It has but without the link to the article ;o)
don't know how to and my computer skills (if you can call them that) are such that i'm not likely to either.......... furthermore i don't know what symbol is meant to represent a big cheesy grin, so you'll have to make do with this.......:-))
Edited by Westpig on 11/11/2007 at 15:20
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I consider speeding to be one of a number of poor driving habits people acquire. But there are others which are just as bad, including aggresive driving, tailgating, using mobile phones, gross lack of attention, etc.
I have to have annual training top-up for my job. If I don't, I can be fined or thrown out of the professional body. But there is no compulsion to ensure that every driver receives some top-up training throughout their driving careers. It doesn't have to be a retest - perhaps some form of accompanied drive.
Edited by Marlot on 11/11/2007 at 19:02
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Let's compare road traffic with other forms of transport. Are plane crashes caused by excessive speed? Hardly ever, I would have thought. How is safety in the air maintained? 1. By highly trained, vigilant air traffic controllers (read "traffic police"); 2. Highly trained, vigilant, professional pilots; 3. regular and stringent maintenance of the "vehicle" (read "MoT test"); 4. sophisticated manual and electronic systems to assist in takeoff and landing and monitoring of speed, position etc. during flight ("cruise control system with automatic distance monitoring"); 5. zero tolerance of alcohol and drugs with frequent testing and stiff penalties for offenders. 6. Absence of any kind of road rage.
Take element 1. away from the above and it starts to fall apart.
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Let's compare road traffic with other forms of transport. Are plane crashes caused by excessive speed? Hardly ever I would have thought.>>
That's a good selective example to chose.
But:
Are rail disasters ever caused by excessive speed? When we hear that the driver had ignored a speed restriction sign, don't we all instinctively lay the blame at his door? Do we hear people saying "It's not speed that kills. he's got to be allowed to make his own judgement."?
Shipping accidents? Cycling?
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The railways are also a selective example - the system includes a large number of failsafes to help avoid accidents - interlocks and the like.
What both railways and air flying have in common is:
Proper investigations as the the cause of an accident
Root cause analysis, working out the underlying issues
Training for the operators (drivers)
Fixing of any infrastructure issues
I would contend that these are largely broken on the road.
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>When we hear that the driver had ignored a speed restriction sign don't we all instinctively lay the blame at his door?
Of course, but just in the same way as we would if we heard that he'd been reading a newspaper, texting on his mobile, had a large part of his windscreen obscured by a sat nav, was reaching down to pick up his pen or whatever and had his eye off the road/rails for 7-8 seconds, or putting on her lipstick. I've seen drivers doing all of the above in the last couple of weeks.
And that doesn't include the people I wouldn't know about who are drunk/drugged/have no licence etc.
I'm not saying that excessive speed is safe. I am saying that its one of a number of causes and we have a huge flaw in our system because we don't do some form of ongoing training.
Edited by Marlot on 12/11/2007 at 09:12
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I found the article difficult to take in because of it's length and the quantity of statistics quoted. A graphical representation with comments at relevant dates added would have helped greatly.
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L\'escargot.
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I read this on Saturday, little new though it sums it up quite well, reckon it needs someone in authourity, perhaps an opposition politico to suggest, perhaps in the house, that the "Speed kills" campaign has actually cost lives.
However this article only mentioned one of the three key reasons why SCameras have been such a failure:
1/ It alluded to drivers concentrating on speed to the exclusion of all else.
2/ It failed to mention the benefits of promoting individual responsibility in society which is contrary to the message that SCamera gets across - how many people have been doing 30 through a camered 30 limit or 70 on an m/way in totally inappropriate circumstances (icy roads, fog, kids around etc) and justified it by the fact the they were not exceeding an arbitary limit.
3/ It failed to mention that congestion is a causal factor in MORE accidents than speed and that SCamera driven reductions in average speeds INCREASE congestion. Doesnt need much common sense does it?
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Possibly we need a campaign to highlight the fact that speed limits represent a legal maximum speed for a road and that lower speeds may be required in many circumstances.
I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the aftermath of road collisions and my experience from post-accident discussions with drivers is that many (most?) drivers significantly over-estimate their own abilities and those of their car (in terms of stopping distance, cornering capability et al). Allowing drivers to make individual judgements about the most appropriate maximum speed for a road would result in death and injury on a massive scale.
The two accident scenarios that present, on average, with the most severe injuries are single-vehicle accidents (in which the vehicle has typically left the road at a curve or junction and impacted with a tree or road furniture) and head-on collisions caused by poorly judged overtaking.
Severity of injury rises disproportionately with speed because energy of impact rises as the square of the speed. To put it crudely, crashing at twice the speed causes a four-fold increase in the severity of injury.
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Having read the article the worrying thing that came out of it for me was the extent to which the govt. were prepared to lie to protect their position and justify their policies.
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"justified it by the fact the they were not exceeding an arbitary limit."
Agree with you entirely - that's a statistic you never see, although IIRC, more than half of all road accidents occur below 30mph.
Speed is easy to measure, though, and possibly the only aspect of road behaviour that can be recorded remotely and whose results are difficult to dispute (I know - I've tried!). If an automatic blood-alcohol or hand-held phone detector were available, they'd be using that too, although IMHO all that is really required is an 'attitude to other road users' detector...
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This article suggests that the Telegraph's analysis is more than a little dubious.
I predict that replies to this post may well use the words "Guardian" "tree" and "hugger" in close proximity........
The point about Top Gear is well made.
www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2210070,00...l
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"The point about Top Gear is well made"
Sad but true. I've always thought that it played straight into the hands of the opposition. He does seem have a sense of humour failure over Clarkson's piece, though.
One can only hope that Monbiot's Clio will one day go fast enough to attract Mr Brunstrom's attention...
Edited by J Bonington Jagworth on 14/11/2007 at 10:25
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Monbiot was criticised in the DT piece so naturally will fight back, even tree huggers (damn, fell for it!) are afflicted by human nature.
However the piece of evidence that is too often over looked by both sides of the argument is congestion. Figures suggest that congestion is a causal factor in more accidents than speed and that speed camera induced reductions in average speeds only serve to increase congestion and thus increase accident rates by a greater margin than the corresponding reduction in speed reduces them.
I.e. the overall effect of speed enforcement is negative.
Increased accident rates.
Longer journey times.
Increased C02.
Motorists feeling penalised and unempowered.
The crooks (no insurance, drugged etc) getting away with it.
Edited by cheddar on 14/11/2007 at 12:48
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Monbiot has a serious sense of humour deficit. And much of his article is very childish and emotional.
He says:
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His [Paul Smith's] central claim is as follows: "We simply don't believe that a significant proportion of accidents are caused by exceeding the speed limit." If he cannot demonstrate that this is true, his entire case collapses."
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Official figures support the claim.
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I'm not taking sides on this (I await the thud of an NIP on my doormat from a recent camera flash) but which figures are you referring to Leif?
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which figures are you referring to Leif?
Official government stats I looked at online a few years back. Sorry I have no link, but a Google on KSI should find something useful. I think they are collated from police RTI reports. Not 100% reliable (can't be 100% sure what speed a car was doing), but the best there is.
also distinguish between "excessive speed" and "exceeding the posted speed limit". Excessive speed can of course be less than the posted limit. Or more.
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If Official Stats support his claim why isn't Mr Smith, who is supposed to be clued up on such things, throwing them back at anyone who questions his stance?
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The claims made about the role of speed in accidents is misrepresented by the SS and other zealots. See www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme5...6 In this analysis, speed is a factor is more than 50% of fatal accidents to those under 39 yoa, whilst for those under 25, speed was a factor in between 65% and 75% of accident. See para 3 and figure 3.2.
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The claims made about the role of speed in accidents is misrepresented by the SS and other zealots.
It is best not to insult those whose opinion does not agree with your own. Not everyone who questions speed cameras effectiveness is a "speed addict" or even a "petrol head" (a term used in a derogatory sense by Monbiot).
I will look at the link you give when I get home from work.
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One of the interesting stats in the report is that
"It is estimated that there were 565 fatally-injured drivers and passengers of all ages
not wearing a seat belt in 2005. If they had all been wearing one, about 370 of these
people would be alive today."
That's out of a total of 1663 drivers and passengers killed.
Thus, it looks like the most effective way of reducing the fatalities is to persuade people to do what has been urged on them by campaign and law for, what, 24 years?
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I can find no reason to refrain from calling the zealots such. Nothing they have produced has been verified, and remains highly speculative, personal opinion.
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I can find no reason to refrain from calling the zealots such. Nothing they have produced has been verified and remains highly speculative personal opinion.
I can see some justification for calling Safe Speed a zealot since he clearly argues to prove his belief. But to my eyes sites such as Brake are just as blinkered. But you seem to be applying the term zealot to anyone who questions government spin.
And you are wrong that nothing on the Safe Speed site has been verified. For example, they claim that a small percentage of accidents are caused by excessive speed, and less than half of those are caused by speeds in excess of the posted limit. Although I could not find national stats, I was able to find on goverment sites statistics for several UK regions which roughly matched the Safe Speed values. And Safe Speed give reference. About 1 year ago I read in the Sunday Times an article by a 'road safety' campaigner stating that 1/3 of accidents are due to speeding. That is a clear lie but it is often repeated, though less so now, presumably because the lie was pointed out.
Something I have noticed is that sites such as Safe Speed have some good information about safe driving, and they promote the IAM, advanced driving books etc. The tone is moderate and informative (even if you disagree with it). Many of the anti-speeding brigade use personal abuse (witness Monbiot), and the sites are rather childish and simplistic in their approach to road safety. "Oh ho, slow down or you'll kill the little child in the road" is the summary.
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The stats19 data shows around 3-5% of all injury accidents have excessive speed as a contributory factor. A large group of these include joy riders and other criminals. The higher proportion of fatals with excessive speed also has a large group of these and also includes those on drugs or drunk. Many who die in these aren't wearing seat belts! The dft's own recently released data shows that injury accidents for those over 25 with excess speed as a causation factor is a massive 1 in 50. Yup. 2% For younger people the proportion is higher as they are less experienced and therefore less able to understand what a safe speed for the conditions is. A larger group is the 'inappropriate speed' ie under the limit but too fast for the conditions. This is an education failure and is on the increase. The 'excessive speed' group has stayed the same as the original police force (Avon & Somerset) to publish these figures many years ago found the same 3-5%.
The safespeed founder was asked by Accident Analysis & Prevention to submit an article. I think it is still in the process of being written.
The fundamental issue of the safespeed argument is that observation and anticipation generate a bigger safety net than any amount of blindly lowering limits everywhere. 1 second's inattention at 30 mph is roughly the equivalent of travelling at 8mph faster. Attention, observation and anticipation do far more to encourage safe driving than merely sticking to limits with no idea why. Slowing drivers down beyond a sensible point leads to more inattention which is why in 20 mph zones the injury rate is higher than in 30mph zones. Again this statistic is buried in the DFT's own data along with data which shows gatsos on motorways significantly increase the accident rate in roadworks compared to either specs or nothing. Doing nothing is in fact safer than installing a gatso or using specs.
Cameras do not save lives. The dft's own estimate of the number of people saved by cameras has been further slashed to less than a 100 people per year. This is with 6000 cameras. 6000 extra traffic police and I bet you'd see road deaths halve or more. The illegal, drunk, drugged and generally moronic drivers could be hounded from the roads much more successfully rather than relying on a box by the road to take a picture of the offence.
teabelly
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Quotes from teabelly:
The stats19 data shows around 3-5% of all injury accidents have excessive speed as a contributory factor.
Slowing drivers down beyond a sensible point leads to more inattention which is why in 20 mph zones the injury rate is higher than in 30mph zones.
I would have thought it more like likely that 20mph zones have the lower limit because they are more dangerous i.e. have more hazards, and in my experience drivers do not observe the 20 mph limit. The fact that they are rarely if ever enforced is significant.
Of course one way to prove that is to get statistics before and after imposition of a 20mph limit, though even there extra effects come into play/
Cameras do not save lives.
I suspect a few people would argue with that. Do you really mean that a camera placed next to a black spot where accidents due to speeding regularly occur will not help?
Many people might question the effectiveness of the blanket use of cameras often with dubious justification.
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>>I would have thought it more like likely that 20mph zones have the lower limit because they are more dangerous i.e. have more hazards, and in my experience drivers do not observe the 20 mph limit.
Most of the 20 mph limits are in residentual areas. Surely if the speeds are slightly slower than a 30 mph area this must be good, but it does mean pedestrians are starting to fail to correctly assess a vehicle's speed - if at all.
Many children and adolescents seem to think they are invincible and nothing will happen to them. Recently I passed a school bus dropping off passengers, so I was driving at about 15mph in a 30 mph area, suddenly 2 youths just stepped out from the front of the bus without checking the road was clear. They were clearly shocked at my presence and I stopped in time, but speed has nothing to do with people who do not look for risks and hazards. No doubt if they had been sruck by a car doing 35 mph, speed would have been a factor but not the main cause of the accident.
In the past I have seen drunk pedestrians stagger into the road. Luckily they were not hit by a car, but if they had then the car driver would have been subject to all sorts of tests and questions when in reality the drunk would have been the sole cause of an accident.
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Roger
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
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The figures quoted are from stats19 data, which is rather limited in quality. A much more rigorous analysis using several data sources was referenced by me earlier, which for car occupants clearly contradicts the minimising trend of certain groups, of no standing. I see you have ignored the paper, which was compiled by professionals in this field.
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Nsar:
I've just spent half an hour searching for the data without success. Lots of statistics, but no breakdown according to cause.
I originally found the data online some years ago, and it gave the number killed, and the number seriously injured, and the cause as far as was known. I believe the data came from police forces whose staff attended the accidents in question.
I guess you will have to accept or not my statement that I found some data, and the number of accidents caused by excess speed was far less than 1/3. Even if you added in excessive speed as a contributory factor (e.g. car pulls out from side road and is hit side on by fast car) you do not get 1/3. Apologies.
Of course you can find stats on sites such as Safe Speed, but you could argue that they are not impartial (hohum) so it would be nice to find the goverment data.
Maybe someone can find the data?
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Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting you were making things up, the question was genuine about wondering which stats we should be looking at.
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Just to be clear I wasn't suggesting you were making things up the question was genuine about wondering which stats we should be looking at.
You did not seem to be saying that I was making things up.
I suspect the data I saw some years back was from one region, not nationally, given that not even Safe Speed can obtain national data, and had to press one force and make a payment to get their figures.
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Some govt data:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselec...m
This is where the 2% figure comes from. The figure is higher (up to 8% for they youngest drivers) Still nothing like the 1/3rd lie though.
With so few accident caused by exceeding a speed limit it is impossible to imagine how cameras actually save lives in the first place when once allowing for regression to the mean and other effects they don't or have a very negligable effect (Linda Mountain et al). The comparative site studies show little effect. All the DFT does is use the before and after rolling averages and 'correct' for RTM if pushed. Accidents by their nature tend to cluster. Camera partnerships have also been removing cameras on the grounds that those particular sites are no longer effective ie they've been bitten by RTM and the site is has another blip in accidents like the one that they used to justify the camera in the first place. They merely spin it as being down to something else. One local camera partnership were even trumpeting a massive reduction in accidents being down to a camera when the road it was on had been bypassed and traffic had dropped massively! This lying to the public is disgusting and is merely used to justify the poor road safety record of the last few years.
More dedicated traffic police are the only proper solution.
teabelly
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The figure of 8% relates to data on contributory factors to road traffic accidents, based on Stas19 which is limited in its quality as it is difficult to be sure re speed limits. But see also the other "loss of control" elements in the same document.
However it was recognised these contributory factors in stats 19 were giving only a partial picture. The referenced paper above goes on to state: "In 2004, the Department commissioned a more detailed investigation of the change in the trend for fatal car accidents since the late 1990s. Preliminary analysis suggests that young drivers in fatal accidents, especially those under 20 years, were nearly 12 times more likely than those aged 35-65 years to have been at fault. Males were found to be more liable to deliberate risk taking actions than females, with males more likely to exceed the speed limit or drive too fast for the conditions. Females were more likely to have been ignorant of the correct speed limit or to be travelling too fast for the conditions rather than deliberately speeding.
3.4 Over three quarters of fatal accidents involving drivers under 20 were judged to be speed related. For the 20-24 year age group it was about two thirds, dropping to below half by the age of 30 years. These accidents show high levels of speeding, alcohol involvement and recklessness. 68% of occupant fatalities in the 16-20 year age group were with drivers who were slightly older (mean age 21 years), who were speeding or who were being deliberately reckless and racing (36%)."
Hence the need for spped control as well as other regulation, as driving standards are seen to be worsening. I do agree that more police presence is needed, but that won't happen until road safety is made a core police task, which it is not at present.
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"high levels of speeding, alcohol involvement and recklessness"
I'd hazard a guess that the speed was the result of the other two, rather than the reverse. IIRC, the phrase 'tough on the causes of crime' has some currency in political circles, although perhaps more in the saying than the doing...
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"The referenced paper above goes on to state: "In 2004 the Department commissioned a more detailed investigation of the change in the trend for fatal car accidents since the late 1990s ... "
I find it hard to believe the conclusions in the referenced paper and I did not see a detailed explanation of why their analysis differs so massively from the values given by several police forces.
One reason why I find it hard to believe that speeding is a causative factor in more than a small number of accidents is my own experience. Over the years I have been in some rather nasty situations. Usually it was someone else's fault, though there were one or two learning experiences where I learnt from my stupidity.
Typically someone would pull out of a side road without looking, and not realise that I was bearing down on them (within the posted limit). On many occasions I have changed lane on a motorway (look in mirrors, indicate, wait a few seconds, manouevre) only to find some idiot moving into my path without having looked. This is commonplace for others too. All are due to lack of observation.
On several occasions I have been overtaken on blind bends but within the limit. The police confirmed that one of the drivers was involved in a crash about 20 minutes later.
Numerous relatives and friends have been involved in crashes. My mother was driven into when stationary. A relative nearly died when a lorry pulled out from a side road. A friend was killed when he drove his bike into a tree. Neither he nor the tree were speeding though he was intoxicated which was the cause.
I can think of only one case (involving myself) where speeding was involved. I slowed on approaching a 30mph zone, just before a dangerous T junction. The person behind overtook, hence was speeding, and could have gone into the side of a car emerging from the T junction (visibility was poor). He was lucky on that occasion. But speeding was not the primary fault, but would have made any injury more severe.
Now first hand experience is not proof, but it does not support the government's mono-maniacal obsession with speed enforcement.
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I suspect that you are reluctant to believe the conclusions of the reference paper because you'd rather believe that fatal accidents (which in the main are occurring outside urban areas) are mainly low speed. They are not. As for the analysis, you need to read 2.1 of the report, and take into account that policemen are not accident investigators, and they do not, when filling in the Stats 19 use the analysis tools described in the report referenced. Thus, when they hurriedly complete Stats 19 they tick boxes. RIRO.
Edited by nortones2 on 15/11/2007 at 20:35
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I suspect that you are reluctant to believe the conclusions of the reference paper because you'd rather believe that fatal accidents (which in the main are occurring outside urban areas) are mainly low speed. They are not.
No, I find it easy to accept that fatal accidents might be more common at high speeds, for obvious reasons. The cars I mentioned which overtook me on a blind bend would have been involved in high speed crashes had they not been lucky. But they were not speeding in the sense of exceeding the posted limit. I would have thought that deaths were also more common for side impacts where the combined speed was less due to less impact resistance at the side of a vehicle.
Incidentally we have quite a few speed limit warning signs rather than cameras, and they do seem to work.
A few months back R4 aired a programme on speed cameras. They did not condemn speed cameras outright, but they did question the current obsession. They interviewed a senior ex cop (ex-head of the Met Traffic Division I think). They drove past a few cameras, and he said that some were saving lives, but he went on to say that he thought some would be hard to justify. And he referred to uninsured drivers with illegal cars not being caught.
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Leif: I do actually agree with you that the current policy is unbalanced, and that the police are taking the line of least resistance.
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Teabelly: Even when speeding (as opposed to excess speed) is not a causative factor, high speed leads to more severe injuries. Hence preventing speeding will reduce the severity of injuries. That at least is the argument used by many.
There are though many problems with that argument, the main one being that speeding is only prevented either side of a speed camera. Many dangerous drivers are surprisingly observant, at least when it comes to cameras.
I once took a look at the stats from the Notts Speed Camera Partnership. Although in many cases the stats seemed to support cameras (taking them at face value only), in many cases the introduction of a speed camera corresponded with a rise in injuries and deaths. I have seen no explanation from the Notts SCP.
Is there any believable proof of the RTM argument? We all know it has an effect, but Safe Speed uses RTM left right and centre in a very loose manner with no (?) solid proof.
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There are though many problems with that argument the main one being that speeding is only prevented either side of a speed camera. Many dangerous drivers are surprisingly observant at least when it comes to cameras. >>
Definitely true - you only have to watch traffic approaching a camera to see the brake lights come on just before the camera. The vehicle then drifts past the camera then accelerates away again. Effective speed reduction for 60 metres tops.
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I have a totally wacky and even perverse suggestion to make here.
One: conceal all speed cameras everywhere, install millions of them, move them about, keep us guessing. That way, adherence to the speed limit becomes normal behaviour and absolutely essential and none of us feel "pressurised" to put our foot down if white van man comes roaring up behind. There is no panic braking on spotting a big yellow box, as there wouldn't be any big yellow boxes. Speeders get caught, the law abiding majority don't.
Two: A the same time, oblige all councils, Police authorities, etc., to prove, in every single speeding case, that the speed limit in force was clearly displayed (e.g. repeater signs every 100 metres, even in a 30 zone). Whenever a speeding case comes up from an "abnormal limit" (the 30 limits on urban dual carriageways we all know and love...) the council has to prove to a jury the necessity for this "abnormal" speed limit. Let the people (not the planners) decide, for a change!
It would cost millions, but is any of this any wackier than the speed enforcement "system" currently in place? 10 milion motorists with points, fines and hiked insurance premiums - can it get any worse than this?
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It would never work. Putting justice back in the hands of the people ! WHatever next ? You'll be wanting a democratically elected government !
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Bilboman,
You have just come up with the best suggestions I have heard for obtaining some numberplates which may not correspond with the ones originally intended for the vehicle.
With the admin load created by your suggestions, traffic officers will be totally non-existant so who will know?
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As Dick Dastardly would say "Drat and double drat!" Criminal minds are always one step ahead of the law. Rethink needed. How about this:
Only photographic evidence showing the driver's face to be allowed in prosecutions.
(Cue massive run on sales of burkas, GW Bush masks, all round black tints, face transplants, etc...)
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