Safe Speed Forums

Shropshire Star, Friday 29th Sept, the day the DFT 5% figures came out.

"Volunteers aim to save lives

Caption: Ian Chapman, Sergeant Conrad Smith, Carol Richardson, Margaret Jones, Peter Richardson and Councillor Dave Jones check for speeding

Villagers' speed gun bid to slow the traffic
By Sue Austin

People in a village near Oswestry have armed themselves with speed guns in the battle to slow down motorists who race through the main street.

Maesbury is the first village in the county where residents work with police and the county council to run a speed watch project.

Next week neighbouring villages in Trefonen and Treflach will launch their own scheme and it is hoped that the iniviative can sooon be rolled out across Shropshire.

Yesterday villagers in Maesbury were at the roadside monitoring the speed of drivers in the latest push by residents to make their village safer having successfully campaigned to bring down speed limits.

The volunteers, trained in using the speed guns, will be able to pass on registration numbers of offending vehicles to the police.

Sergeant Conrad Smith, police co-ordinator for the project, said: "Shropshire County Council has provided the jackets and signs while the police have provided the training and the equipment but without the volunteers this could not go ahead.

"I hope this will soon be rolled out to areas in the division. It is all about educating drivers.

"It has become somewhat of a cliché that speed kills, but from personal experience I know that it is true."

Ian Chapman, Maesbury village co-ordinator, added: "This is a real partnership. Our long term aim is to see an overall reduction in the overall speed of vehicles through the village," he said.

ENDS

It would be interesting for him to recount this experience.

Just another prodnose, busybody setup. They campainged for limits, got them and then found that nobody took any notice. You know why? It isn't dangerous. They are really complaining about the presence of cars at all.

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

I'll have to go through Maesbury at some point to appraise the place, but from what I can remember of the place, it carries commuter traffic to/from Oswestry on a fairly wide C road -- see http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dl ... 00&A=Y&Z=3

What gets to me about his "speed kills" quote is the hypocrisy of it. One Sunday afternoon in September, around 18.30, I was following a West Mercia Traffic Plod Vauxhall Omega estate into the centre of Shrewsbury along the A458 off the A5. He had come down the A5 from the Oswestry direction. I followed him at a constant distance to measure his speed. This is what I found. Between the roundabout for the Oxon Business Park and the Oxon Priory pub, a s/c A road with residential area on the right, he was doing 48mph in a 40. Further on, going towards Frankwell, his speed didn't drop below 34mph in the 30, despite the "speed camera" warning signs. The road down the Mount is fairly narrow, being s/c with parking spaces on the one side, and houses on both sides. A little further on towards Frankwell, again on the same road, he passed a line of parked cars on his left, doing 38mph past the Bull in the Barne pub. As he negotiated the left turn onto the Frankwell roundabout, he was 2ft over the centre white line, causing the oncoming car to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

I lost plod soon after crossing the Welsh Bridge as I was heading into the town centre and he carried on, presumably to their HQ in Monkmoor.

Is there a thread on here for police hypocrisy?

Would there be value in an 'hypocrisy' thread?

I think so.

95 matches on this forum for "hypocrisy" so it's quite popular. What galled me about that incident is that I had no means of taking note of the numberplate, and was too concerned with finding somewhere to park in the town centre had I remembered it (I'm pretty poor at remembering numberplates). Having said that, had I made a note of it, and submitted formal complaint, it would've been quitely forgotten by West Mercia plod anyway.

A few months ago I witnessed some questionable driving by WM traffic plod on the M54, how he approached a car at considerble speed prior to turning off (without indicating, natch), and his driving on the long exit road to the roundabout. I didn't have a chance to make note of his numberplate as I was fighting traffic in the middle of Telford at the time, but made note of where I first observed him, and which exit he took of the roundabout, together with what type of car it was. Armed with this info, I went round to Telford police station and asked to make an official complaint about this driving, given that it set an extremely poor example of driving to other people, and some of it I considered to be dangerous. If the driver could be traced from my info, then I'd have liked him to have had a severe warning. If he couldn't be traced, then a reminder to all traffic plod to drive with a bit more DC&A would suffice. I had prescisely one phone call about this case, saying I'd be kept informed of future developments. That was months ago, and I've heard nothing since. I did make sure that, while in the police station, the other members of Joe Public also there could clearly hear my complaint. The sergeant I spoke to -- a polite enough chap -- looked pretty wan when he could see that I was making sure that the other members of public could hear my complaint.

Now , I and a few friends have a problem with a few "Young Obstinate Blokes" (YOBS for short , but not Pee Cee) gathering large stones from my neighbours drive, walking down the road and throwing these at parked cars.
Wonder if BIB would allow us to send out members of our group to prevail on their better instincts ( armed with a video camera for possible legal action with full backing against being branded "perverts") or if we could hold them for the several days required to enable a reactive response to arrive

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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