Safe Speed Forums

You're hardly Einstein yourelf if you can't grasp the concept that breaking the speed limit is not inherently unsafe.

I would!

A simple and unloaded question for Gatsos Forever.

Does a speed camera physically prevent a motorist from driving inappropriately fast?

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

A mind exercise for Gatsosforever.

Picture these scenes:

A man drives through a speed camera zone at 29mph.

Another man drives through a speed camera zone at 32mph.

Who is the dangerous driver?

The man driving at 32mph?

Well, let's expand on the information.

The man who drives through the speed camera at 32mph is driving on a warm, sunny day, the road is totally clear.

The man who drives through the speed camera zone at 29mph is driving in blizzard conditions on hard packed ice and he is heading towards traffic on the road.

Who is the dangerous driver, now?

According to your Gatso, the man driving at 29mph in a blizzard and on hard packed ice is the safe driver.

What do YOU think, Gatsosforever?

Who is the safe driver?

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

There have been some rather distasteful posters on this forum over the years, none of which ever convinced me that they were the full genetic package, but the above is wantonly inflammatory and insulting. How DARE you claim that members of this campaign are extremists and supporters of terrorism.

For the avoidance of ANY future doubt, pal, us lot at SafeSpeed are concerned that deaths on our roads are not falling at the rate that they were up to the early 90's, and certainly not falling at the rate they should be given the massive increase in the number of gatsos over the last fifteen years. We are a safety campaign. We are not a pro-speed lobby. We recognise that there are better solutions to road safety than mindless robots, indiscriminately positioned, that neither table nothing and offer nothing to the ongoing problem of road deaths in this country.

We aren't thick. We've just opened our eyes. We see the bigger picture, and with a forum nickname like yours, gf, you are clearly not interested in the slightest in improving road safety as you have unconditional support for devices that have a proven track record in not reducing deaths on British roads. That, to me, is extremist and - frankly - terrifying.

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Simon

Actually gatsosforever, picking up on SigmaMotion's point, how often have you put your life on the line to defend your country from terrorists? You are happy to bandy the term around, but quite frankly, I see you as nothing more than an armchair warrior, preaching your particular flavour of dogma.

The SafeSpeed campaign has at least one supporter who has actually made a material commitment to protect their country against the scourge of terrorism. How dare you accuse them of supporting terrorists?!

Let's face it: The arguement is between the private (self funding) robotic automatronic Policing of the roads by cameras, or Policing by REAL Policemen who cost money to the Exchequer.......and therefore the taxpayer.

It's got NOTHING to do with "Safety" but everything to do with "Money" and the Government purse AND the TAXES you need to pay to fund it!

I DON'T like CAMERAS! I would rather we pay taxes to employ real Policemen to improve road safety by their discretion and judgement.

The only trouble is that the people who would clamour for a reduction in taxes are NOT the ones who are hardest hit by the cameras!

Which one are you? Are you prepared to pay the extra tax to fund the Road Police instead of self funding cameras? I am.......I don't like this "back door" privatisation of road safety for Political reasons, it doesn't work!

They are both dangerous - as I've mentioned before, stick to the speed limit for the road, or the appropriate speed for the conditions, whichever is lower.

What Thatsnews didn't mention was that the speed limit for both zones was 40mph. So I suppose that now makes the 32mph driver "safe".

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Magic Sign, which can change safe to dangerous and vice versa just by having different numbers painted on it.

I wish GF would disappear, but on the other hand, I'm quite enjoying watching him dig hole after hole for himself. If Spindrift is the vilest of the trolls then I think GF is a contender for most dull-witted.

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

Oh, but they CAN'T both be unsafe! Because cameras never lie and the speed camera says that the driver doing 29mph is driving safely and within the law!

Ah. But THAT would mean that they are NOT safety cameras, but merely speed cameras and, therefore, are a dangerous snare and a delusion. And a money spinner, to boot.

So we see that speed camers actually REDUCE road safety. But they make lots of money for people who sell the cameras and provide income for the safety (sic) partnerships, so we will just have to put up with the fact that lives are being sacrificed on the altar of commercial expediency.

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

I support the destruction of ANYTHING that hampers improvements in REAL road safety. Speed Cams do NOT, and NEVER WILL detect poor/dangerous driving. Only TrafPol can do that.

And by saying that 'therefore I support terrorists' I believe you have demonstrated to the rest of the forum what a ***** you are. If you had ANY idea how anti-terrorists I am...

I may, however, be an extremist. I REALLY do believe that driving standards in this country are appalling and that something needs to be done - and that certainly ain't speedcams!

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

And whilst I'm on about it...

Improving Road Safety in the UK is severely hampered by people such as you, who have swallowed the govt hype that speed kills etc...

You (unless you're just trolling) now seem to believe that speedcams are the panacea to all road safety issues.

And people with your mindset are just prolonging the introduction of better road safety measures.

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I actually really look forward to the day when a pro-camera poster comes on here and is able to engage in reasonable logical debate on road safety matters without making a fool of himself with repeated Ad Hominem fallacies and mudslinging.

Gatso Forever, no-one here is saying that speed limit enforcement does not have its part to play in road safety policy. But when it is used to the exclusion of everything else (including road re-engineering, driver education & a police presence on the roads) it has the obvious potential to do more harm than good.

A good analogy is this.. Think of our roads as a waiting room full of sick patients, representing the different causes of road accidents. The Government's road safety policy is the Doctor.

A good Doctor will examine each patient individually, analyse their symptoms, make a diagnosis and prescribe the appropriate treatment.

But imagine a Doctor who dispenses with study and diagnosis, and just blindly prescribes Asprin to everyone. Sure, the Asprin will, by complete chance, be the correct remedy for some of his patients. However, most of his patients will remain as sick as before. Some may even be made even more ill by the misapplied remedy.

Then you discover that this Doctor makes a commission from the Pharmaceutical company for each box of Asprin he prescribes.

Would you put your life in the hands of this man?

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

Well put!

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

Smeggy, interesting reply. So you accept that there is such a thing as a "legal and appropriate" speed?

Since joining this site, and engaging in some (occasionally heated) debates, my views have changed slightly, and I now believe that there is no single safe speed. I believe there are a set of safe speeds for a particular combination of road, conditions, vehicle, driver, and other factors. The set of safe speeds intersects with the set of speeds which are legal, (for those not familiar with set terminology, intersects in this context means that some safe speeds are legal and some are not). This is different to the theory that suggests that the set of safe speeds is a subset of the set of legal speeds, or worse, that the set of safe speeds is equivalent to the set of legal speeds.

I have never - except in some hugely contrived examples with a likelihood approaching zero - seen any examples where the lower ranges of safe speeds start above the legal threshold.

Does this largely tally with your statement above?

Andy

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Hm.

Maybe the lowest safe speed range on the M55 / M74 (sections) / M54 / M6 at 3 a.m. of a Sunday morning with an agreeable temperature of - say - 13 degrees+ is 80; dependent on the car and it's condition?

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Simon

Your analogy does you credit Antera, I totally agree.............

The trouble is, using your analogy, SS would be campaigning to ban the use of Asprins, so, people who would benefit from Asprins would be denied that.

I think I have a good analogy too antera309, from a book I read by a famous doctor when I was in America. He's very well known over there, his name is Dr Dean Edell

One of his truisms went something like this: -


When you take some medicine there are just three possible outcomes -

It worked, therefore it was right.

It stayed the same, therefore it arrested the condition.

It got worse, in which case you didn't have enough.


It was a comment on how some doctors are pushing a certain cure-all.


See where I'm going with this gf?

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I can't fault your argument other than to say that (keeping the analogy going) the misapplication of Asprin has brought it into disrepute, so a "ban the lot" (over?)reaction from some people is understandable.

However, I believe the same people WOULD accept a compromise if they were offered one. The trouble is, local councils & the Government are a "brick wall" when it comes to debate on speed cameras. This sort of attitude helps no-one.

If the Government:
1) Tore up all the speed cameras on wide, pedestrian-free trunk roads with unjustifiably low speed limits and re-sited them outside Schools and other places where slowing down traffic (albeit at the expense of creating a distraction) has obvious safety benefit
2) Stopped manipulating statistics regarding the safety benefit of speed cameras and started telling us the truth
and
3) Used the revenue raised by speed cameras on road safety measures other than just more cameras

I doubt whether you would hear much complaint from SafeSpeed's members. What you would see is a lot of posts saying "It's about time"

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.