Safe Speed Forums

It seems to me that speed cameras are now universally called "safety cameras". Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon with what is, in fact a description that has no legal basis. Fixed cameras are not mentioned in law. Mobile cameras or radar guns were authorised by the Traffic Acts of 1988 and 1991. Their only definition as far as the law is concerned is to provide the element of corroboration, without which there cannot be a conviction. The 1984 Traffic Act stipulates that no one can be convicted of speeding on the uncorroborated opinion of a constable. Hence the later Traffic Acts for radar/ laser, to provide the corroboration element. That's all mobile cameras are for: corroboration of the operators opinion, nothing more. Yet as time has gone by this legal definition has been lost in the smoke and fog of war! They have now become "safety cameras", giving the public an entirely false impression of their true legal status.

Believe it or not, these devices were introduced in order to protect motorists from wrongful allegations. Before 1984 any PC could stand at the kerb and flag down any driver at his own whim and accuse him of speeding. 9 times out of 10 you would be convicted on nothing more than his opinion, as the courts regarded the opinion of the constable as somehow sacrosanct.

If you didn't want to take it to court, you simply took his ticket down to the station, handed over your fiver or whatever to the desk sergeant along with your licence, and that was that.

Experiences of various people has shown that these devices are often being used indiscriminately to target every passing driver, with the operator just zapping people at random.


The authorities would do well to remember the legal requirements instead of trying to fool people into thinking these are "safety cameras".
The definition has no legal basis.

On what basis are you saying that the term needs a "legal basis"?

Don't look too far because you won't find one in legislation; just wondering what you have to make this statement anyway.

I am sure the alteration of 'speed camera' to 'safety camera' is part of the propaganda exercise of better 'acceptance'. That the term takes on a need and to represent some form of 'safety' when in fact I could argue that is only of the opinion of those that 'think' they are for safety and yet is continues to go unproven.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Calling them safety cameras and then just measuring your "safe" driving by a number on a speed registering device, is exactly why Britain's roads are NOT as safe as they used to be.

It encourages idiots to believe, that to conform to being "safe" drivers, all they need to do is pass a "safety" camera without setting it off..."job done!"

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Greenshed,of course these devices need a legal basis. Their role in law is to corroborate an opinion. Yet the way the partnerships carry on , they keep mouthing off about "safety cameras", giving the public the false impression that this is somehow the law of the land.

Like in the Colin Montgomerie case when the police told the operator to go out and use it as a deterrent. That has no legal basis either. Which is partly why his conviction was overturned. Because of these false pronouncements about "safety cameras" and they are there "as a deterrent", the public are misled.

That's my sound off for the day.

I had always taken the term to be a generic reference to cameras that enforce some aspect of legislation (e.g. speed cameras, traffic light cameras etc). Naturally, I don't believe speed cameras provide any particular "safety" benefit - otherwise we'd have seen KSIs falling at a faster rate since their introduction that they did beforehand. If anything, in the last 10 years or so, we've seen the opposite happening. Sure, we get plenty of "research" that gets bandied about claiming fantastic benefits but the national figures tell us all we need to know.

Typical business practice :
Create a problem to solve and then show how you can solve it !

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Some years back I had to take the Editor of MAG News to task over just this issue.

He had taken to using the term "safety camera" when writng about speed cameras, even though his stance was generally not supportive of their use.

The point is this. Language is very powerful. How can we fight against something if we start to use the language of those who support it?

The fight is against speed cameras. If we fight "safety" cameras, then there will be little progress.

Anyway. There's no such thing as a safety camera.

They'll be safety cameras when they can measure the safety of a passing object and photograph it.

How do you photograph safety?

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

You don't photograph safety.
You photograph lack-of-safety.
Speeding/tailgating/overtaking etc etc.
Don't laugh.
It's coming, and sooner than you would like to think.
Don't forget, in the 21st century you have to prove your innocence on motoring offences.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

The term "legal basis" also has no legal basis.