Safe Speed Forums

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Could this be explained by RTTM?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

It could
Ity cirtainly has not been the disaster predicted by Brake

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

[/quote]

Are these people so depraved that the prospect of killing or maiming themselves or other people is not sufficient deterrent to unsafe driving? Reminds me of the religious people who cannot understand how atheists can lead a very moral life without the threat of hell-fire.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

In life you and I move around at the fastest speed we can without having collisions. It is something we learn at around 5 years old. The Ludites think we cannot judge the speed to take a bend or junction unless we have a lollipop or triangular sign to tell us the exact speed (and now roundabout lane!). The sad thing is people arenow un-learning how to do these skills.

(Just as men un-learn how to cook and wash clothes when they get married)

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

These where also my thoughts. I was also thinking though, what would have happened if it had gone the other way or, what if the rates go up in another area when there results come out?

To me it just proves it's all about RTTM and road/driving conditions, plus many other factors.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Are there any men working at Brake?

The effects of RTTM is far stronger at a spot/local level than over an area that's county wide (where the effects of the sum of all local areas are averaged out).

The accident rate at a "site" (a short stretch of road) can fluctuate greatly; the ratios can easily exceed 1:5 over three year timeframes. That kind of fluctuation is practically unheard of at county level (and and has never occurred at national level).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Using the figures quoted in the OP, if this was the other way round, with the cameras being turned on, the SCPs would be crowing about a 50% reduction in deaths in just one year, attributable to the cameras of course. Being as how our argument has always been based in science, correlation not implying causation and so on it would be unseemly for us to do the same thing, especially as we all know the timescale is too short, and the sample size too small. There is a smug satisfaction to be had in the face of BRAKE's Chicken Little-esque doom-mongering though!

Would love, once again, for Katie Shephard of BRAKE to cite, explain and defend this wealth of research that supports her cause, and to point out that similar timescales were used in heralding scams a success all those years ago.



Very apt analogy indeed

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Sorry Steve. I misread the OP.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

In my experience, the "majority" of men, although not all obviously , can appreciate that "speeding" isn't as dangerous/suicidal as many women would believe/have you believe.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Very good point!! We should all walk around more slowly, so that it hurts us less when we walk into things!!

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Re the furore on Speed cameras


Lets go back to the beginning of time!

In 1930, the Road Traffic Act of the day introduced Speed Limits throughout the country and who was responsible for seeing those limits were obeyed ----- the then Police Forces.

Now in my time as a Met Police traffic cop for 22 years, I served at Hendon and Wembley Police garages (we did not operate out of police stations) where we had total strengths of personnel of about 106 officers at each unit.

These men were split into the main two shifts and then from these shifts there were Road Safety teams (going round to schools teaching children the rules of the road), men on courses and weekly leaves and holidays to all come out of this strength.

There were eight garages around the MPD in those days each having approx those numbers of men to Police the traffic scene.

On our daily patrols I suppose about 6 cars (double crewed) and half a dozen police bikes at most were on the streets each day, and at times, very much less especially in the evenings, because we also had the commitment of escorting wide heavy loads all over London. That required at least two men on motor cycles which were drawn from the available crews working late turn, so now we are down to just a handful to hound the motorists - this went on day in day out - week in week out no more no less.

Now some of us used to do some process, which is another word for reporting offences and I probable would get upwards of a 1000 over the course of the year. They were not all for Speed - there were all sorts of offences including dangerous driving, defective vehicles and of course accidents to deal with.

However, a large number of officers just did one or two speeds each day and sometimes none at all.

Therefore, those who did a few processes were the 'cash cows' of our time because 'the nature of the beast’ is that there would be a monetary return (rather like cameras, but in a very much lesser capacity) nevertheless we earned the treasury money!

So we were the only method of speed control and you can see that out of the millions of circulating and offending drivers, we hardly scraped the surface, but the men who did some process brought a pittance into the treasury coffers.
However, this was not noticed by the majority of the populace, because in was so infinitisimal.

The motoring public as a whole, like today's millions exceeded the speed limits daily, but for their deeds, they were never caught, so no money was earned for the Treasury by us 'Cash Cows’ and this went on for the whole of my service.

Now modern police Chief Constables (a totally different breed of coppers came on the scene with new ideas), got their heads together and agreed that traffic patrols were rather a wasted resource, just floating about the precinct in big cars full of petrol nicking one or two motorists and not really getting involved in too much with crime so they said Ah! We will change their roll of the traffic patrol to backing up the foot police in their fight against Crime.

So now you see there was/is a reducing number of traffic patrols on the roads these days BUT THE SPEED LIMITS WERE STILL IN PLACE; so who is going to enforce these limits - Nobody (bearing in mind that the motoring public swelled in numbers and most were flying about the roads unchecked. They loved this didn’t they No cat keeping an eye on them they had ‘carte blanche’ to drive just as they liked and in fact do every day - Utopia!

So into the picture comes new technology in the form of ‘Cameras’ Wow! These were something that will replace Police and take over speed enforcement.

Now we have weapon that is is not prevented from working like the human officer who has courts etc and to attend to all sorts of red tape to keep him off the roads. BUT the camera can sit there night and day and its sole purpose is to check the speed of all THESE ERRANT HARD DONE BY MOTORISTS, WHO HAVE BEEN BREAKING THE SPEED LIMITS FOR DECADES.

Now it starts to show up and they find that the treasury is earning huge amounts of money from these repeatedly
persecuted drivers. Motorists who have had the time of their lives for years are being caught and prosecuted for their deeds, so it hits the public right between the eyes.

Having their freedom curtailed, they start screaming 'CASH COWS' and stop persecuting the motorists with all these fines. They don’t see it that if they didn’t break the law then they would retain their hard earned cash.

If as you state, £100 million in fixed penalties is collected, do you not ask ‘Heck there are millions disobeying the rules of road - they are not so innocent as I first thought! In addition, they are not the respected citizens of this country that I live among!

In fact it is now becoming fully visible just how many motorists are not conforming to speed limits and they don’t like the way the poor souls are being treated, so we must do away with cameras.

Hooray! Say the motorists we have cracked it and the authorities have capitulated from the pressure and at last, we can drive, as we like, whenever we like without fear of sanction or having to fork out our hard earned cash.

So what is the answer now with No Speed Cameras - well back to basics GET RID OF SPEED LIMITS as there are no longer any agencies to enforce the limits, so now we can save money in not having to put up inanimate signs informing of the limit - there is no other answer. It a certainty the motorist won’t voluntarily obey the law

It was talked about this morning on Neil Pringle Radio Sussex program that an outside reporter was watching the traffic flowing along Brighton seafront between the Pier and Kemp Town Marina & that they were all going along this very wide road very slowly because there is a 30 limit and are cameras at intervals - what will happen when they take them away. It will be like the Brighton Speed trials run annually on the lower road.

I rest my case.

Not a bit of good coppers stopping them in fancy dress and telling them not to be be naughty persons they have all taken a test these days and sworn that they have read the Highway Code. The only sanction they know are points on their licences -- I know it works - I proved it over 22 years

Regards



Don Williams Hailsham

Did you never, when you were patrolling the roads, form what we intellectuals call a judgement about whether a drivers behaviour and speed was actually a danger to other road users. And do you believe that the cameras are equally efficacious at forming that kind of judgement.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I agree times have changed but speed limits have been ratcheted down while the safety and capability of cars has gone up. Thus, the mindless prosecution of motorists having the time of their lives going at 39mph on roads that were a 40mph limit just a few weeks ago is felt to be unjust.

I believe that automated enforcement has driven a wedge between your previous profession and the public which would never have occurred if the status quo had been retained.


The reason that there are so many disobeying is that, by the 85th percentile rule, the limits are incorrectly set.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Yes they exceeded the limits daily, those evil sods and mostly without any negative impact on anyone.
If youre simply saying youre sore because they ignored (and will always ignore) a petty, stupid and pointless law then too bad, thats what happens when the public gets held in contempt, they pay it right back to you, in triplicate!




Interesting. Youre asserting that motorists just "love to fly about the roads" using emotive terms to try and gain support rather than sticking to the facts, which would be that motorists were simply going about their daily lives.
Do you have an issue with that? I think you must do, because they dont do what you say when you say it, so it rankles with you that theyll disregard the "authority" that a public servant thinks they hold over us all. You need to get your role in the grand scheme of things clear in your head methinks.



Ah speed enforcement for the sake of it. See where it all went wrong was when you tried to equate that painted numeral on a sign with how safe a situation may or otherwise may not be, unfortunately for yourselves.
Correlation does not neccesarily equal causation, unless you mess with the stats.



Weapons?....you want to use weapons against drivers just going from a to b and back to a in mostly a safe manner?
And you wonder why such contempt is returned back towards you?



So i take it from that statement that you see nothing wrong with taking not only money and freedom from motorists, but in the process losing their respect and their consent to be policed in such a manner? You have yourselves to blame for that, tripping over in the pursuit of gold eh?




Freedom curtailed, just one aspect of the scenario, the other being told to "do as we say" and yet another being " for safety".

Since the Nu labour lords and masters got their fat butts ensconced in office, they introduced over 3500 new laws. Want to explain why youre probably in breach of at least one of them at any one time to us all? Oh, and just dont forget- ignorance is no defence, so ill expect a full recitation of all 3500 nu labour laws, ok with that?



If you make and uphold laws to which the majority of a land inhabitants do not wish to be constrained by, then what do you expect? The majority should bend to the will of the minority imposing them perhaps?



Poor souls we are most definitely! Squeezed by every available method and means to take our funds, but no longer!



Why should anyone have to "forkout" cash for doing something in safety that causes no harm to others? Nonesensical idea.




Something i proposed a long time ago, no speed limits, advisories only and as the late paul Smith himself stated; " you cannot judge safe driving in miles per hour".




I think youre fond of amateur dramatics. Motorists will just not have another distraction to worry about which makes them safer, even if speeds do rise, thats not necessarily a bad thing- is it?



You proved that you dont understand the physics of whats going on and a good demonstration of ignorance, hype and hysteria it was too.
Pity it was all crap.

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"Safety" Scamera Partnerships;
Profitting from death and misery since 1993.

Believe nothing- Question everything.

Can I just say eeldu1 and award you the Big Tone prize for first post longevity?

Sorry, that's a Safespeed in joke and is not a slur in any way. Welcome to Safespeed.

Snap; a copy and paste from here (towards the end):
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2010 ... -scrapped/


Disregarding the hopefully ironic comment; is it good that trafpol numbers have dwindled so much when traffic levels have actually increased?


It may happen if the limit was set inappropriately.


I imagine all the others took some pride in their job - am I right?


Not quite!
Since the misrepresentation of camera effectiveness (see here), limits have been dropped carte blanche. So now we have many more motorists inadvertently breaking that particular law; remember, no driver goes out to exceed a limit, or wants to lose 25% of their licence for 3 years. Something else is going wrong for this to happen so damned frequently.

Real trafpol have more than one purpose, even if you yourself only executed a specific one and ignored the rest!


Except this campaign is calling for the return to real trafpol, so your argument here doesn't really stack up.
Don't judge other trapol by your own standards


Nope.
I say again: contrary to misguided opinion: this campaign calls for speed limits and enforcement of them where exceeding them causes danger. Please don't seek to misrepresent what this campaign stands for.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

So we have a someone on here calling them self a trafpol - who has not bothered (as most trafpols do ) to get the low-down on SS - as Sherlock once said , once you eliminate all else ,whatever remains ,whatever remains ,however improbable ,is the solution. And we have a so called trafpol who believes that cameras are the panacea to road safety ,and uses all the SCP arguments - I'd suggest an under road dweller ( possibly someone living in the depths of the lakes in a non yellow submersible).
Yep - GS - spotted you - and I claim my prize -head up to Loch Ness for a holiday ,and we'll hope nessie has mercy on you're soul ..( subject to mods confirmation of IP)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on