Safe Speed Forums

A little anecdote from my day today.....

On my way home from a customer today, I find myself on the A31 (from the A3) heading towards the Hogs Back.

The speed limit on this stretch is currently 60mph, lowered from 70mph since the advent of scamvans.

I'm plodding along at a very reasonable 70mph in the outside (of 2 lanes) lane overtaking a couple of cars (the conditions are dry, bright, and excellent visibility). Next thing I notice in my rear view is some tosspot right up my jacksey in some german piece of shit (and I do mean right up my arse).

I eventually get past the couple of cars I am overtaking and pull back to the inside lane and bring it down to around 65mph (more than a sedate pace for the conditions). A second or two later, Herr Fuckwit rockets past me at more than a fair lick.
A handful of seconds after this, Herr Fuckwit is closely followed by "White Van Man" who is thrashing the absolute nuts out of his Transit.

Just as "White Van Man" is pulling past the front of my car, we all spot the hidden "scamvan" parked up on the left hand side.

What happened next is truly unbelievable..........


Even though I was under the "10% + 2" limit, I couldn't stop myself from hitting the brakes. I did not even stop to think about looking at my speedo, my natural instinct was to "slam on" as if an animal or person had stepped out in front of me.

I hit the brake pedal so hard upon seeing the scamvan that I actually (for the first time since I have owned the car) managed to trip the ABS. Needless to say the guy behind me wasn't overly impressed at my sudden harsh braking for no "apparent" reason, and I don't think his arsehole was overly impressed either (mine certainly twitched in that split second, that's for sure).

Now the best bit was White Van Man......he also hit his brakes at the same time as me but he obviously didn't have ABS.......the acrobatics he ended up performing as a result would have put Torvill & Jane to shame.

Fortunately, everybody managed to keep control and nothing happened.
But the real "food for thought" for me was this.......everybody was doing just fine until we saw the scamvan, and then it all (almost) went wrong for everybody involved.


Camera's = Safety do they??


Do they BOLLOCKS!

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I had a lesser experience today.
Driving down a road I know and drive down occasionally. I knew there was a camera coming up. I knew it was on the other side of the road and couldn't get me, but I still make sure I'm doing vastly less then 30, just in case they try it on, so I can prove my innocence easier.
Driving along quite happily, knew the camera was coming up soon but couldn't see it yet, then 'suddenly' the lines appeared in the road! First reaction was to hit the brakes. Second reaction was to ask 'what speed am I doing?' to which the answer was 'well under 30 already so no need to brake'.

Then I noticed why I hadn't seen the camera. It had been beheaded.

You're lucky you don't have Electronic Brake Assistance.

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Andrew.

Well you've learned the speed part. Now you just have to teach yourself not to react when you don't need to. It's quite an easy aspect of driving to learn.

You're nearly there.

Talk about missing the point.....

Just ignore the iguana

Please don't insult iguanas........

Maybe you have precognitive reactions and braked to avoid the van - before he started braking.

Then again perhaps you saw the camera and realised what was going to happen when the van saw it...

Though triggering the abs does sound like a wee bit of an overreaction.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I know that road too and I hate it too. The thing is almost everyone travels between 65 and 70 due to the mobile scameras, so people take forever to overtake each other, which then annoys the heck out of someone who may be in a hurry (and not fussed if he/she gets caught speeding) and who just wants to make progress.

Can't remember why it's a 60. I know it's not the best bit of dual carriageway, but I remember my brother doing 70 (when the limit was 70) when he was learning to drive.

While I know you understand the motive behind the original post, for once I agree with you (but not on the 'speed part').

He reacted to a hazard, that hazard just so happened to be a scamera vam on a dual carriageway. Humans aren't automated, they do react as does any animal. Scameras are machines, they have automated qualities that do not take into consideration the human element.

Sorry, but thats not normal safe driving IMO.

No, but in my experience it has become "normal driving" for a lot of people, safe or not. I leave (even) bigger gaps near cameras nowdays.

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Visit any camera site you like (be it fixed or mobile) and you can watch everybody braking for no apparent reason all day long.

I (probably) subconsciously hit the brake pedal so hard in the first place because of the initial speed (about 65 ish) I was travelling at when I first saw the scamvan.

I came off the brake pedal once the speedo had dropped to around 50mph, however that is not the point of the story.
The point of the story is that pretty much everybody was quite happily moving along at around 70-75 (which was far from out of order for the conditions at the time), and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose for White Van Man (who was in front of me by this time) simply because of what we all saw.

If White Van Man had ended up having an accident, that accident would have been caused solely by the scamvan and nothing else.


That is easy to do when you know they are there (fixed), but you can't do that when they are hidden behind bushes or parked on bends.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Its all very well to slag people's driving off as unsafe for braking at cameras, but if thats what most drivers do (it is) then it is an issue that needs to be addressed!

Approaching a camera has at least two potential side-effects; unnecessarily looking at the speedo (it won't tell you if you're driving safely or not) and unneccesary braking. Pretty much every driver will exhibit one, or both, of these at every camera they spot. Even the almighty and infallible JubJub admits looking at his speedo!

Education is a great thing, and it has the potential to make the biggest difference to road safety of any measure. Which do we think would be a better focus for the teaching; not braking/checking speedo at cameras, or driving safely at a safe, appropriate speed for the conditions?

If you said (a), you're named after a cartoon iguana, if you said (b), congratulations, you're right, *STAR PRIZE*!!!

Absolutely. It's common to see people assessing behaviour on the basis of what people should do rather than what people do do.

A classic and dangerous mistake...

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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

I have be caught in this argument, and it is such fun.

“people break to much for speed cams”
“well the they shouldn’t, if they are driving at the limit then they are fine”
“I find they tend to break even if they are within the limit”
“They shouldn’t”



Then you try to explain, that if the camera was not there this would not happen, only to get the following replies:
-Well they shouldn’t break the limit.
-If they are driving within the limit they shouldn’t break.

There is a point blank refusal to accept the camera has anything to do with problem, because the drivers shouldn’t be doing these things.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

The thing is, in order for anyone to *know* they are driving at or below the limit, they would have to be driving dangerously by definition. Given the serious nature of the penalties for even a minor transgression, and the high number of chances, braking the moment you see a camera is the only rational thing to do. After all, by the time you have checked the current speed limit, checked your speedo and checked your rearview mirror, you've already been flashed.

On my fairly frequent M4 runs, I find I can get advance warning of the Scamera vans just be looking for people ahead suddenly braking.

What I'd like to do is set up some film cameras for a couple of hours to monitor the traffic coming up to a camera van; I bet you would see a continuous story of emergency braking and near accidents. Are there any figures on how many accidents are seen by the vans?

Thats exactly what I do! Provided you leave adequate spacing (which you always should) this is the safest way to pick them up, and the only way to 'see round corners' to avoid being pinged at 12km by the hawk-eyed scamera operator who can establish reasonable suspicion of your excessive speed within milliseconds of your appearance and have the laser trained on you in less!

A small amount of 's advocate here BUT surely the larger safety issue in Gixxer's post is the fact that he was being tailgated by Herr Fuckwitt and WVM. The reason for the braking is less important than the fact that Gixxer could have had reason to brake suddenly at any time and for any reason. He could have spotted a downed tree across the road or something else silly.

Of course, that's still the point, cameras don't do anything to discourage genuine bad driving such as tailgating, but I'll stop preaching to the converted now.

(I'm still pissed off at getting tailgated by crapboxes in the snow yesterday. It's even more annoying when you know that you can outbrake the car behind)

No refusal. The issue is that this is a campaign for road safety, based on the idea that people can be trained to drive safely.

But for some reason correct and safe behaviour around a camera is not something that can be taught.

Show that people can be taught to improve their driving within the current requirements (the ones that you have to display in order to pass your test), and then you'll have more hope of success.

If cameras are a problem it is because of poor driving. No-one is going to take you seriously if you think that people who can't even cope with an orange box at the side of the road can be taught to decide on their own safe speed.

It's displayed perfectly here. On this post there are examples of people who slam their brakes on at cameras when they don't need to, or drive too close to the car in front. It's poor anticipation. Who's going to let you go off and decide on your own safe speed if you can't even do that?