Safe Speed Forums

85mph+ shock of speeding drivers

Speeding motorists were branded "lunatics" yesterday after speed camera vans on the A11 caught 26 drivers doing speeds of between 85mph and 126mph in one 45-minute spell.

One motorist travelling at 82mph crashed into the central reservation at Snetterton and ended up on a grass verge after he saw the speed camera vehicle and desperately attempted to brake at about 8am.
(my bold)

Here

Well, 26 "Lunatic" drivers.
But only one of them crashed.....and the 'cause' of this, was....excessive speed ?......NO !......the 'Camera Van'

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"CAMERAS "DO NOT" SAVE LIVES" !!
(Richard Brunstrom Says so !!)

Did you notice this bit (my bold):

I bet the pratnership wish that hadn't ended up in the article.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

...despite the rather strong evidence that people have not slowed down.

Cheers
Peter

If 25 other vehicles managed to slow themselves quickly after spotting the camera van without incident, then driver number 26 was obviously driving beyond his (or her) capabilities if they couldn't slow their vehicle in time without crashing in to something.
Anything could have brought that panic braking session on for driver number 26, it just so happened that it was a camera van.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I go up the A11 every few weeks. Keep seeing the Scamera van on the bridge near to the turn off for Lotus Cars, north of Snetterton.....always give them a toot as I go by....

Its a long straight piece of dual carriageway. No hazards.

Must be a great money spinner for the Scamera squad.

I have also seen a cop with a speed gun lurking in a near the greasy spoon wagon. No signs or anything. I wrote to the SCP, they denied it was a speed trap.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Sounds like he wasn't paying attention, saw the van at the last moment, jumped on the brakes, his wheels locked and pulled the car off line, and then he did the wrong thing and turned out instead of in, and lost it.
Yes, it could have been any other hazard, and it could still have happened if he was doing 60 instead of 82, but in this case the van presented an unnecessary hazard.

Cheers
Peter

(my bold)

The fact that it was a scamvan makes my day !
(And, possibly the day of a few others too )



Careful....they may think your'e 'honking' their SUPPORT !
Unless of course, you add a 'Salute' in their direction too

_________________
"CAMERAS "DO NOT" SAVE LIVES" !!
(Richard Brunstrom Says so !!)

Not the way I do it....

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Speed camera policy Kills

In the Middle East, so the story goes, there are some countries in which a taxi driver can sue his passenger if, in the course of taking them somewhere, the taxi is involvd in a crash.
The disjointed rationale?
If the passeneger hadn't hired the cab to go to his destination, then the driver wouldn't have been where he was to have the crash.
The same twisted logic applies when we try to blame the scamera van for a crash caused by the over-reaction of a 'guilty' driver who spots it at the last second. That individual must take full responsibility for their own actions - an old-fashioned concept that I happen to believe quite strongly in.
That driver made the choice to drive at whatever speed they were doing, nobody forced them. Furthermore, they did so knowing that this country operates a speed camera policy and that there was a chance that they cold get caught - although this may not have been on their mind when they were whizzing along. In sum, the driver created the hazard by acting the way he/she did in an environment where speed enforcement is a legal activity - something of which they were fully aware.

The same pragmatic argument also works the other way though...

It is a known fact that speed enforcement leads to panic braking, and that panic braking will lead some drivers into losing control. Thus the camera operators are wilfully introducing a hazard that it can be reasonably predicted will lead to exactly this type of incident.

As an analogy, we know that when it's foggy people tend to run into each other. Now we know this is "bad driving", but nonetheless we wouldn't deliberately go and install a fog machine on the M6 motorway, would we?

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Sorry Rigpig, have to disagree.
If the scamvan had not been there ...or had been, 'Highly Visible' (as per the rules) then the accident would not have happened.

Plus the fact that, the unfortunate driver was only one of a large number travelling at an...'unlawful'...but 'SAFE'...speed prior to spotting the 'HAZARD' !

_________________
"CAMERAS "DO NOT" SAVE LIVES" !!
(Richard Brunstrom Says so !!)

New Hazard perception test.....

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Speed camera policy Kills

Sorry guys, nice try - particularly JTs fog machine analagy which sounds compelling but is spurious nonetheless.
I don't buy this 'scam causes crash' argument, and I don't buy the 'race away' argument either; in fact the latter is even more pathetic than former. Ultimately, its about personal responsibility.
I guess we view this particular facet of the issue from different mindsets and consequently will never agree. So I'll just let it lie there if you don't mind.

One last try... look at it this way:

Bad driving is a fact of life. We can't eliminate it - we have to accomodate it. We should of course also try to make it less common and we should try to build an error tolerant road safety system that doesn't punish bad driving unnecessarily.

Speed cameras are not a fact of life. They are an attempt to improve road safety. If they are implicated in crash causation, we should consider their net effects as gains minus losses.

As far as causation is concerned, the fundamental question has to be: Would the crash have happened if the camera had not been there?

That's clear as crystal to me.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Ok then, another reply from me.

When my brother and I were little kids up to horseplay around the house, we'd always try to blame each other when we broke something or caused some other trauma..."now look what you made me do". But I've grown up now an accept I have responsibilities one of which is accountability for my actions.
In a similar vein, there was a live TV debate recently concerning householders rights to tackle and, if necessary, injure burglars. One panelist argued that we should not do this because it might encourage burglars to arm themselves. In other words, armed burglars won't happen if we leave them alone today, we still get burgled but it's all done without violence.
Any motorist who takes to the road does so in the knowledge that speed enforcement exists - unless they've been livng a hermits life for the past decade in which case the van would mean nothing to them. Thus for every second they choose to ignore that fact a potential hazard exists, the maginitude of the hazard depends of course on local speed camera density. Drive below the limit and there is no hazard, camera van or no camera van.
Its as clear as crystal to me.

PS: I still believe it wold be better if there were no happy snappy vans but there are, and we know it.

Oh come on, RigPig, we're not kids anymore..

If I'm playing silly buggers at the side of the road, and I jump out into the road causing a driver to get a fright and have a crash, it's completely my fault.

There are enough natural hazards on the roads without creating artificial ones.
And as for your remark about driving below the limit, well it seems that you've been hanging around BW for too long

Cheers
Peter

It is not just the scamera van but the potentially punitive penalty that being banned from driving through an accumulation of points can bring.

If you are threatened with potentially catastrophic economic damage (breakup?) to your family, the panic at seeing a scam van should not be a surprise.

I dont condone the excessive speed but they would not have suddenly braked if the van (and penalties) were not there.

With a police car there was always the possibility of mitigation.

A scam van just hands out the punishment.

82mph is excessive speed on a clear, straight dual carriageway now

Good thing we haven't lost out sense of proportion

Cheers
Peter

Yes on reflection I agree with you that excessive speed is a wrong description since a hazard appeared and that brought about the sudden braking equivalent to an emergency stop.

Ahh, well we're looking at it on different layers then. As far as individual blame is concerned, I'm with you all the way. Of course the crash was the driver's fault.

But that's not enough. Looking at it on the 'system' level, if the camera hadn't been there there wouldn't have been a crash at all. And we must look at it on the system level because the camera is a system level intervention.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety