Safe Speed Forums

Radio 4 had a piece on the new proposals for variable speeding fines and points this morning, and the spokesman trotted out 2 old chesnuts

One third of accidents are speed related
40% accident reduction at camera sites (though he generalised to areas I think)

Anyone know how best to challenge these "facts" so that the BBC and/or press takes notice? Mass e-mail to the today programme? This is the address -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi ... state=init

This forum seems to have been surprisingly quiet on these proposals.

The official DfT Press Release is at:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2004_0119

and the consultation document can be downloaded from:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 30771.hcsp

My first reaction is that - as there is no mention of changing the existing minimum prosecution thresholds - it actually represents something of a popularity-seeking climbdown, as a substantial proportion of speeding offences (maybe around 50%) will end up with 2 points and a £40 fine rather than 3 points and £60.

The usual anti-car suspects such as Mary Williams certainly don't seem to like it.

Of course the principle is wrong, as Paul says in his PR, as the gravity of a speeding offence can't be measured in terms of how much over the posted limit it is.

I suspect after a torrent of protest from BRAKE, RoadPiss etc it will be quietly dropped - but the option of speed awareness courses for low-level offenders will go nationwide. Nothing is likely to happen until after the election anyway.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Why do these people persist in propagating this lethal claptrap. Soon we'll have a nation of motorists who drive at only two speeds i.e. the speed limit and stop. But then these motorists will be the envy of those who drove at 42 or 31 half a dozen times over a couple of years motoring.

So the penalty should match the risk eh?

That's the good news from Alaister Darling. The one size fits all approach is not as effective or appropriate as we would like. Now for the bad (my bold).
So the fine may change but the attitude doesn't show any signs of doing so. The message remains the same as before - speeding is highly dangerous. The implication being that speeding is automatically dangerous and legal speeds are automatically safe. Same old oversimplification, same old problem.

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