One can agree or disagree with Brake's 'wish list' but to suggest it's part of a left wing conspiracy or Orwellian is beyond parody.

Brake openly state they believe a speed camera should be used on every single road in the UK. Not blackspot roads, not roads with a history of deaths, not roads with above average rates of speeding but every road. They use the 'if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about' line which Tony Blair used to pat us all on the head in regards to his ID cards plan. They want the Government to monitor all of our movements and the speed of them. In what universe is that not Orwellian or part of left-wing dictatorship theory?

I've not followed the mechanism by which Brake obtains govt funding. It is however auditable both in the charity and in whichever Dept is paying.

First off it's not Govt funding because it's not the Govts money. It's our money. Government raises no money, it confiscates it from the public. Secondly it's the same mechanism by which the EU puts money into Greenpeace for them to lobby the EU to do things the EU is already doing. Yet you focus on the TPA for something 'fishy.'

Where does the TPA get it's money from? Not at all transparent; big business and possibly the States whose Neo Cons are attempting to further on their aims this side of the pond.

So the TPA get their money from people who actually earn it (business) rather than confiscate or print it (Government) what is wrong with that? I would trust that organisation for a far more rounded and sensible view, after all it's easy to spend other peoples money which is all Brake and political organisations do.

I'll return to my key point again; the worst part of Brake is their bogus statistical analysis. Cherry picking factoids, putting them together and claiming it proves something is the worst kind of statistical analysis possible, but it's the best they can do because actual facts and science do not support their socialist view of utopia or their political message. Stop talking to me about the TPA just because you think Government should be free to confiscate our money and push their agenda on us with it. Talk to me instead about their statistical analysis because the bedrock of most of their arguments has been discredited years ago.

Why should inaccuracy be tolerated in order to 'balance the debate' exactly?

Brake's agenda is not road safety. Brake's agenda is slowing everybody down. They are obsessed with speed and ignore all other issues. If their agenda was road safety they'd be interested in studies and statistics which give us information on how to make roads safer. But they don't listen to any of that they just declare 'speed cameras save lives' and 'speed kills' when neither of those pieces of rhetoric are true. A bit like the Guardian declaring 'the debate is over' and 'the science is decided' in regards to global warming - or climate change as they call it now their theories of warming have been harpooned. There could be a debate to be had there but the hard left like to close debate and declare it's all over. Mainly because intelligent debate would expose their agenda.

If Brakes agenda was road safety they wouldn't be campaigning for speed cameras on every UK road or un-naturally low speed limits which would encourage dangerous overtaking. For example we know most accidents happen on rural roads and far below the actual posted speed limit, so we know if they change it from 60 to 40 we'll just be saying 'x amount of accidents happen in 40 limits' instead of 60 limits. Brake though, don't acknowledge that and believe a lower speed limit will solve everything.

That's not a 'point of view.' It's incorrect. It's wrong. It's bogus. It's not backed up by the facts and figures. Their statistical analysis is bogus, discredited and out of date. Most studies they cite on their website date back to the previous millennium and their most oft-quoted one could be ripped apart for the bogus analysis of data it is by Bobbin Threadbare in about 7 seconds. I've had enough of pretending somebody who is wrong is merely putting forward a different point of view and therefore they are legitimate. We don't give airtime to the Flat Earth Society anymore do we?

I don't agree with everything Brake stands for, in fact apart from 'twenty's plenty' on residential roads I don't agree much of it. The stuff they spout about bike helmets, at least for adults, is in my opinion utter tripe.

In areas where driving faster than 20mph would be inappropriate it's nigh on impossible to do so anyway. I look at the road and judge how fast I should drive, I don't take my lead from the sign on a post like Brake want me to. Their 20s plenty campaign was more emotive rubbish, full of 'think of the children' nonsense - they don't answer why children are in the road to begin with - and even got Jet petrol on board because driving at 20 harms economy so you'll need more petrol.

If warming in the Gulf of Mexico or round the North Pole affects those currents our climate could get colder - or hotter.

Or wetter, or drier? I've had less ambiguous predictions from palm readers.

Tbh, until I see the IPCC can come up with some well-defined, falsifiable predictions, I'm not going to take their apocalyptic wailings very seriously. There are more urgent environmental problems that can be tackled far more effectively and cheaply than climate change.

Daily Mail readers rarely think.

A simplistic, reactionary riposte that rather smacks of...er, the Daily Mail!

Unthrottled, I absolutely agree with your view of the IPCC, and I only read the Telegraph!

Global warming is, proven science and is a cause, climate change is effect.

Then why is it they've stopped calling it 'global warming' and reverted to 'climate change' since it's been proven it's in fact getting colder? Everybody knows climate change is real because it's happened since the formation of Earth, what I dispute and polls show the majority of the UK public do not believe is that ice ages are caused by people driving Vauxhall Astras and flying to France.

The believers are of the opinion 'the science is settled' and 'the debate is over' as the Guardian and politicians - with financial interests in the man-made GW bandwagon - keep telling us. The reality is proper scientists will tell you science is never settled and there is never a time when debate is over. The day we brought politics into science was the day we discredited science and caused us to doubt what it says.

I just do not believe carbon dioxide is going to destroy Earth and make oceans rise and the fact everybody who says it will has money to gain from it should worry you. The fact is Governments are making billions out of this con, from surcharges on your energy bills to fund silly windmills which don't work to taxes on your cars. The EU's obsession with co2 will lead to the fall of the Western economy as manufacturing and industry moves to the other side of the World where emissions regulations are frankly miles behind what we had even 30 years ago.

We get told cars of a certain age must be banned from a certain town to 'combat climate change' but they don't mind that car driving an extra 50 miles around the town. We get told our petrol is taxed higher to make us use less of it, only for the Government to have a fit when we actually use less of it. Councils employ people on £45,000 a year in the post of 'climate change officer' as though banning some SUV's from driving through the south of Oxford is going to save Johnny Polar Bear.

It's all a racket. Complete load of rubbish.

Edited by jamie745 on 13/11/2012 at 13:55

The world has been growing warmer for the past 30,000 years. Where I sit was once under 1,000metres of ice in the form of a great big glacier stretching all the way to :ondon. And The North Sea was dry and grazed by mammoths.

And people think Global Warming is something NEW?

Maybe, but in fifty years time, when tidal surges have destroyed Venice and most of the East end of London, and the Netherlands are under water, don't anybody start wailing "WTF didn't anybody TELL us this was going to happen?"

Otherwise I shall come back from the dead and start banging heads together.

On the other hand, if it is all a complete load of rubbish I shall sleep in peace.

It's not rubbish, it's true. Water will rise, land will fall as some parts of Earth are destroyed and others are created. It's what Earth has always done, it has gone through cycles of creation, destruction and creation again of it's own landscape. Like how Volcanoes are how parts of our planet are created, you don't think humans are responsible for volcanoes too do you?

My point is this will happen anyway. Range Rovers have not caused it. It's happened for thousands - actually, billions - of years. If you imagine Earths lifetime as 24 hours then we've only come along and built things on it in the last 4 seconds. Just because we've built things in areas which will one day be destroyed and cause us a lot of financial problems does not mean these natural changes are our doing or that suddenly humans can change it. It's not natures fault that we went and built New York City in a tidal estuary.

One day the sun will enlarge as it kills Earth before it shrivels and dies as that is the cycle of a star, but that's a good few hundred millions years away. My point is we shouldn't be taxing the death out of people and business as we seek to destroy human progress and go back to caveman times like the Green Party want us to. We should stop talking about how we can prevent Earth from behaving how a planet behaves and instead focus on how we will adapt to the new world.

Norfolk may get damper

It's like driving using a mobile. Dangerous? Yes . Banned? Yes.

Enforced? not at all.

I reckon to see at east 2 motorists on the mobile in 15minutes on our local road..

The UK 's politicians believe that passing laws solves problems.. But they ignore enforcement. And wonder why they are largely considered ineffectual...

The £60 fine is far too low,and should be at least doubled.

I would start by confiscating the mobile*. With no return. possible. The resulting inconvenience would be a greater deterrent than any fine.

* +sim card of course.

Edited by madf on 14/11/2012 at 15:23

Returning to the original topic of this thread, UK drivers routinely break the speed limits, frequently by large margins and often in built-up areas and seem to think this is OK. They do so because no-one seriously thinks they are going to be caught and they're usually correct!

If the police did their jobs and tackled speeding drivers with more than a handful of static speed cameras at well-publicised locations, then there would be no need for lower speed limits. They just need to enforce the existing limits.

I lived in New Zealand for 4 years and the police practiced 'anytime, anywhere' speed traps using laser cameras mounted in patrol cars. Result - far more drivers obeyed the limits there as there was a very real possibility of being caught out, unlike in the UK.

And yes, before someone asks, I'm not holier-than-thou and got ticketed twice, as I was too used to the laissez-faire traffic 'policing' of the UK!

It be interesting to see accident comparisons between countries were speeds are enforced rigidly (like Germany or Finland) and countries were the speed limits are enforced more flexibly.