salesmen...allsorts of people who seem oblivious to the dangers and do not drive with *restraint* in mind incase the worst was to happen.
Richard
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Andy wrote
Exactly what happened in our village. The residents wanted the 40 limit reduced to 30, to slow the traffic to about 35, but what we got was a 30 plus a Gatso, at virtually the same time.
There was no way that accident statistics could have been collected whilst the 30 limit was in force in order to justify the camera, not that there were many accidents even when it was 40!
BTW, someone put a tyre full of petrol round the camera and slung a match in!
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Alwyn,
It seems to me that Mr Brunstrom might be more concerned about the rights of most folk, as opposed the the rights of a minority. I think he's saying 'do what you want - but don't impose yourself on the rest of us'
Admit it, the most hated motorist, apart from a drunk one, is a speeding one.
As for the sexual connection, I'm not sure that I would have noticed it.
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Steve,
I don't know if you are aware that the study which Brunstrom claims "proved " that speed cameras are effective in reducing accidents was branded as " lying with statistics" by statisticians from Cardiff University.
3 of the 8 areas studied saw inrcreases in fatalities up to 18% but this was not mentioned by police orf politicians. Why?
Many areas signed up to the hypothecation scheme - where police keep some of the fines revenue - have seen big increase in fatalities since rigorous enforcement of limits was applied.
Lincolnshire has seen a 16% increase in deaths, Essex - one of the areas in the famous but flawed study of speed cameras - has seen an increase of 43% in dead bodies and Suffolk, which clamped down on speed limit offences in year 2000 has seen an increase of 74% in fatalities.
Essex police still say camera are effective because the number of serious injuries has decreased. Of course this could simply be because some of them are dead instead of injured.
As for the term "@!#$", the literal meaning is a sodomite. Do you think it appropriate that a Chief Constable should be using this term to a female reporter?
Do you feel it is acceptable for a Chief Constable to admit that he enjoys controversy, much a naughty boy would?
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Clearly the world is over-populated by at least one.
In case I go back with my brother to Wales, what line should we keep south of?
I wonder what this b****r is doing for Welsh tourism.
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Tomo,
YOu are absolutely right about tourism. "Come to North Wales and lose your licence for putting no-one at risk"
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Pity he can't find time to go looking as well for the ***holes who burglarized my daughter.
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Growler makes a good point. If police prosecuted all crime we would have less cause to moan. The point is that the police have given up on anything that is difficult and might ruin their statistics, might be time consumimg as they 'don't have the resouces', or dangerous as the little darlings might get hurt and sue their boss. Policing speed is easy, high profile, generates cash and is safe as UK motorists are a docile lot who just pay up.
As I have said before if only 20% of those charged with speeding per year elected to got to court the entire legal system, would collapse. We lack the will and so we are exploited...
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If the police are short of resources then they would do well to persuade the Chancellor to:
Abolish VED so that they do not have to spend time manning checkpoints
Reduce tobacco and alcohol duties so that they do not have to chase smugglers
Reduce fuel tax so that they do not have to seek out diesel fiddlers
I am sure that list can easily be expanded
Who was it that mentioned joined-up government?
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Good points, but VED is good as in many cases it is likely that a car without VED does not have insurance cover. Something I support would be some form of insurance disc, that could be introduced regardless of whether VED was abolished or not. I read recently that up to 1 in 20 drivers in not insured, which is disgraceful, although I feel sorry for some people with crazy insurance premiums.
Regarding tobacco, I don't mind high taxes on this as I personally do not smoke, but it really does wonders for Mr Brown and the economy. If people want to smoke themselves to death then it is their own choice and I partly think that the high price of fags may reduce some peoples 'fag consumption', which can only be a good thing for peoples health. By all means reduce tax on alcohol, as I do enjoy a pint or two!
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Richard
I don't smoke and drink very little, so I have no axe to grind there.
The only point that I was making was that if you look at tax and enforcement as a whole then you may find that a high proportion of revenues generated by high taxes are being absorbed by protecting those revenues, although the income and expenditure are in different departments, or even different levels of government.
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I see your point. What *really* is needed, and what I am sure most people want to see, is more money from say speed camera fines etc. being channelled into putting more police on the streets. I always find it quite reassuring when for example I am shopping in a city centre and there are uniformed police about. It is one of the best crime deterrants about! I sometimes find it strange that as many police forces are allowed to keep their revenue from fines they collect, they always are able to justify why bobbies are being taken off the beat!
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"As for the term "@!#$", the literal meaning is a sodomite. Do you think it appropriate that a Chief Constable should be using this term to a female reporter?"
Alwyn - Far be it from me to appear to agree with Mr "Brainstorm" or, particularly, to disagree with you, but I suspect that even a chief constable would not use the offending word in the sense of sexual deviancy, but rather as so many of us do (even my Mother!) as a term of exasperation, annoyance or disparagement, eg "playing silly buggers".
Semantics done with, I fully agree with the spirit of most of the preceding posts, feeling in particular that Mr B, like so many people prominent in public life, is far too prone to quoting statistics (as in "lies, damned lies, and statistics" [Mark Twain]) with the end result that he almost invariably "situates the appreciation" rather than "appreciates the situation".
I know that Mr B holds a particularly position within ACPO but, the resultant effect is that he has, apparently and regrettably, joined the ranks of "one track" chief constables who are not seen as enjoying the confidence of their community as a whole. Errant motorists are prosecuted are pursued with the whole vigour of the law, because it's so easy, whilst so many other wrongdoers aren't pursued at all, because it's harder, whilst all their victims receive, if they are lucky, is the offer of counselling .....
Ronnie
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Alwyn,
As you have probably noticed, I do not agree with the mindless "speed kills" theme, only inappropriate speed, and I tend to believe that the cause of accidents is more to poor observation i.e. not looking where you are going.
I saw a classic example of this 15 minutes ago where, in a straight London one-way street, in daylight and the dry conditions, one car pulled out of a parking place straight in front of another which was travelling at a reasonable speed and would have been visible for 100 yards. Result: 2 dents. Lucky it was not a cycle or motorcycle else the consequences would have been worse.
If people cannot cope with that sort of manoevre in those circumstances then there is no hope for them at all on the open road.
Why, oh why do road users not use their eyes?
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Brian wrote:
>
> Why, oh why do road users not use their eyes?
Brian
Perhaps they do, but how good are they. I'm constantly amazed by people who wait in a side turning until I'm almost on top of them - and then pull out. It's almost as though they need to see another vehicle up close in order to "calibrate" things.
Who is it, in the backroom, who says "why do we bother"?
Ian
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I'm not often an advocate of US style politics, but let us compare the population numbers policed by the unelected Mr Brunstrom and the elected police chiefs of three counties in Florida,
North Wales~ 657,000
Orange County FL (896,344) basically Orlando and surroundings
Brevard County FL (476.230) incl Kennedy Space Center
Seminole County FL (365,196) up to the NE of Orlando
Maybe Randolph Lee could comment??
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