Safe Speed Forums

DfT Home Office and ACPO. A joint statement:

Traffic Policing to be improved:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 033749.pdf

It's taken almost a decade for the fools to wake up to the damage they have done. Not one word of an apology or an admission that they are reversing a careless policy.

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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

Getting them to change the policy is a realistic goal, but getting them to apologise or admit any failing whatsoever isn't, I fear.

That's hardly surprising since the matra doesn't appear to have changed at all. From page 3:Well, stack me! Look what's at the top of the list. I'll grant you there's a small improvement in the qualfication "excessive and inappropriate", but it still seems that TPTB are as speed obsessed as ever. On the other hand, driver inattention doesn't seem to worry them at all.

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

Actually I think that the qualification on "speeding" is a GIANT step forward. If the message that speed on its own is not the issue is really sinking in and this is not just lip-service than maybe this is the beginning of a policy shift. I also noticed this exact wording in Mr Heavey's letter regarding Pauls new page.

IMO the only thing wrong with the statement was the order as careless, dangerous and inattentive driving should be at the top.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I'm reading that at the moment, but struggling to take it seriously due to his belief that excessive or inappropriate speed is at the least a contributory factor in all RTCs. Still, as you say, credit for not simply saying "speeding". I'm looking forward to how he thinks scameras are dealing with inappropriate speed below the limit.

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

It may well be a case of "they have to say that."

In any case, whatever they say, an actual trafpol is going to take a different and more selective approach to speed than a camera.

Best not to pooh-pooh this without allowing time to assess whether it makes any real difference.

(However the cynic in me did wonder whether illegal cans and numberplate fonts will suddenly become a major safety problem )

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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

They just couldn't resist putting the 40% claim into paragraph 18, could they. If it wasn't for all the mentions of how 'effective' speed cameras are, it would be a respectable document.

But then, with Brunstrom and Jamieson as its two main authors, it's little wonder that speed features highly.

I wouldn't get too excited about this. I have a hunch that trafic policing is very soon going to be outsourced to the highways agency in the same way beat policing has been to CSOs.

Scameras can easily deal with inappropriate speed. We simply lower the speed limit to an inappropriately low speed for the worst case scenario and hey presto we have a role for scameras.

We should already be seeing increases in speeding as a contributory factor over inappropriate speed purely on the basis that on avg. free flowing road speed limits are around 20% lower now than 5 years ago.

It also says

continued operation of the National Safety Camera Programme, dealing with road sites and traffic light junctions with a known history of collisions and casualties;

Which means more scameras and at locations where there have been any collision, not just casualties?

Sorry but Brustrom has to go.

ref that last remark by diy- on highways agency taking over trafplod duties - it would appear that around the midlands area j 1 m6 - north -highways agency 4X4 in black and yellow livery ( MOBILE BLUNKET BOUNCERS) are taking over, sitting in the old spots as used by trafplod, but some evidence is there that trafplod are not dead yet as seen in the usual spots around j5 m6, although the highways agency cars are by far in the majority.

You're absolutely right there. I travel between junction 3 and 5 on the M6 every morning at about 06:30 and there is always a Highways Agency 4x4 crawling along the inside lane at about 55mph. Unsurprisingly, every vehicle on the road slows to about 70mph until close enought to realise it's not PC Plod.

Cynical, moi?

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If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

Yes - me too, a way of policing on the cheap - till it is realised that these are not trafpols.
However i wonder at their function.
Keep your eye peeled on the patrol area near j5, i have seen 2 volvos in action at various times of the day on both directions

It's actually quite easy to recognise the HA vehicles - they have orange lights atop, whereas the cops have blue!

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Keep right on to the end of the road ...