Safe Speed Forums

While I'm sure the treasury isn't complaining about the money I don't believe this is what it's all about, but your phrase "at no cost to the government" is still key. I think the aim is to achieve safer roads by the cheapest and simplest of means - scameras. The scam element is not so much that they're some sort of stealth tax but more that they're not bloody doing what they're supposed to, partly due to their inherent limitations and largely due to the way in which they're used. Solving any problem with a cheap, over simplified approach that is ultimately ineffective is a scam - no matter how cheap it'll never be worth the price. Sadly as far as road safety goes, the price is lives as well as the millions sunk into scameras and the millions extracted from drivers.


Then it probably won't come as a surprise that the owner of a very large wind turbine manufacturer donated a quarter million to New Labour recently, and also had lunch with Tone. Story here. Wonder what they talked about, eh. Strikes me that a businessman doesn't just hand 250 grand over without an idea of what he expects to get out of it, but maybe I'm just being cynical. Probably he's just a good buddy helping out a friend.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Taking off on a slight tangent here.. I wonder if it's a result of politicians and civil servants basically having absolutely no knowledge of business? They're all either career politicians (who've never had a proper job in their lives), or lawyers. They get the "received wisdom" that businesses are more efficient than government (which is generally true) and decide that "the profit motive" is what leads to the improved efficiency, so blindly go ahead and set up agencies that have the profit motive as part of their ethos - and then wonder (privately) "what went wrong" when said agency does its best, in true capitalist fashion to maximise its profit. One subtle difference that seems to have escaped our masters is that efficiency in business comes from competition; when you set up a monopoly with statutory backing you create a monster.

I may be blowing smoke, but I have a feeling that this was one of the major problems with the original setup of the CSA - it's people were on what was effectively a "profit bonus", with the consequence that they went after the "soft targets", ie fathers who were paying maintenance already - but who could be persuaded to pay more with very little effort on their part, rather than the real problem fathers who needed a lot of work to get a return. Net result, a lot of very bad feeling, injustice etc etc.. Rather like the scamera partnerships innit..?


Well it worked very well for Bernie Ecclestone... Delayed the restrictions on tobacco advertising in F1 - and he got his million quid back!! Result!!!

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

Damn right, pogo. The only other thing I'd add to that is the growth of badly thought out targetting - your bit on the CSA reminded me.
[semi-tangental rant] Want more kids to have a uni education? Piece of piss, just turn all the technical colleges into unis offering worthless degrees in crap for which the most brainless or lazy student could scrape a pass. Okay, so they're not necessarily any better equipped for life beyond <ha> academe, and the rest of us are finding sparks and plumbers so rare that we can't hire one anymore without getting a second mortgage first. But the point of the exercise is to get more uni students and from that perspective it's been a roaring success. These bloody targets are getting everywhere and to a large extent doing square root of bugger all to actually improve things as far as I can see. As for the roads, it's all very well saying that your target is to reduce deaths, but when you look back over the decade of "speed kills" and count the cadavers you have to wonder if it was worth having the target at all. [rant over]

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Regarding the "All must win, All must have prizes" approach that's taken to "education" in Blairtonia, here's a very apposite quote from "Sorry, Wrong Number", by Prof. John Brignell - a cracking good (if at times deeply depressing) book about the abuse of measurement and statistics...

I think I'm turning into Victor Meldrew...

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

I think that's something of an exaggeration ... 70,000 vehicles a day use the M11; quite frankly there's no way that many cars would fit down a single carriageway road.

The Government might not have intended to make money, but if you read the rest of my post, you might wonder like I do, why the Highways Authority allowed a few residents at Ings to dictate the design of the road, and then create a camera operation.
The answer I was given was: A filling station with traffic on and off a busy road, numerous driveways onto the same, and a small local community straddling the road.
Plantation Bridge, a mile or two away has.... a filling station, a side road, houses with driveways both sides, and a spot where a motorist fell asleep and ended up in the verge - all at the bottom of a long hill with an accident history (two pensioners killed by Bernie Connor while he was drunk) and high numbers of speeding motorists (including a coach last week!). So why does Plantation Bridge not get the same treatment???
No PUB for the village "safety experts" maybe?
One for Ian H I think!
How was the £1 million spent by CSCP? By the partners, and the camera operators.
What on? A few cameras, three vans and a few leaflets cribbed from other sources? It all seems a costly way of implementing a casualty reduction scheme. However, the bigger the scheme, the more the money which drips off amounts to! Wages, and little stunts like the roving hearse going around Cumbria! Rather apt reflection on the increasing numbers of fatalities while the CSCP have been in existance!!
When I see the term SAFETY CAMERA, I really want to be sick! There is talk of banning replica guns. Why not monitor CCTV footage, and if a gun is real send a policeman, and if it is a replica, send a fixed penalty notice out a week later. Then the CCTV could be called Firearm SAFETY Cameras!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Going by two examples of similar activity down here, might be worth looking at the local council member's majority for the ward covering that area...

We had speed limits imposed in two villages after a very vocal and entirely incorrect campaign by about 20 locals (out of 200 or so in the village). The councillor's majority at last election ? 10.

So what would the councillor have done.....yep, you guessed it....supported the campaigners.

Personally, I think any speed limit for ANY road should only be set by the Highways Agency (not local authority) in conjunction with the Police Traffic Division.

Now there's an idea !!

this

[quote="Ernest Marsh]....
to be honest, the 40 limit is just there to appease the local villagers, and has done NOTHING for the safety of the village,[/quote]

Lets get something really clear (and I speak as a villager by the way) people in rural villages with main roads running passed them (bypasses) want lower speed limits because slower traffic means less noise. It has little to do with safety. My house is 100 yards from the A30, the speed limit is 40 mph, my quality of life would be far better if the speed limit was 30 mph.

Thats the mentality that argues for lower speeds and uses "safety" to justify it

As it happens I also believe that the A30 passed Old Basing should be 30 not 40. I would justify this by the fact that since the speedlimit was set at 40 a whole new development has sprung up on the non village side of the A 30 and it now, in reality passes through a residential area which includes a retirement complex. All shops, schools etc are on the opposite side of the road. Oh yeah and it would be a darn site quietr whilst we are in the pool in the garden

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Erm.. I think that you'll find that the chap making all the criticisms is a resident.!

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

This is the A591 THE route into the Lake District, from anywhere South or East of the Lakes.
The figure is from Cumbria County Council, who have a data recording loop at Ings. Believe you me, on a good day, they often DONT all fit, and the traffic becomes stationary for long periods - although with the weather we have recently it's not been so much of a problem as it once was.
The other aspect is that those who live in the lakes often work in Manchester or Preston, and commute out every morning, while those who work IN the lakes often cannot afford houses there, and commute INTO the lakes EVERY DAY!
It's only 35,000 vehicles each way in a 24 hour period, and if you have ever been to the Lake District, it's not that far out for an average.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

This IS a bypass. The village of Ings is off to the right, on a loop of old road adjacent to the grassy median. There are a dozen or less houses on the left stretching to the distance and beyond, including a farm which now houses horses.
I used to live further along the A591, and the only time traffic was disturbing was when it was nearly stationary during the summer on extra busy days. At night you never noticed it at all, and during the day the quicker the cars passed the less you noticed them. The house was only 10 yards from the road - most of the houses here are more than 30 yards with a couple of exceptions.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

You can get a picture of the disposition of the adjoining properties from these pictures - courtesy of Cumbria Saftey Camera Partnership, showing off their new fixed cameras.
It only needs a small percentage of 70,000 vehicles to earn some cash!


The two grey control boxes sit either side of the point at which the footpath/cycle path crosses from one side of the road to the other, and the sensor loops are under the same crossing in each direction!!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

take a minute to think about the residents feelings,

Bet you catch plenty of those same residents as well........

beligerent mode OFF.

I'm not so sure - when the cameras were mobile, and the residents had'nt twigged to the online schedule from the CSCP website, they used to hear about it on the bush telegraph. Actually it was a text message broadcast to all the friends of one or two residents!

Some residents lack basic road sense - one in particular collects his paper from the filling station, then wonders off the pavement at 45 degrees (and more!)across both carriagways, with his dog following off the lead several feet behind or to one side.
One morning he passed behind my car, into the path of a following car, forcing it to slow almost to a halt. I am quite sure he did it deliberately!! He was almost certainly on the road without an MOT and no insurance should he cause an accident!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

70,000 Ern?

A car a second?

Seems high for Ings.

I seem to recall a figure of 17,000, although I'd imagine on summer weekends it might get up closer to the figure you quote.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

I've been trying to find the link which I posted on the CSCP site once.
The nearest I have found is this:

If you allow not everyone makes it to Ambleside, going instead to Coniston, Troutbeck and Bowness, I guess 70,000 is optimistic, but 19,000 at Ambleside have mostly passed through Ings.
The site I got the figure from originally was a CCC site, and specifically mentioned CCC data collection points at Ings, Waterhead and Grasmere.
There are DS2/3 loops and posts adjacent to the mobile sites, but I dont think they are used by CCC!!
I'll keep digging!!

Edited to add:
National Park figures for 1999 show 12,000,000 visitors arrive in Windermere, 89% by car. Divide by 365 days, then by 4 (vehicle occupants) and leave the same way (x2) and you get 14,630 cars. Their site says 14,700 per day for Waterhead in 1999!
I need to find a horses mouth!!!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

That is exactly what happens - the current process for reviewing a speed limit takes absolutely no account of the views of the motorist who can hardly see the A5 notice on the lamp post with 6pt print during the 'consultation' process.

I've got no problem with locals wanting to reduce the environmental impact of traffic and increase the value of their homes etc. However, the speed limit is supposed to represent the max. safe speed for the road for any vehicle. Since you enforce the speed limit on 'safety' grounds and the courts punish on safety grounds - isn't it a but unfair to have a speed limit that is not set on safety grounds.

Personally I think a green bordered speed limit (request rather than law) would have benefity and a speed check indicator. But then you lot wouldn't get your money.

Does anybody know how far outside the shaded site boundary, accidents can be used to qualify having cameras INSIDE the area?

The bendy section of road to the left of the site area saw over 7 accidents last year which left evidence on the road/verges. Any one of these could have been a fatal if anyone had been in the path(s) of the vehicles involved. A serious injury accident at Reston saw the Air Ambulance evacuate two casualties from a motorcycle which collided with a van - on the day the camera van was a few hundred yards away (according to the CSCP schedule)! At the Staveley junction, there was a five vehicle pile up, where miraculously, nobody was seriously injured.

edited to close brackets!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

local highways & byways dept should be able to clarify rights of way.