Safe Speed Forums

Just about to watch it, apparently all about speed cameras. Could make an interesting discusssion piece.

No sign of it in the Scottish schedules anytime this week.

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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

watching it now:

one driver caught doing 98mph on an mway, tried to get off cos he was driving at ~100mph cos his misses needed the loo. Then pleaded for ages about it... 3pts, £100 fine

One copper sat on a 40mph with a laser gun. catching speeders seems to get him going. Van doesn't look very conspicuous... Think speed related deaths in S yorks rose by 40% accorindg to narrator. Certainly rose, can't remember exact increase...

Motorcyslist - pissed and stoned - overtook somoene, on coming car collided with them. His misses on the back seat got flung out and died (i think). 6 years in jail.

Fair enough, they are disagree with the whole 'stealth scameras'. If they are there for safety, why the cladestined approach?

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uzz

Heh, I most definitely wasn't a fan of the bloke sat in his van pointing a camera at people. "That's a lot of money, isn't it?" "Yes. It is a lot of money. We get it all." "Do you ever speed?" "Yes. I have three points on my licence for speeding."

And the narrator did say 40%. Which is somewhat alarming.

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

I noticed that the scammer was using the LTI 20-20 against ACPO guidelines. Plenty of signs to reflect and loads of error 3 visible. No wonder the CPS never disclose the video if you are caught.

There was no opportunity to form an opinion of excess speed, as he was hidden and the first sight of the vehicle it was already targeted and ticketed.

The vehicle had orange lights and looked like any ordinary sign written van.

Don't worry - when it regresses to the mean next year they'll be able to claim it as a huge victory for the scameras.

Oh Bring back the good old days!

The guy in the talivan did catch more people than I ever did. And he set at 10% + 4 which is same as up here in Durham Town! Confess at loss to explain why each Partnership operates at different tolerances and settings. They should all be the same!

When the guy in the van said: "That's a lot of money!" My wife fell off the sofa and hit the floor When he said "I have three points on my licence for speeding - 72mph in a 60mph!" .... past a camera - OK! There is a God!


Sure is easier to use one of those things - though! Can see why they prefer them to trafpols.

Can also see why people never learn from their mistakes by copping you all this way Could be one little reason why those RTAs are not decreasing at all!

Guy on the M/way! Hah! I would have just given the woman a Liqsol piddle bag And the young BiB was far too nice! I would have been really especially when the man started to cry!!


But 40% rise in KSIs despite scameras?

A616 - well .... scameras there did not stop the accident - caused by pi55ed and doped biker, on bike with no brakes . Would he have approached the bend at the high speed and risked colliding with oncoming car if sober? Big "What IF?" And you cannot be 100% certain of the answer either! My bet would be on "no!" - but you cannot be 100% sure!

The guy on the M/way deserved a ticket. If you can't spot a whacking great big ice-cream van behind you with it's lights and sirens on then IMHO you aren't paying enough attention to be driving fast.

The 40% rise seems to back up everything that Paul is saying. It's not speed that kills, it's failing to understand what is happening around you and drive accordingly.

As for the biker, I am afraid to say that on the evidence I saw, it was an accident waiting to happen. If not then, when. (I am a biker too. My sympathy was reserved for the poor pillion)

I saw it too. Usual mix of spin, myth and distortion about how great scameras are. I'd have hoped the Beeb would have been a bit more impartial, rather than simply trot out some of the same official dogma we can get from the partnerships. This is the sort of thing I mean (from the BBC1 online TV listings):So there's an increase in motorists speeding is there? [rant]Could it possibly be that what was previously going undetected, or was dealt with by a lecture from the BiBs, is now being dealt with by NIPs, fines and penalty points. Allowing for the increase in traffic I expect that the ony real increase is punishment. However, the Beeb have swallowed the line that more and more of us child killers are out there going faster and faster every day, and something must be done before the country's children are all crushed beneath our heartless alloys, yadda yadda yadda[/rant]. Bloody BBC.

Agree with pretty much all that's been said about drunk biker on wacky baccy and duff brakes. He could hardly say that he didn't know about the brakes when he was carrying the replacement pads. He deserves every minute of that 6 1/2 yr sentence. Laughed about the speeding hearse. Not something you see too often. Didn't have too much sympathy for the truck driver with the supposedly bladder stricken wife either. It's not like he was tugged by an unmarked car, so like TonyOut says, he should have spotted him quicker. And what was he crying about? He was never going to get banned and fired. If everyone with 6 points got sacked there'd be hardly any reps left. Three points and a £150 fine ain't the end of the world. Besides, they won't ban him till he's caught twice more and they've wrung another few hundred quid out of him.

That copper running the Talivan made an interesting remark. Remember he said something about the van's markings being compliant with Home Office guidelines, though it had amber lights and didn't look like a police vehicle. After that he pointed out the words on the front - can't remember exactly what it said but the word 'safety' was there. Copper said that they wanted to put 'speed' on so people would really know what it was for, but scamera partnership said no. Sounds like the tail wagging the dog.

I have to say I felt a bit sorry for some of the coppers. I'm sure they've had a chat with a senior officer about what sort of things they can and can't say in front of the film crew. No slagging off the scameras, no criticism, etc. Three line whip basically. Not their fault if they've been assigned a duty and have to sing from the official hymn book in front of the BBC.

And the young BiB did trot out the immortal line to the hearse driver:

"We already have one dead body here - we do not want another one Sir!"

Oh dear!


Hearse driver: "um um um - he's got a plane to catch and he is late for his own funeral!"


Still - typical bias!

But then - they now have spent £87,000 for ad campaign per yesterday's "Daily Mail" - has PC Gatso bragging about how wonderful he is!

Well - self-praise is meaningless - someone ought to tell him that his performance is assessed and evaluated by other people.


Their view?

He ain't performing well in the road safety department but doing brill job extortionwise !

So true! These programmes should be taken with pinch of salt - they are edited to be politically corect!

In any case - you lot should uphold the law

One thing I did note: they did say the scameras were having detrimental effect on trafpol numbers!

There are less of us than there were - and that is bad for road safety!

The van had 'casualty reduction unit' written on the front, but the bloke said he wanted it to be 'speed reduction unit'. Not that it would have made a lot of difference, it was still very stealthy, makes me kind of glad that they painted the Cumbrian ones.

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

I stand corrected. Still the copper's remarks suggest that he would prefer be a bit more honest about what they're doing (which is encouraging) but the partnerships would prefer not to (which isn't). If nothing else it's a reminder that rank and file coppers are generally reasonable people, albeit working within an unreasonable set of constraints. The occasional psycho jobsworth type is inevitable, but I'm sure they're a minority.
I've been stopped from time to time for various reasons. A noisy exhaust got me a producer and a lecture about getting it fixed pronto. Blown tail/stop lights have got me stopped twice, but as I always keep a bulb kit in the car I didn't even get a lecture - just a friendly chat about life, the universe and everything while I replaced the bulb. Had a couple of smacks on the wrist about speed when I was younger, and one FPN about 7 years ago on one of those bits of road that could safely be 60 but drops to 30 3/4 mile before the village it's supposed to benefit (I was doing about 55). Only once have I met a real jobsworth. Stopped me because he supposedly couldn't see my tax disc, even though it was stuck on the windscreen exactly where it's supposed to be. Showed him the disc expecting to be sent on my way, but he decided that since he was there he'd check tyres lights etc. He looked like Santa had peed in his Xmas stocking when he couldn't find anything wrong.

errrr, wasn't the van side-on ? so you couldn't see the markings? if I'm right, then what was the point in the markings being pointed out?!!!

Hypothacation - hypocracy?

Yes, the van was side on so the markings coulkdn't be seen by the traffic. What I was saying is that the copper manning the thing seemed to be generally unhappy with the markings, especially the lack of the word 'speed'. I really did feel sorry for the poor sod. Somehow I doubt he joined up to sit in a van all day trapping Joe and Josephine Average on the way to work.

And I doubt they would have made any difference to the guy driving up the R/H side of the road, stoned and never having taken a driving test, who 'thought he was on a motorway. But that was one of the accidents that resulted in the SPECS system which in my opinion has made the road much more dangerous with drivers taking even more risks because they can't simply put their foot down to pass slower vehicles.