Safe Speed Forums

It seems there's some "stuff" been going on:

http://www.rss.org.uk/pdf/Speed%20Camer ... elease.pdf

Shame no one had the courtesy to tell me about it. I shall investigate.

For those not familiar with Professor Mervyn Stone, start here:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/stone.html

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

I emailed Mervyn and got the following reply:

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:26:24 +0000 (GMT)
From: Mervyn <mervyn@stats.ucl.ac.uk>
To: psmith@safespeed.org.uk

Dear Paul

Greetings and best wishes for another year's
tussles!

I have left cameras & humps as an
overexciting memory and will soon be
publishing a demolition of the spurious
formulae now used to divide 45 Billions
among 304 Primary Care Trusts in England
(devised in Glasgow, damn it!).

You are right to feel a bit miffed that you
were not invited to speak at the RSS
camerafest. The organiser (not me) got Elvik
from Oslo, Lyons from Wales, Linda Mountain
from Liverpool(?) ---all very critical of
the DfT stuff. In the end, Heydecker was
invited to redress the balance I guess. I
used the meeting as a platform for my
campaign about malfunctioning government
machinery (see the attached paper which will
appear this April). I could send you the
short RSS report on the meeting if you let
me have your fax number. There was also a
report in the November 18th "Local Transport
Today".

I see you have been sent something from a
Thomas Heavey attacking your position as I
have. The paradox, as you are aware, is that
I do respect 90% of your arguments (whereas
the Heavey piece deserves to sink without
trace) but, in the end, I am too sceptical
about human behaviour to accept your final
over-sanguine position! For instance, I
would be quite happy to see delineated
residential areas given "average speed
measuremnent for the shortest route through
them" (by the SPECS system or some satellite
version)---with a humps-out bonus!

Regards
Mervyn
===================================

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

This bit's annoying and I'm working on my reply.

When we've more-or-less established that speed cameras are likely to be greater in side effect than in benefit, why does Mervyn think I'm "over-sanguine"?

I respect Mervy's opinion. Has he spotted something I'm blind to?

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

I presume he feels that if cameras are removed drivers will "take the piss" so to speak, though that's perhaps not quite how he'd phrase it.

Perhaps more of a reflection of his pessimism than of your optimism regarding human behaviour. Be interesting to see if you can negotiate with him to split this (perceived) difference and come up with a best plan that reflects a pragmatic approach, ie one that is neither optimistic/sanguine nor pessimistic/cynical.

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

That's probably true now that cameras have been here so long. If they all suddenly disappeared tomorrow, a lot of people would suddenly go on a speeding rampage, releasing that pent-up anger about speed limits, and the results would probably be carnage.

The environment that scameras have created means that their withdrawal gets less likely every day.