Safe Speed Forums

So you don't make "unnecessary journeys?" How sad for you! You don't mind using public transport though! Well if it wasn't for someone that said "I wonder what is over there?" and made an 'unnecessary' journey no-one would have invented the wheel, the petrol engine, boats, planes, submarines and spacecraft. You wouldn't have been able to make that journey on Saturday if it wasn't for them.

As for having the freedom to make that journey thank all those who stood up to oppression, who stood up for freedom, who stood up to be counted when it mattered. Thank God you live in a democracy where the right to protest is enshrined.

Thank your lucky stars for people like us who stand up to be counted and campaign on matters of safety on your behalf to try and ensure that you don't become a casualty of a flawed policy!

Thank your lucky stars that petrol isn't sky high because it's costing us to stand up for ill-informed and duped people like you!

Errrm,

Don't you think that we are getting rather a long way off topic??

To all the people reading this thread who don't approve of this, I sympathise.... but this protest is against the persecution of the generally law abiding motorist, but predatory speed cameras placed in locations where they have little or no safety benefit. I am sure that all of us can think of a location where we would have no issue with speed cameras... locations where excessive speed would be clearly dangerous, and yet the regulations governing where cameras should be placed are actually prohibiting cameras from being placed there... instead mandating that they be placed in locations where the speed limit is quantifiably lower than what it should be based on the 85th percentile rule (which is a well accepted standard for setting safe speed limits)...

Also, the protest is engineered to cause the minimum disruption to the traffic, while allowing people to stand up and be counted... The protest speed is at the speed which lorries are limited to, and hence will not disrupt freight goods, and it will be limited to the left 2 lanes, allowing traffic to pass... Make no mistake, noone here wants to do any more than be counted and stand up for the widening opinion, that we need to return to the way our roads were managed in the past, which has seen fatalities fall year on year for the last 30 years... ending only recently, as mechanised enforcement based soley on speed has steadily replaced proper policing and education.

I urge people to read the excelent explanations of the issues provided both by SafeSpeed and the Association of British Drivers, and make up their own mind..

See these pages from Paul:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/tiger.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/why.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/fatality.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/effects.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/conspiracy.html

and how about this?

mega-link to East Anglian Daily Times (hidden by moderator to make page readable without scrolling)

Please concider the reason why so many are outraged before you write this off as a bunch of petrolheads who just want to drive fast.

I use Public Transport, outside of urban areas. I didn't realise I was an idiot.

Other than that I support fully your rights to protest and wish you all the luck in the world, even though I'm not 100% behind you!

Hi Gurp,

Having read your post, I really think you misread the intent of the Safespeed campaign, and the M4 protest.

Have a read of this document. It covers the important issues Paul is campaigning about, in detail.

And this issue is important. At its most fundamental, it's about loss of life in the most horrendous possible scenarios. Because it doesn't concern loss of life in the most breathtaking scale you have referred to in your post really doesn't make it 'PATHETIC'.

Lets however have a look at the basic evidence.

After 1994 there was a serious loss of trends in the fatality reduction statistics. Why was that?

You might consider it to be coincidence that at around the same time traffic police numbers started to reduce dramatically, and speed cameras were being seriously considered as a partial solution to road safety problems. Trafpol numbers have continued to decrease as cameras have proliferated.

There was no real reason for this trend reduction to slow down. Road safety engineering and vehicle safety improvements have continued apace through the last 10-12 years.

Many people including many on this site believe the trend loss to be directly related to the "Introduction of speed cameras and the policies which underpin them"

You might think that a slight loss of trend is nothing to worry about, but let's look at the extrapolation of the current loss of trend, compared to the continuation of the trend as at 1994.

Have a look at this chart.

You can see from the chart that the divergence of the green and orange lines indicates the difference in fatalities per billion vehicle kilometres from the expected trend at 1994 and the trend now evident.

If this trend continues unchallenged, you can see that by 2020 we will return to a similar fatality rate per BVKM we enjoyed in 1983. In doing so the loss of life caused by this loss of trend will be a cumulative total of 78,000 over and above what we should be expecting.

PATHETIC?

I don't think so.

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

Ian

Because this is a forum about road safety, and therefore I assumed that you'd be a driver rather than a pedestrian or public-transport-only traveller. In my opinion, a not unreasonable assumption.

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

Could be a cyclist.

Not on the M4 he couldn't

_________________
Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

Hmmm. Social Psycologists call this 'outgroup homogeneity bias'. Basically its when someone perceives a group that they don't belong to and assumes 'they're all the blooody same'.

Here's why I don't consider this protest pathetic.

I work for the NHS. I try to play my part in ensuring that the 200,000 odd people on my patch have healthcare now and 30 years in the future. This involves driving around a lot. As does the work of countless other NHS employees doing vital work. To err is to be human, and if we all get banned we're knackered. Oh and as it happens we care a great deal about reducing accidents and other roadusers. If I could walk to work I would. Where I can I take public transport, but if my schedule was built entirely around bus and train timetables I couldn't do my job.

We need perspective, and road deaths are up not down. Every time someone enters A&E it costs £140 before any treatment etc. So lets have higher driving standards not a damaging, simplistic & narrow focus on velocities.

Good point. Apologies, must be the "public transport user" in me coming out.

The problem Ian is the people who are generally pro-camera are not interested in facts, they have either got some vested interest in speed cameras (i.e. protecting their jobs/policies) so won't listen or they are stubbornly stupid preferring to stay ignorant, so there is little chance of convincing them. I have never met anyone that does not fall within these two categories that supports speed cameras.

Andy

have you seen what motorway drivers have to put up with? only a few weeks ago, i got stuck behind a moped on the M27. trailers on the outside lane, caravans being driven at ridiculous speeds. cyclists would not surprise me at all

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

I've been reading this with some interest. It appears many of you think the 70mph speed limit is too low because it was introduced due to the stopping distance of an Austin Allegro. Modern cars can stop much quicker and go much faster, so the speed limit should be raised, right?

What about the fuel that gets consumed at these higher speeds? The fuel we ALL have to use? Maybe if we stick to 70 it might last a little longer.

And don't even get me started on how many drivers are far too busy playing with their mobile phones/GPS/CD/MP3/Playstation to be aware of what is going on around them.

70mph is plenty.

And what about all the fuel wasted by vehicles slowing down and speeding up to negotiate road humps, and by idling in unnecessary traffic jams?


So France, Germany, Italy, Spain, even Ireland have all got it wrong, have they?

I think you'll find that unsubstantiated gut-feel assertions will get short shrift on here

_________________
"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

I just don't understand what all the fuss is about.

Safety (or speed) cameras are there to save lives. Not to make money and not to curtail your civil liberty.

Over the past three years 12% of all Wiltshire’s fatalities occurred on the short Wiltshire stretch of the M4 motorway where the camers are going. Figures for the year 2004 show a 24% increase in the number of casualties when compared with those in 1999.

I've just looked on the website of the Wiltshire & Swindon Safety Road Safety Partnership. They report that: “We have also noticed a much more even flow of traffic, with motorists leaving enough space between vehicles". That alone sounds like great news to me.

If you want the speed limit changed or the police to allocate resources differently then talk to local politicians and vote accordingly.

Who are of course completely impartial with no bias either way?

Wouldn't like to buy a bridge over the Thames would you? It's got bits that go up and down and everything. I'll do you a good deal.

That's what they want you to think, and by careful manipulation of accident statistics and well-funded propaganda campaigns they have, so far, managed to convince Mr and Mrs Average that this is indeed the truth.

So why are there so many intelligent people who, quite simply, don't buy it? We can't all just be speed-mad tearaways who want to plant our right feet firmly to the floor and use the UK's roads as our own personal racetracks - and indeed you'll be hard pressed to find any regular poster here who fits that description.




Would you expect them to say anything that might, in any way, undermine their position regarding the use of cameras on the M4? Why not ask the people who use that stretch of the M4 on a regular basis for their opinions of just how well traffic is flowing since the start of camera enforcement...

Enough said!

May I suggest you take the trouble to read the forum before posting. You may become 'enlightened' thereafter!!

In case you hadn't heard, there have been at least six serious accidents (at least one fatal) in the space of the week after they put up the cameras.
I'll bet they didn't mention that inconvenient little fact on their website, did they? I know this because I listen to the local traffic reports on the radio.

Most of the serious accidents along that stretch of road have involved HGVs, which are speed-limited to 56mph, some occurred in extreme weather conditions, some have involved pedestrians, and one was caused by an elderly driver driving the wrong way down the motorway.
So how many of these would the cameras have prevented? Absolutely none.

And I also wonder why they chose the specific years 2004 and 1999 for comparison. A bit of cherry-picking, perhaps?

Cheers
Peter

The planet Common Sense?

Who mentioned planets?