Safe Speed Forums

You said it didn't make sense. It makes perfect sense.

If you think it's open to dispute, then dispute it. Find the flaw. Thousands have tried. No one has succeeded.

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

WOW - blink for a minute and another 2 pages appear! I'm please to see a bit of constructive questioning here..



Yes the pub sounds a good idea! Accept what you say about the law, however consider these points:

- There is NO other law in the country that is broken by so many citizens. This is normally a good indicator that the law is a bad one.
- There is NO other law where it's "OK" for certain members of society to break it. I'm talking about emergency services here. If the transition from 40mph to 41mph is so black and white that it warrants labelling as a criminal, then why is ok (as we all know it is) for an ambulance to break it?



This really came home to me driving up the M42m with the dozens of camera gantries on it. I was in the flow of traffic and of course it's dangerous NOT to go at the speed of the flow, which was right on the limit of 50. I was EXTREMELY concious of having to watch my speedo in case I drifted over into "criminal" territory. I felt a lot less safe than I do normally. They can be a very serious distraction.

Cameras do nothing to make roads safer, they merely punish transgresion AFTER the event.



You're right here. It's extremely hard to promote safespeed without being labelled "anti-camera". However cameras are a huge part of the failed road safety policies so it's unavoidable.

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

so make your work available for scientific peer review. You have nothing to be scared of.

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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.

1) No-one here wants to be above the law, rather we would like to see it not abused by those who decide the interpretation/level of what is illegal, not just drivers.

2) I thought that was the case; obviously that appears to be open to opinion.


Of course, but what if the easy solutions don’t yield anything? Should we keep increasing the dose or instead get a second opinion?
The argument does add up when you consider their (lack of) effectiveness against their distraction.


They’re changing all the time, downwards, even if there have been no accidents at that location! When will this end? Will this end?

I'm not even remotely 'scared' thanks.

However:

- peer-reviewed research helped us (UK road safety) into this mess in the first place
- the framework doesn't really exist in the scientific literature
- I'm already doing 80 hours a week, and I'm nowhere near keeping up with my workload
- scientists don't make policy decisions
- the Safe Speed information is already available for unlimited review
- it takes AGES to develop a paper, link it to the literature, submit it for publication, get it reviewed, get it printed

With that little lot, preparing papers for peer-review publication simply isn't on my priority list. However there is currently one paper in preparation based on my work by a 'close' third party. That's looking like a good model that we might continue and repeat.

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

Can I add my tuppence worth into this?

I'll keep it brief ("Thank f**k for that" I hear you say).

I subscribed to SafeSpeed after becoming somewhat tired of SCP's stating, "...but we only target 30 / 40 / 50 zones", when it became clear that - certainly - my local council started reducing speed limits wholesale with no grounds for doing so. This action smacked of revenue raising.

I'm not a prolific poster on here, as most postees are far more eloquent and succinct than I.

However, three facts remain uncontested. Facts that are damning towards current road safety policy. Facts that - until statistically disproved by the government - mean that I will continue to support SafeSpeed and it's ideals:

1. The number of speed cameras has increased exponentially since 1993

2. Road deaths have - since 1993 - remained static

3. Authorities continually trawl out the "speed cameras save lives" dribble

Cameras are NOT saving lives! They are NOT!

And more to the point, I am not a habitual "speeder". My licence is squeaky clean and I am more than happy to scan it and PDF it on here. Speed limits are a limit not a target, but when limits are idiotically applied and enforced by hand-wringing idiots that is when I get a little aggrieved.

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Simon

Very true, but when a speedlimit is reduced by 20mph or so then the speed limit becomes the target as a road that was safe at 60 is still safe at 60 even with a of course the contents of your wallet are less safe

I thought those cameras were all dummies and only the M25 ATM cameras were live?

I drove both sections last night on my way to Heathrow. One thing that caught my attention was the use of the NSL sign on the gantries which is an inverse of the physical sign. Is that an approved sign?

Linking back to the C+ discussion:

http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/forum/topi ... ichpage=44



It's fairly tragic that they form their opinions about us without having even the most basic understanding of our case. For the benefit of C+ readers and lurkers the answer is as follows:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with targetting drivers who cause danger. That's what we want too.

But, and it's a very big but, any slice we take through the road safety data shows that there's an awful lot of 'speeding' out there that doesn't cause danger. One simple example is that DfT says that around 60% of vehicles are 'speeding' at sample sites, while only 5% of crashes involve a speeding vehicle.

Now the real road safety battleground is road users minds, and virtually nowhere else. Actions speak louder than words, and where it really matters - in the daily experience (and hence the minds) of road users - speed cameras are (say) 95% of the experience of road safety policy.

Thus speed cameras cause a gross distortion of safety priority in the minds of road users. Effectively we're misdirecting the most important road safety resource of all. By applying (say) 95% of the effort to 5% of the problem we're missing the opportunity to land resources on the real problems.

Road safety policy MUST be well aligned with real causes of danger, because when it isn't we squander life saving resources.

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

And yet they had a giant hissy fit when it was suggested that Richmond Park police were going to start to enforce a 20mph push-bike speed limit, some suggesting civil disobedience IIRC. Oh well, one rule for one....

what is wrong with targetting cyclists?

If there is somewhere where cyclists are breaking the law and you target that area, surely it is good practice?

Now as mentioned above, look at the c+ thread about Richmond park and also consider the response you'll get if you dare mention any of the following idiots
* red light jumpers
* stealth cyclists
* footpath riders

A lovely speech. That completely avoids the question.

What is wrong with targetting drivers who break the current laws?

Oh, and while you're at it, I'm still waiting for an answer to the question over on the dark side.

One problem is the black & white application of the law. As it stands at the moment there is absolutely no difference between somebody who accidentally exceeds the limit for a split second and someone who drives like a complete nutter. You've already admitted in this thread that you drift over the limit on the odd occassion. Would you be happy to lose your licence for that?

This gets discussed repeatedly on the 'commuting' part of C+ and apart from one or two persistent does-my-face-look-bovvereds most commuters would absolutely agree that RLJs / the unlit / pavement cyclists deserve all they get IN LAW (which does not include being squished as punishment BTW, even if they are riding like morons.)

The law has to work like that. Most people don't thieve, but the Theft Act still exists, it's there for the lowest common denominator.

In the past I've had to go down to police stations to represent people - harried mothers, distracted shoppers, businessmen in a hurry - who have walked past the checkout holding an item they'd forgotten about. Does this mean that we repeal the Theft Act? Of course not.

The difference here is that speeding is an absolute offence (you did it or you didn't) while stealing requires not only the action but also the intent, so "I didn't mean to" is a defence to theft but not to speeding.

I can well understand someone who feels that they are safe and experienced wanting to go a bit faster where they know the road, the conditions are right, and there are no hazards (eg a fast A road or similar). However, the law has to legislate for the boy racers who would take advantage of a change in the law to speed through towns at 70+. The safe limit will change according to conditions, so the best we can do is probably assume that it's overcast and drizzly - not fine but not terrible.

Once we accept that an artificial limit is necessary we have to look at how to enforce it. I'm in two minds about whether sending someone a fine in the post is a pointless exercise or a valuable deterrent.

Oh, and BTW, there absolutely is a difference between somebody who accidentally exceeds the limit for a split second and someone who drives like a complete nutter. Someone who drifts from 70 up to 72 won't even get flashed; someone who exceeds by a vast amount will be prosecuted.

Perhaps you need to read the 'lovely speech' again. Why not paste it to C+ for discussion?


I am not going to assist you in your warped quest to slur my character.

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

Possession of marijuana is probably broken as much.



Of course there is.

How about murder? It's okay for police to shoot and kill someone in certain situations.

Assault? Police, prison guards, riot police etc. are all allowed to use 'control and restraint' including actions which would constitute assault or even ABH in other circumstances.

Indecent assault? If a woman is unconscious and haemhorraging from her womb then it is okay for a paramedic to touch her intimately without her consent.

There are others.

not yet anyway... take a look at Victoria where they've reduced the threshold to 2mph. Then there's the errors from the various devices used to "prove" that you're speeding.


ignoring that they can do that now if they really want to, the law already has provision for them - either dangerous driving or driving without due care and attention would cover that.

A policeman following you can pull you over and tell you you're an idiot. A camera can't calculate your speed with 100% accuracy nor tell if it's dangerous nor stop you from continuing your dangerous activities.

you've obviously been smoking it a little too much of it if you think that nearly the entire adult population does likewise on a regular basis.

Oh it's a thousand times worse than that!

At present the practical application of the law is 'reversed' in its connection to safety. They target safe drivers and ignore dangerous ones.

see: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/rules.html

But the general case is very worrying too. Someone driving dangerously fast within the speed limit is completely ignored, while someone driving perfectly safely above the speed limit will be prosecuted.

And that when 95% of crashes don't involve any vehicle exceeding a speed limit!

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