Safe Speed Forums

Just as well the "i" is in the first word..

I well remember the first time that I was given the threatening 'heavy breathing' treatment by the Government. Something I'd written about a public sector pay offer to teachers had annoyed a Cabinet minister, who dispatched a henchman to 'sort me out'. The row was about the size of a salary increase being presented to teachers. Westminster had portrayed it one way, I reported how much it was really worth, and complaint went in to my editor. As a relatively new boy, I was called to account. But after showing my workings out in full, I was thanked and congratulated on my tenacity in resisting what, these days, we would call Government 'spin'.
Soon afterwards, I met at a conference a slightly obsessed, but passionate professor of education, who was convinced the Government had got its figures wrong on the size of the teacher shortage in the nation's schools. It took me a while to calm him down, and get him to translate his mountain of statistical evidence into bit-sized chunks mere mortals could understand.
It turned out the situation was much worse than Westminster was letting on. I was working at the time for the Press Association, the national news agency whose reputation relies on delivering speedy, accurate and impartial news reports. As soon as the story went out, all hell broke loose again. The scandal of Britain's teacher shortage became a major issue, and the professor - with no particular axe to grind - rose from relative obscurity to become a major commentator.
Government ministers were incandescent, and at first tried to rubbish his findings, then him, until they realised that his data was more accurate than theirs. So, in time-honoured fashion, they appointed him to various committees. Now, this all happened 20 years ago, under a Conservative Government. But the lessons are relevant to motoring policy today. A former engineer-turned-road-safety analyst called Paul Smith has been unpicking planks of the Governments road safety policy. Especially when it comes to Speed cameras.
What's really got up ministers' noses - and you ought to hear the howls from the Department for Transport - is that this slightly obsessed, passionate (ring any bells?) one-man band campaigner has really uncovered and highlighted major flaws in official statistics and policy.
By Paul's own reckoning, he has carried out more than 10,000 hours working on his SafeSpeed campaign - half that time researching the overall effects of speed camera policy - and even put £10,000 of his own money where his mouth is. Most recently, the Government was forced to admit in its road casualty statistics that fewer than one in 20 accidents is caused by drivers going over the speed limit. That's a far cry from the one in three accidents ministers have long blamed on speeding. Yet speeding is the very reason the Government uses to justify the 6,000 speed cameras on our roads, which raise £1.2billion a year in fines from 2.1 million drivers.
But as we know, speed cameras can't catch a drunk driver weaving recklessly across the road in an untaxed, uninsured car a slightly under the speed limit.
The Government would perhaps be well advised, in time-honoured fashion, to stop trying to 'diss' this camera fanatic, and instead help fund some of his research with a view to using it to guide official road safety policy. Failing that, how about an award for his services to motoring? "Arise, Sir Paul."

...There is another "exclusive" in the mag which is worth bring up in another thread if nobody else has spotted it yet.

I know, but haven't had any justification to get one. Perhaps if my business gets off the ground it will buy an all-in-one device that will scan/copy/print etc, but I probably won't have the time to hang around this site so much then!

Dr L -have you seen this page on the HP site
drivers