Safe Speed Forums

In this post:
viewtopic.php?p=218097#p218097

You claim the following:

"It's about time the Police and Council sorted out this horrendous tend of additional pretend cameras.
They have caused deaths and must be stopped.
It is utter folly to claim that a burglar will be put off by a Gatso type camera - when a blue tit is attracted to yellow, since when ? If they were attracted to them then why are there not more trying to nest on or by the real one's ?

For the authorities to show even mild support is extremely wrong as it sets up a dangerous precedent."

1. Where are your examples of "death by imitation speed camera"?

2. I do not know whether Blue Tits are attracted to yellow but they may well be. Where is your proof they are not?

3. Blue Tits do not nest in real Gatso cameras because they are made of steel and do not have holes big enough to allow the ingress or egress of even the smallest of Blue Tits.

4. The authority involved here has supported the use of an imitation Gatso camera, where is your proof that the precedent is causing a danger.

In line with your policy, show where your proof is or please retract the statements, the statements you have posted do not come over as opinion but do come over as fact.

If you have any proof then please post it up in support of your postings and I will gladly accept what you have said should the reference be an acceptable source.

1. Where are your examples of "death by imitation speed camera"?
Was that statement in regard to speed cameras in general?

2. I do not know whether Blue Tits are attracted to yellow but they may well be. Where is your proof they are not?
No such claim or statement was made; it was posed as a question based on sceptisism, not fact. The claim was made by the person with the 'birdbox'.

4. The authority involved here has supported the use of an imitation Gatso camera, where is your proof that the precedent is causing a danger.
An example quoted within the report: "One man told the Echo there had been a few near-miss accidents as drivers slammed on their breaks at the sight of the camera, "
This is typical behaviour and a reasonably expected negative side-effect of speed cameras, genuine or otherwise.

2 of your 3 questions have been answered, 1 is outstanding.

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

1. It is clear that the claim is made about simulated speed cameras; there is no ambiguity.

Isn't the Honesty and Accuracy Queries forum supposed to refer to questions about the main SS webpages and not throwaway statements made in the informal forum chat?

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

Yep you are correct - the forum is a place to chat generally about driving ... still I will answer and satisfy him I hope ...

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

(please try and use the quote facility )

The example is the case in Hampshire where they had a case of a 'cardboard' camera. The local police thought it a great joke, until one day one of the policeman's daughters travelling along the road crashed and killed herself. The conclusions were that she had braked for the camera only unlike many others she lost control of her car and hit a nearby wall and died. That is totally tragic.
I think the chap should have been held to account. - I will try to find some links for you ...
the article claimed that he thought they were - he was clearly being glib.
you have proof that they don't nest in metal ? Far more to do with holes than any colour I might hazard a guess ! However I am not interested in any proof either way as this is nothing to do with the Campaign and is pointless to discuss never mind debate.
Camera's have many side effects that make driving worse including on centrating on a speed than driving to conditions. The report claim's near misses - it is widely known and reported that people pay less attention at camera sites as they become distracted.
I always try my very best to know that I have knowledge and can back up what I say, but these are the forums where general chat can happen, it is the website that is the Campaign Honesty Issues to be discussed here.
I am sure there are appropriate Police reports if you care to go and find a copy they say there was to be one... but I post up a link ...

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Link here 1
Here 2

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

[quote]
3. Speed limits are generally set correctly within the confines of the speed limit values allowed. Why then are they being reduced? Well for a start there is a problem with them being observed. Set a 60 mph limit and see the average or 85th percentile at 70 mph, set the same road to 50 mph speed limit and see that drop into the 50's or low 60's job done.[quote]

Greenshed, is this the official SCP line? If so maybe you will get round to proving this statement or retracting it....

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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.

Tell us something Greenshed ( after all you invoked the honesty idea ) -
1) Please confirm or deny that you are SCP( I.E PUT UP OR SHUT UP)
2) Is this constant smokescreening of topics ,particularly those with newcomers part of the overall SCP plan ,or just something you do on your own account .( And I always thought using smoke was something done by naval SURFACE vessels to avoid further enemy action and damage .)

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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

Neither link shows that the camera was the cause of the death.

Extract from Link 1:
"Asked if the artificial camera could have distracted the 19-year-old driver, Mr Wright said: "I can't see how - there were no skid marks."

Other residents said the badly- injured driver told people at the scene that she crashed after swerving to avoid a rabbit in the road."

The police said they would look to see if the fake camera may have had an effect but none is shown to have been found.

A quote from "The Newspaper.com" Isn't really going to be a convincing or accurate source; your link at Link 2 from that source has it making a very selective quote, a little like yours I have to say.

So no substantiation of your statement so far in my opinion.

Thank goodness your opinion is not of any paramount importance then Steve, sorry, Greenshed, or Lord help us all!

So, is the raising of this issue in a new thread, when one already exists for the purpose, mainly to obfuscate the inappropriate response of yours that I highlighted in the previous one? Is this all part of your spin of avoiding the inconvenient truths, much like your blatant ignoring of botach's most recent post in this thread?

I think a courtesy has been extended to you, in answering all counter-points you wish to raise (regardless of how you wish to dismiss the responses based on their inconvenient contravention of your paradigm), that you seem reluctant to reciprocate. I can only imaging the furore you would raise if any of your points went ignored and unanswered, as evidenced by your wholly inappropriate response on the previous thread when less than a whole eight hours elapsed on an internet forum without a point you were interested in (that someone else had raised) being answered!!

To address one of your points (whilst wholly unconcerned with whether you choose to ignore/dismiss it), are we to believe that there must be skidding evident for a driver to lose control of their vehicle during harsh manoeuvre in response to an external stimulus?

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Not at this stage no.
I am aware of more information but I need to try and source what I have understood to be true however I will request the Police Report which is likely to be more conclusive. However we can debate the likely causes of the accident ....
Camera's are renowned to cause distraction - do you agree ?

Extract from Link 1:
You do not have to have skid marks to show distraction !
Inconclusive and unreliable.
The Police investigation is not printed in the article how can you therefor state that, this is not shown.
Yet you use it above - hummm.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

The link I have used is from "thisishampshire.net I wouldn't quote thenewspaper.com unless I was prepared to believe that there are chimpanzees on Mars developing nuclear weapons or some other such true story.

OK well you didn't need to quote the whole thing just to tel us that you accept that one report you have decided to accept that there has been a fatality at the location of a fake camera.
So then I re-ask - so you agree that camera's can cause distraction to motorists ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Substantiate or remove: libellous accusation against thenewspaper.com.

Well done for again disregarding the inconvenient facts. QED.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

But it does say



A sentiment with which it is difficult to disagree and which is very much in line with COAST

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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

Not quite - no immediate report will show and answer to any traffic accident as it is the investigation that we need to obtain and that rarely comes to light.
The article may well mention about distraction as a cause sure ......
But the problem that cameras cause is a distraction to the 'road ahead'. When you look away to ensure that you are legal and that your speed is correct you may well miss a vital early potential hazard indicator. I suspect this may well have happened here. When we choose times to take a glance to check something we do so when things are safe. Any camera presence takes out attention at times that may otherwise be less than favourable to take that crucial glance. Hence something is missed and an accident occurs.
Then there is another problem, many drivers now rely on Sat Nav's to tell them where the cameras are, and if they then suddenly see one they have not been previously alerted to then they may well panic brake even before they check their speedo just in case they may have been over the limit by a few mph.
Since camera's are not helping people to drive better or more safely, nor is speed the 'big issue' that it has been made out to be, then issues like good driving and ensuring COAST and safety as a default, are becoming defunct and lost in a sea of speed adherence.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

I note that Greenshed has chosen to ignore my request to PUT UP OR SHUT UP and defend m y allegegation that he is SCP . I further submit that he is Steve Calaghan (AKA the ancuent submariner ,also known on PH as Pitmansboots ) ,unless he can prove otherwise .I claim as my prize that Greenshed ) unless he can prove otherwise ) be awarded an avature of a red camera ( to warn all of his intent) .Mind you - now shown up ,said ex submariner ,in the true tradition ( unless depth charged into oblivion) will surface under some other wirede colour.

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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

You have described what very bad drivers would do.
Alternately compliant, lawful driving is not at all difficult to achieve and be safe.
Why not promote a method that does both?

So, "good drivers" would forever be looking at the speedo? You didn't expressly state that, but that is the inevitable conclusion from your claim, especially in these days of needlessly low limits (such as motorways where the great majority of users say the limits should be increased).


"safe" - well that obviously eliminates the camera option
This campaign is promoting a more effective method that really does do both (1, 2); ok the main focus of that method would be on the safety more than the compliance, but isn't the former the important factor?

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