Safe Speed Forums

You are right, this is all about peoples perception and more so, those that stagnate in old world and are opposed to anything new. Of course there is a cost to the service, as there is a cost to everything in life, but is it not better to support a service that when in time of need, would be there to support the motorist, that reply on the ever deminishing police.......

I think the point is that it would be better to prevent the police diminishing further instead!

Agree, BUT, if its out of our control to do that.......then the point I am making is that we have a new service which can almost fill the gap and we should make good use of them.

If they are new and less experienced, then in time, they will gain the same experience as the police and be just as effective if not more, but of course within their remit.

Bureaucracy - in what way?



Who else have they to how to do their jobs. Non-anectodal evidence would be appreciated.



Sorry but I see no evidence to support either of these allegations. Sorry mate but for some reason you just seem to have an unreasonable and disproportionate chip on your shoulder about HATOs - what exactly have they done to you to attract such criticism?

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I don't agree with them replacing TrafPols for the simple reason that they cannot prosecute anyone for dangerous driving. All other arguments supporting them pale into insignificance on that simple fact alone IMHO.

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Prepare to be Judged

They daily put the lives of themselves, other workers and the public at risk by ill-judged actions.

Gatsosforever and Weepej clearly believe that posters here have a chip on their shoulders about speed cameras. I disagree with them, because it is clear to me that the attitude on the site towards speed cameras is informed by the experiences and knowledge that posters have accrued. Often because posters or family/friends have been badly treated.

I work closely with the recovery industry, so my knowledge is based on speaking with HATOs and with recovery operators and also with seeing HATOs at work.

The idea of HATOs was probably a good one. But as with all things Blairite the execution left a lot to be desired.

And what about rumours that HATOs want more powers, including the ability to use speed cameras, etc. I wondered about that. Until I found this:

http://www.police-recruitment.com/one2/ ... 17458.html

Some police officers are concerned about HATOs, too...

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www.thatsnews.org.uk / www.thatsnews.blogspot.com / http://thatsmotoring.blogspot.com/

But it isn't just anecdotal evidence here is it? If it was there would be no SafeSpeed and a website full of analysis of speed cameras and their effects.



Are you sure some of these recovery operators all relay their stories to you without embelishment for effect Its human nature to tart up a story about something one dislikes in order to emphasise ones point. Just a suggestion.

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Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Well, I have taken that into consideration. You develop a nose for the exaggerations!

But I have to say I was a bit surprised that the attitude of serving police officers seems even more anti-HATOs than the average recovery operator!

Stories of HATOs attempting to have cars removed before the site has been checked out by crash investigators and trying to get them removed by unapproved means can be a real problem. The police insist that recoveries of vehicles required for forensic examination are undertaken by specially trained and approved operators using specially equipped recovery vehicles. So anyone who just tries to drag a vehicle away with his Land Cruiser or whatever could seriously hamper a crash investigation.

I spoke with the civilian recovery operator responsible for dealing with the aftermath of the London bombings. The care and attention to detail (vehicles have to be recovered without allowing their wheels to move) was incredible to hear about.

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I wished the coppers would just drag the wrecks off the highway, and speed things up a bit. I can't be doing with these road closures and delays every time somebody smashes their car. It costs billions, and it always come down to the same things. What a waste.

They've got to do all the forensics so that they can find out who did what 'crime' so they can take them to court, and they need to work out how much money they can steal from them.

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Andrew.

Yeah, they get all that over-time too. Look, these smashes all boil down to the same things anyway, and we all know what they are - a mixture of bad luck and stupidity. I don't see how closing the road and going over it on your hand and knees does any good, but it sure does a lot of harm.

They need to clear the wrecks out the way ASAP, and leave them at the side of the road for a few weeks as a warning to others.

In one word, forensics.

You are like that sad woman who drives on motorways at 10mph. She is happy at driving along at 10mph, so bugger all the poor sods who are stuck behind her!

Just so long as the wrecks are bulldozed out of your way so that you are not subject to any possible delay, eh?

Forensic examinations can prove that the poor soul who crashed into a tree was avoiding something in the road. That the reason someone ran into a bus queue was down to a catastrophic component failure, and not the fault of the driver. And so on.

Clearly sometimes a road is kept closed for a long time. Perhaps longer than we might like.

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That's right. Those loooonnnnngggg forensic examinations cause even more accidents out of frustration.

Look, you don't close down London Transport every time someone falls down the stairs on a bus. Let's try to keep some perspective here.



Like I said, it always boils down to the same things - bad luck or stupidity. The number of accidents caused by wear and tear is microscopic. Let's not waste time and money trying to figure out whether it was bad luck or stupidity (or most likely both). Let's spend our money on something worthwhile, like training drivers, and preventing delay instead of causing it.

I can't possibly agree with this, and once again VC, I have the impression that you are deliberately portraying a caricature.

If the cause of an accident was component failure, for example, then it is important that it be known, so that any systemic lessons required can be learnt. Otherwise we'll see more accidents for the same cause, avoidable accidents, with more casualties, and perhaps more importantly to the character you are trying to portray, more delays.

The first crash of a certain cause might well be bad luck, but to fall victim to the same cause again is no longer bad luck, if lessons that could have avoided it were lost for the sake of expediency.

You highlight the need for training, but factor 'stupidity' as your other, supposed, exclusive cause of accidents! If we don't learn what people are doing that is stupid, then how do we know what to train them on?

Accident investigation is the single most important aspect of road safety. Not as it is currently being prioritised, simply to apportion blame and figure out who gets charged, but to guide policy; when we understand the causes of accidents, scientifically rather than gut-shots like "Speed Kills", then we can take steps to prevent further occurrences!

RobinXe, I could not have put it better myself.

I'd bet that there are two kind of accidents so far a VC is concerned! The bad luck HE has... and the stupidity that every other driver suffers from!

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IMHO, the biggest difference between air and road accident investigation is that the former is to find out what happened and what lessons can be learned, whereas the latter is to decide who to blame.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

But it doesn't have to be that way, does it? More's the pity that it is...

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I want them to get on with it. Look, RobinXe, give them half and hour to poke around, sure. But after that, those coppers have to get out of the way, and the road should be opened.



Same as ever .. take it slow and easy.



Not when it always yields the same answers, it’s not. It’s no good investigating for 12 hours and then saying “it’s 40 percent bad luck and 60 percent stupidity again”! Taking it easy and watching out is the most important lesson, IMHO. Let's try and keep the roads open here, so we can all get to work.

This is a tough one. Air accident investigation has incrementally yielded huge benefits. There are large economies of scale and commonality in that system – a single investigation may cost the earth but potentially applies to all future operations, and the cost of each failure is enormous.

Unfortunately, the same economies of scale and commonality do not apply to the same extent with car crashes. A single failure is a hundred times less catastrophic, the investigation rarely yields novel data (so does not apply to many future operations) and they are so commonplace that huge tax resources are required to fund investigations.

But most damaging is this fact - air accident investigations are most commonly carried out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the centres of operations, where the passage of time is not important - airports do not close. But car crash investigations usually close the roads, making huge impacts all over the place, to the point where the system is crippled by everyday events.

Basically, the system is more important than a crash. An alternative might be a 1-in-N policy, where only, say, 1 in 5 accidents is rigorously investigated by the full team, no corners are cut. And the rest are given the “half hour poke around”. That trade-off would allow the system to function most of the time, yet novel findings would surface in the end. But the brits have entirely forgotten about the 80/20 law, and now they can’t rationally set any policy at all.

"Half an hour to poke around."

"Brain surgery? How difficult can that be?"
"Anyone could make a nucelar reactor if they had the right tools!"
"Forensic examination of a road crash? How hard can that be?"

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