Safe Speed Forums

I would like people's views on this. Could someone also point me to the Dft statistic's for Cheshire.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

how can you argue with logic like that???

All the data above relates to camera sites. Regression to the mean is the obvious thought that comes to mind.
The overall figures for Cheshire would be of much more interest.

GW

The only DfT figures I could find were the deaths for Cheshire:

1995: 81
1996: 76
1997: 61
1998: 69
1999: 75
2000: 73
2001: 69
2002: 70
2003: 72
2004: 67

Source Dept for Transport

I think you would be hard pressed to find much of real significance in those stats

GW

I notice that if you take the two years of 1995/6 and compare with two years later, 1997/8, a 17% reduction has been achieved. What did they do to achieve this enormous reduction?

However the total for the two years 2003/4 represents a 7% increase compared to 1997/8. They must have done something very wrong to reverse the previous gains in this way.

Sarcasm aside, as you say, looks more like random fluctuations than anything else.

stop being so daft. Clearly, any year where the total is lower than the previous year it's due to the hard work of and rigorous enforcement. Any year where it increases is due to increased numbers psychotic not heeding the advice of said enforcers.

Hot/dry/cold/wet summer, too many/few bikers, wrong kind of leaves on the road.

The Cheshire SCP claim the two cameras on the old A500/A50 through Hough and Shavington (near Crewe), about 3 miles west of Jn 16 M6, have saved lives, but we locals know better.

In terms of mendacity and dissembling, (aka lies), this is the ultimate con from Cheshire SCP, because the road was recently bypassed by a dual carriage-way no less, and is now a quiet backwater. I know, because I drive along it frequently. It has a 40 mph speed limit, which is not unreasonable, although most people previously drove at around 45 mph.

Not surprisingly, traffic is down by around 90% and accidents too; no surprise there. Yet it is all down to the cameras according to Cheshire SCP !!

Latest scam is to claim speed cameras will improve the lamentable accident record on the A530, (there was a dreadful accident there last week with 4 killed- something must be done etc etc). It transpires that one of the drivers who miraculously survived has just been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, and, ( the KEY point), taking a vehicle without the owners consent. In other words the vehicle was stolen and then driven wildly and recklessly for a joy ride. All the other occupants of the vehicle were killed by the way; not much joy there, then.

Please, Cheshire SCP, tell me how a camera would have prevented this dreadful accident

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Perhaps a letter to the publication which printed the above report, pointing out your local information, safedriver, would be a good idea!?

Let us know if they print it!!

I heard about that accident on the a530. People in the merc were pub owners that were known by someone I spoke to. He said the other car involved was a twocer but the local paper didn't mention it. I do wish they'd stop trying to hide the fact stolen cars killing people is actually more of a problem then normal motorists killing people. I suspect they wanted to avoid the question 'just how would a scam stop this from happening' when people realise they can't and bibs can the scams' days are over.

Mr. Murphy and I had a reasonable dialogue over safety cameras recently, looks like he will be getting another letter from me after this.

I have sent an eMail to Lee Murphy. I will let you know a response.

I have had a terrible letter from the Highways Agency re: TRL595, I will scan it later.

safedriver - I don't know where you live, but that reply would make a nice letter in your local rag.

Looking at those stats comparing the 2 years before and after partnership we see cameras have made bugger all difference in the avg. fatality rate it was 69.5 then and it's 69.5 now. Go back even further and look at 4 years before vs the 4 most recent and again it's 69.5 even baselined over 8 years it's 69.5.

fatalities actually increased after their first year.

The suggestion that letters to the local paper is OK, but I have already had one published. Trouble is the SCPs are basically impervious to argument. Try the following I sent to the Cheshire mob: -

Dear Sirs
Reading your web-site, (cheshiresafecam.org.uk), the message is that ‘if you don’t speed, you won’t be fined’; a very simple message. However, it begs the question of the probity of the method of financing your partnership, (and others). Finance is entirely provided out of the fixed penalties issued and paid as a result of the activities of your organisation; there is no other source. To date, you have raised many millions of pounds in fines revenue, and are therefore very comfortably provided for. (Visions of luxuriously appointed offices and generous staff bonuses based on revenues, well financed pension schemes etc, come into my mind). The thought has to be that maybe, like the “decriminalised” parking scams we now have, and shown recently on BBC Television, there are hidden motives in operating the cameras, not declared to the public. This programme showed that the issue of parking tickets to raise cash was the paramount aim of the organisations, and that Parking Attendants had targets for the issuing of parking tickets to ensure revenues came in to meet the revenue demanded in the ‘business plan’.
If you are “successful” in your stated aims, the fines revenues should by now be reducing; your own publicity emphasizes that speeds have been significantly reduced at your sites. Therefore if this continues one would expect the fines money available for distribution, to pay your salaries etc, to reduce in proportion. Yet this is not happening and the revenues you are generating are increasing at an exponential rate. In fact on current trends, virtually every motorist in Cheshire will have been fined by your partnership within the next 18-24 months, and hundreds, even thousands will be banned from driving under ‘totting-up’. Most of those fined and banned are normal citizens, not hardened criminals. In fact many senior police and government officials have been detected, fined and banned including the Solicitor-General of Her Majesty’s Government. I do wonder if Cheshire will have any magistrates available soon, because I am sure they are not allowed to practice if they have points on their licences. Certainly they should not sit in judgment on others if they have. Maybe they and you are immune from prosecution ! After all, the Police are OK, and can do any speed they like as the recent case involving a police car driving at 159 mph shows; the driver was not even on an emergency call, so presumably it is not a problem for partnership staff either.
12 million drivers have been fined in the UK since the partnerships commenced, so it cannot be long before every driver in the land is fined and millions banned. The question one has therefore to ask is: if EVERYONE is being fined, who is the law serving? It starts to look a bit like prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the early part of the last century.
Clearly, I am unlikely to convince you of the iniquity of what you are doing, at 58 I am old enough to know the mind of the Puritan, (“all are sinners, and all must be detected and severely punished”). So you have placed EVERY citizen under detailed, ubiquitous, and zealous surveillance from the second a journey starts to the second it ends.
What I want to ask you this: -
1. How is success measured in the Cheshire Partnership ? – is it revenue increase or speed reduction, and if the latter, how are you to be financed. No speed infringements means no fines revenue.
2. Are any staff in any part of the partnership paid any performance bonuses of any kind in addition to their yearly salaries, and what are the criteria for payment ?
3. How can a citizen ever receive a fair hearing at a magistrates court if he elects not to pay the fixed penalty when the magistrates are part of the partnership, and therefore dependent on the fines revenue ? (court fines revenue is not available to Partnerships).
4. Cheshire Council is part of the partnership, and also sets the speed limits, so is free to set absolutely barmy and stupid limits to ensure the cash rolls in. Nantwich Road in Crewe is a classic case. What arrangements are in place to ensure that all speed limits are set to reasonable levels such as are unlikely to be exceeded by the average citizen driving normally and carefully? (the well established 85th percentile rule).
5. How can a citizen, driving alone, who knows he was within the speed limit, but has been accused of exceeding it, prove he is right and you are wrong? He has no speed logger or tachograph, and usually no means of financing a lengthy court case with expert witnesses, yet I read on the web, that several devices have been shown to be flawed; in one case a prosecution was made when the absolute maximum speed of the car was well below the speed claimed. In another, it was proved that the time interval in the Gatso cameras investigated was well over the 0.5 seconds claimed thus automatically increasing the apparent speed of the motorist in the photographs. A bus with a maximum, governor-limited speed of 50 mph was claimed to be doing 80 mph !! There are SERIOUS issues here concerning your technology, which so far have been ignored. I suggest to you they can be ignored no longer !
6. At what point does surveillance by a state of its citizens start to become oppressive? Would you be happy, for instance, to have your cameras on every lamp-post, a camera at every box junction, a camera at every set of traffic lights? The logical end is a state surveillance camera in every room of every home in the land. Where do YOU think the limit of surveillance should be placed ?
I await your reply with interest. I remain etc

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

My reply from Lee Murphy, he is by far and away the most accomodating of the majority of people I've written to, and I've love to meet him because he seems genuinely concerned about road safety, unlike some of the other parasites.

Our performance figures relate to the cameras generally and not necessarily
specific cameras. As you know, casualty stats at singular sites are often
relatively small and so to aggregate the cameras gives a more robust data
set. As far as im aware we are not claiming that cameras are solely
responsible for the casualty reduction, i think we said they have
"contributed to".
I think i mentioned to you previously we expect cameras to do a very
specific job (slow the general flow of traffic) at specific sites (camera
sites) and nothing more. All other road safety issues are addressed through
engineers and the Police.

I know you are aware about the rules of this scheme as so you know we cant
put a camera in until after people have been killed or seriously injured.
The A530 may now get safety cameras but the truth is i dont know. It will
be down to Cheshire County Council to decide if they want to apply to run a
camera on the scheme.

I am not abusing any statistics as you suggest. As you know there are 2
categories of casualties on our roads, slight, and Killed or seriously
injured, It is the government who set the parameters and they have decided
to use killed and seriously injured inn the same grouping. These KSI's are
what the 2010 road safety targets are aimed at so it is reasonable that
they are the data we report on? I think Steve's comments about fatalities
may have been taken out of context. Fatals are random to an extent in that
they are (thankfully) relatively rare. You would be unlikely to be able to
devise a road safety strategy based purely on fatals. Look at the A530. 4
people died in 1 collision. Do you target a road where there was 1
collision but 4 people died, or a road where there has been 4 collisions
where 1 person has died each time? It is difficult.

I say again to you that in Cheshire at least safety cameras are just an
addition to the road safety strategy, nothing more. They wont stop all
collisions and you are quite right they will not stop the joy riders and
those who seem to have a death wish!.

The survey we undertook was done by an independent company. They
interviewed 500 people and some of the questions were along the line of a
statement with then do you strongly agree, agree, dont know disagree,
strongly disagree alternatives. 87% of people either agreed or strongly
agreed that safety cameras should be supported as a way reducing
casualties. I think you underestimate how many people actually support
camera enforcement. There are a lot of people who think they are an easy
way of making money out of motorists which suggests to me we need to work
on telling people why cameras are where they are. But i have to say, for
every complaint i get about cameras (and i dont get that many) i get 10
requests to have a camera. Dont get me wrong i know people would rather not
have them, but we have more requests than complaints!!

As for cameras at roadworks. I think you will see more of them. We have
used cameras at the 2 major roadworks on the m6 and we have never had a
serious injury whilst they are on. The highways agency want speed
management and see camera enforcement as a way of providing a safer
environment. We currently use SPECS on the m6 and compliance with the speed
limit is very high, which is not only safer but keeps the traffic moving.

Finally! I may have made this point before, Speed limits are there to
assist in providing a predictable driving environment so that you can make
an informed decision. Abuse of speed limits makes the road less
predictable. When you pass your test (on which exceeding the speed limit
will result in you failing) you are given the privilege of driving on our
roads. Most people abuse that privilege straight away. The problem we face
today is that for too long we have let people abuse that privilege. We now
have the technology to crack down on that!

I dont think we will ever see eye to eye about this. But we will continue
to enforce speed limits at sites with a history of collisions. If people
choose to break the speed limit they should accept the consequence. If
people feel they can no longer drive their car without breaking the speed
limit, maybe they need to go on driver training again rather than blame
others for their speeding. Who knows. I see in the papers over the weekend
articles about stealth tax. Its the only voluntary tax im aware of!

Thanks again for your comments.

Lee

Could have sworn they attributed some of the RTA reductions on "Police the educators" in a recent "Traffic Cops" prog on this force. Cat & Fiddle? They claimed - on the prog - accident toll halved due to a paint job, 50 mph limit and better road markings...plus a patrol car.

Also on the same programme we saw the pursuit car driver remark on how the idiot (late for the girlfriend's graduation) drove like a real idiot - weaving in and out of lanes, talgating and cutting up other drivers - yet slow and drive past the Gatso at a model 42 mph.

Yup - they sure do work... NOT!

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