http://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/newbe ... 3576613.jp
Guilty speeders, get over it
By Keith Newbery
Call me old-fashioned, but if I see a sign which says 'Danger 1,000 volts! Do not touch!' I do my best to avoid the area.
I have the same wary regard for traffic signs, and when faced with one which informs me that the speed limit is 30mph and that there are cameras in the vicinity, I make the necessary adjustments.
According to the latest batch of statistics, two million motorists failed to heed this advice in the past 12 months, paid a total of £120m in fines – and their squeals of indignation can be heard throughout the land.
Anyone would think some mysterious force bore down on their accelerator pedal as they approached the restricted area and prevented them complying with the law.
It didn't. You broke the law. You paid the price. Get over it and stop whining.
I was once fined for speeding in those far-off pre-camera days, having failed to notice a brightly-decorated police car in my rear-view mirror.
I explained to the magistrates that my excess speed was caused by my rushing to cover their courts as a trainee reporter, but this elicited little sympathy and I received the going rate for such fines in those days.
The point I'm trying to make is that it never crossed my mind to blame the police, the government, or even God. It was nobody's fault but mine, and I accepted the responsibility.
I have no patience with outfits like the oxymoronic Safespeed, which worships at the altar of Jeremy Clarkson and actively campaigns against the use of speed cameras on the spurious basis that they 'make matters worse.'
The anti-camera campaigners also cite the ludicrous statistic that cameras appear to have made no difference to the number of drink-driving offences.
Why on earth would they? Any fool prepared to get behind the wheel in an intoxicated state is hardly likely to take any notice of signs warning him or her to reduce their speed.
The big mistake the government made was to vest responsibility for these cameras in
quangos called Road Safety Partnerships, thereby making a perfectly sensible initiative
seem slightly shifty and primarily profit-driven.
But if the life of just one child has been saved, that's all the justification these cameras require.
***
Needs a letter, obviously.