Safe Speed Forums

I've heard today that the Northern Constabulary Camera Partnership has started up. I issued the following press release:

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PRL101: A Very Black Day for Highlands Road Safety

News: For immediate release.

Apparently the Northern Constabulary and the Highland Council have
abandoned the methods that they have used with great success to
maintain and improve Highlands road safety and have instead decided to
distract drivers with discredited speed cameras operated under the
discredited camera partnership scheme.

The government has long been attempting to persuade the public that
speed cameras are a good idea, but the results are terrible. The long
established beneficial trend in the national fatal accident rate has
been destroyed, and recent figures actually reveal that this most
important road safety indicator has actually gone into reverse - for
the first time in the history of UK motoring.

Deaths are up nationally, and deaths are up much more in those areas
where most camera tickets are issued.

Paul Smith, Founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign comments:
"The Northern Constabulary have had an absolutely excellent road
safety record and today they are throwing it away. I predict that road
deaths will rise just as they do wherever and whenever road safety is
delegated to robots."

Paul continues: "Government figures purporting to show a safety
benefit 'at speed camera sites' are fraudulent and entirely depend on
a well known statistical error."

In a recent report, Professor Mervyn Stone said: "The 'roll out' of
safety cameras by separate Safety Partnerships was initiated by DoT.
Its management was placed in the hands of the private sector company
PA Consulting Group. This "cost recovery" program has failed except
for the HMT requirement that it should be self-financing. There has
been a failure to design the program so that it would provide the
information needed to evaluate alternative ways of getting the
benefits of speed camera enforcement. The emphasis on political
acceptability has led the program down a cul de sac in which essential
public trust has been lost. The mistakes already made should be openly
recognised, and the program should be subjected to a root and branch
rethink."

Paul explains: "These cameras alter drivers safety priorities and give
out an entirely false message about the safety of speeds within the
speed limit. Neither the government nor the speed camera proponents
have investigated the wide range of negative side effects - but I
have. And the news is very bad indeed. Speed cameras are killing us."

You can contact Safe Speed via the web site:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk or by telephone on 01862 832000.

<ends>



Notes for editors
=================

Safe Speed PR:
Professors agree speed camera report is fraudulent
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr127.html

Safe Speed PR:
Bad Policy Increases Road Death
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr128.html

Safe Speed PR:
Deaths Up in High Camera Areas
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr129.html

Full information on "The Stone Report" at
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/stone.html

The main points of the Safe Speed arguments (with full references):
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/againstcameras.html
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They want war? They got it.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It certainly is a bad day for all drivers in the Highlands, The Northern Constabulary must have noticed the financial difference it makes in other regions that employ speed cameras.

How much of the revenue obtained from drivers will be re-invested into improving the roads or re-invested into making areas safer by police actually fighting crime...............none

Are we talking permanent camers here? Or is it the dreaded white van I've seen skulking on the A96 and A9? Last time was on the dual carriageway northbound at Daviot on the straight uphill stretch - a major accident blackspot - I don't think so!

As I understand it there will be liveried vans and no fixed cameras. I've had a couple of reports of liveried vans on the A9. I haven't seen one myself yet.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hate to say this but the van that I passed parked up south A9 on 19/12 was parked side on, was transit sized with No markings to show what it was.

MoJo.

Paul, am I wrong? I thought I saw a Truevelo on the A9 at Blair Atholl when I was up there in May.

There are IIRC a small number of fixed cameras on the A9, but nowhere else in the region.

There was one in a particularly nasty location southbound at Ballinluig immediately behind a 60 mph sign on a DC - don't know if it's still there.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

That's correct. They are Gatsos and they have all been made highly visible. Several that were hidden behind signs have been moved out. North of Perth there are just two in each direction.

The Highland Partnership are operating talivan(s?) only. I've not been able to identify more than one of the damn things operational at any one time.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Be warned - the camera on the dual carrieway southbound at Ballanluig on the A9 is on a 50mph stretch - it goes straight from 70 to 50 just north of the Ballanluig junction.

Further to my concerns about the camera vans and the A82.
I now have proof that speed cameras can positively contribute to accidents, far less prevent or reduce them.
There is only one stretch of road between Fort Augustus and Inverness where overtaking can be safely contemplate overtaking, and that is a section at Allt Sigh north of Invermoriston where there is approximately half a mile of clear visibility. Guess what! - our friendly camera van was sitting in the lay-by on the LHS northbound there the other day. I was behind two 35mph'ers when I reached Allt Sigh and, having luckily spotted the van, and noted that the road was completely clear for the half mile, I decided to try to overtake at a legal 60mph. I managed BUT ONLY JUST - it took the whole half mile to pass at 60mph.
My recollections of "Roadcraft" and the days when I did the IAM test were that overtaking manoevres should be completed in as short a time as possible, so I thought it would be unlikely that any prosecution would follow if you were snapped doing over 60 while overtaking especially on a stretch of road that offers the only opportunity for about 30 miles but NO. A friend told me of one of his aquaintances who had been given a fine for doing 64mph on that very same stretch while overtaking.
Where is the possible contribution to road safety there??