Safe Speed Forums

Comment: The four-person accident was where the woman crammed seven children into a five-seater car. IIRC she crashed at 70mph. A concrete barrier is a good idea, but was it necessary to reduce the limit?

http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headline ... h_road.php

Police rule out cameras on death road
By Giles Sheldrick

Speed cameras will not be used to catch motorists breaking the new limit on Oxford's killer Eastern Bypass, the Oxford Mail can reveal.

Police have only just been able to enforce the revised 50mph speed limit, after a bungle over signs on the stretch where four people died in last year's horrific crash - but officials have ruled it is not a dangerous enough area to put in speed cameras. Instead, only patrol cars passing through the area will nab speeders. Latest figures show that only a tiny fraction of speeders caught in Oxfordshire were caught by police officers on patrol.

Yesterday, Jane Barber, the mother of Josh Bartlett, who was killed in the accident, said she believed cameras were needed.
continued...

A review of the speed limit was conducted after last May's crash in which teenagers Liam Hastings, Marshall Haynes, Josh Bartlett and 21-year-old Howard Hillsdon were killed. Although speed was not a factor in the crash, the limit was lowered from 70mph to 50mph and a motorway-style concrete crash barrier built to make the road safer.

However, it emerged this month county council highways engineers had made basic errors, which rendered the speed limit unenforceable since it was introduced in March.

One 50mph sign was missing and one was too small, meaning police were powerless to stop speeding motorists. Now Thames Valley Police said the only enforcement would be patrol cars, rather than either a fixed speed camera or the mobile speed cameras in the back of vans seen at other accident blackspots across the county.

Police spokesman Annie Tysom said: "The collision history of the road means it does not qualify for camera enforcement by the safer roads partnership. Any speed enforcement will be by passing traffic patrols routinely using the road."

Since 2000, six people have been killed on the road between Horspath Driftway and Green Road roundabout. Mrs Barber said: "How many more deaths or casualties is it going to take before they do something about it? If they put a speed camera on the bridge I think they would be amazed at the numbers caught speeding. I travel along the road and it's crazy the number who take driving for granted, and speed."

Last year, police patrols in Oxfordshire issued 1,515 speeding tickets. Police have told the Mail that "operation information" was used to target speeding hot spots.

Dan Campsall, of the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership, said: "We have no site there and, at present, no plans for enforcement. That has not changed."

Nurse Angela Dublin was jailed for two years after she admitted causing the bypass deaths by dangerous driving.

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Hmm . overoloaded car and driver driving at the old limit... not rocket science to work out the main underlying factors.

If a car was spotted on our roads.. obviosuly overloaded then it would not matter if the driver were creeping along at 20 mph.. we'd stop them. There are rules about this - per the Road Traffic Act 1988 as it would certainly fail the test of whate we would normally expect from the averagely competent person in charge of a motor vehicle.

Don't know the road well enough .. but what was its history before this incident? Do the six deaths to date include the four in this tragedy - which was more down to the overload - which would most probably have made this vehicle unsteady and certainly affected its handling at any speed. Could be why they have decided against a speed cam...and to reassure the mothers if they lurk on here.. I am sure the patrols in Oxfordshire will be watching this road closely and will be checking all blatters along it now that the limit is enforceable. I understand from this article that errors made it unenforceable until only recently... so it's a case of monitoring and auditing this road for a while.

I would much rather stop someone dangerous before they kill than leave it all to a camera though .. Let's put it that way.. and we all do really, really try to do this. Swings and roundabouts .. we do rein in plenty of "undesirable road users" - up here . but all too often we end up giving up pursuits of the bikers as pursuit is to dangerous for all of us. We just hope to cop another time. I know all traffic divisions have similar problems with the terminally thick who are also extremely dangerous on our roads.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
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A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I think we'd all rather have that than cameras that only catch those exceeding the speed limit.

Several times I have seen idiot drivers, not necessarily speeding, but driving in a potentially dangerous manner, and hoped there would be a police car lurking about somewhere that would stop them. Invariably there isn't and that IMO makes the roads less safe for everyone.