Well there is a hint at Brake but no much more ...
Brake only got 15 adults and various kiddies apparently there were more press than protesters and Idris Francis was clearly able to manage to ask them many questions and got various press interviews :
Idris Francis wrote:
I challened Brake at their campaign at County Hall, Trowbridge, Wiltshire - several News TV channels and Newsnight were there,
No one there but Brake and their supporters - no passing public to notice. I arrived in the nick of time, at the end, after losing 30 mins on the A303.
Plus about 3 TV crews. I spoke to 2 or 3 journalists, asking if they knew that Brake are part funded by the speed camera industry - they did not, but seemed surprised.
When they finished photographing the pro-camera protesters on the steps I walked up and asked who the lady from Brake was, and she identified herself. I asked loudly whether she was aware that Brake are part funded by speed camera companies, but she did not want to be drawn. So I said that A complaint has been filed with the Charity Commissioners about conflict of interest - at which she confirmed the funding but said that there was no conflict of interest because Brake is about saving lives and so are speed cameras. I told her than they don't, and Brake's conduct was unethical.
I also pointed out loudly that Brake had known for at least 4 years that vehicle activated signs are 50 times more cost effective that cameras but choose to ignore it.
By this time the cameras had come back, about 3 were filming and one reporter joined the conversation. He asked why I had come from Hampshire and I pointed out that Brake had come from Yorkshire! I was asked whom I represented and I replied myself at my own expense.
(Later one supporter told me "You only care about the money, not people's lives". I said that I did not know what she was talking about because I was spending money, not getting it. She replied "Exactly!" What on earth she meant by that I do not know and I walked away.)
She claimed that the 4th year report says that there was a 42% reduction in KSI - I replied that "Your job adverts ask for graduates in English - you would do better to hire someone with 0 Level arithmetic to stop you maing so many absurd errors" and pointed out that it didn't, it gave that figure only before RTTM, estimated as 3 times as significant so the figure was 4 times overstated. Only 14% even of fatal accidents involve speeding, that cameras cover no more than 3% of the roads so the maximum benefit is less than 0.5% - meanwhile 40 adverse effects across the country cause more accidents than cameras ever stop (the Newsnight reporter noted that in particular, and the interviewer took the one copy of the independent accountant's report on cameras v signs, that he seemed to think significant)
The interviewer then ask the Brake lady about adverse effects - she reluctantly accepted that there could be one - the one I had mentioned, sudden braking, but said that this happens only when someone is exceeding the speed limit and sees a camera - shows how much she knows!
At one point I was interrupted by one of the supporters, saying "What about OUR views?" I turned to the people on the steps and said "If there is anyone here who has spend 5,000 hours over 10 years studying these figures I will happily give way" with raised eyebrows - no response at all so I carried on proving Brake wrong on every point.
Another standard line came to my aid "I always find it difficult to debate a subject with people who know nothing at all about it"
The interviewer asked me whether I was cross with the supporters, most of who had been beraved - I said "No, this a a free country, they are entitled to believe what they like and say what they like - I don't blame them at all. But the problem is that they know little and what they do know they learned from the propaganda of the last 10 years. The difference between them and me is that they are wrong and I am right".
One supporter said "Don't you care about the people killed?" and I said Yes of course - the 10,000 who died who need not have done, more British lives than Iraq. Afghanistan and the Falklands combined"
I had a long friendly chat with a Wiltshire Council lady, and gave her my card, saying that if she or her colleagues need more information I would be happy to provide it. The Community Support officer, who explained he had approached only because he thought a young lad with a placard might try to hit me with it, agreed with a grin that I had not caused a breach of the peace, and was free to go!
Overall I was quite pleased with the way it went - far from being a Brake solo I got in some effective challenges and most of all made the point very clearly that signs are far more cost effective than cameras.
It is excellent to see people challenged when they want to just act before they truly understand the whole consequences of propaganda messages. No camera could ever have prevent the drunk/drugged driver help the son that was killed, and why she thinks it could puzzles me!
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) that the "majority" do, indeed, love speed cameras!
