Safe Speed Forums

This evening I went out for a sniff round in the car and was crawling along on the A127 and a ridiculously low 50 mph. My mind was turning to how best to hang the people responsible from the camera gantries, then the speed limit changes to a more respectable 70, but still average camera enforced. As I was in the 70mph bit I saw a car in my mirror closing fast. A black E46 coupe. I would guess he was doing 85ish. He wasn't going mad and driving fine by me, but who drives at that speed with average speed camera lurcking menacingly?

Did he not know they were still there? Was the car nicked or other wise illegal?

Nope, I find it incredible the number of people who clearly don't understand the word average. I bet you £10 he slowed down for the cameras.

When the M27 cams were up I saw loads of this kind of driver, I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall when the NiP arrived.

Maybe he was going to stop or turn off? Or only been doing 30 for a while?

Sadly - he may not even have seen any camera warning signs. Lots of folk think they are driving safely - but not quite to COAST

Any yes - I think way to many do not know how any s/cam works either.

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After reading this thread and myself heading though sets of SPECs regularly now on the N Yorks A1 upgrade, I had a thought after seeing the same effect of cars braking for the Yellow Vultures.

Do they think that they take an average of the speeds when passing each camera? e.g. Over a set of 3 cameras, the cameras might record speeds of, say: 54mph, 52mph, 48mph and come out with a mean score of 51.3 mph? So speed inbetween doesn't matter?

It's a possible explanation anyway...

About 40 a week apparently: http://www.basildonrecorder.co.uk/searc ... 40_a_week/

Average-speed cams catch out 40 a week
2:00pm Thursday 20th August 2009
By Adam Gaudry »


MORE than 600 drivers have been caught speeding since the average-speed cameras began working on the A127.

But drivers have questioned the need for a 50mph limit on a major road and branded the cameras, which calculate the average speed over a set distance, as a money-making exercise.

Essex County Council said about 40 people a week are being sent penalty notices since the cameras started working this year.

But Gary Crouch, 43, of Orsett End, Basildon, who uses the road regularly, said: “In my opinion the cameras have nothing to do with saving lives. It’s got everything to do with raising money.”

Lee Streater, 31, of Komberg Crescent, Canvey, questioned the need for the low speed limit.

He said: “It holds things up. I haven’t seen an improvement in the flow of traffic at all. There’s no need to be doing 50 miles per hour for most of the stretch between Basildon and Southend. It should be a 70 miles per hour limit.”

When a vehicle is spotted breaking the speed limit in the average speed camera zone between Nevendon and Southend, a Notice of Intended Prosecution is sent within two weeks.

The notice asks owners to complete a form and return it within 28 days, giving details of who was driving the vehicle when it was spotted speeding.

Some drivers will be sent a £60 fine and are given three points on their driving licence. If the fine is not paid, or if the speeding offence is judged more serious, the driver may be brought to court.

A county council spokesman said the 50mph speed limit was introduced after an investigation, that looked at the whole route from the M25 to the Southend boundary, found the number of accidents was higher along that particular stretch of the A127.

The spokesman added: “All money from fines generated by safety cameras across Essex goes to the HM Treasury. Essex County Council makes no financial gain from safety cameras.”

Greenshed, care to tell me why, despite the soft downy cushion of average speed cameras on the A127 a woman manged to run into the back of a truck.........yes, the truck driver was asleep but he was parked in a layby at the time of the accident. It killed her and her kids. That the lord for average speed cameras. There was also a vehicle having a rather close inspection of the hedge and all the emergency services were there helping the driver out of the car. Mmmm those cameras are great!

There seems not to have been the crashes in the last year on the 127, but not all of it is shackled by the poxy cameras. Before you quote any miraculous reduction in crashes, you'd best compare the bit of the road that arn't covered with the bits that are covered.

There is that funny non round about along there, the Fortune of War I think is it's name. There used to be loads of crashes there. Who expects a roundabout that isn't to appear on a DC? Really badly signed. Anyway, our leaders decided to resurface the road, which they dully did and obviously the lowered the speed limit to 40 and chucked a camera up, what else do you expect? Anyway, I complained to the Scamera Prantnership who told me that it was there for a trial period or, err, can't remember, but it was maybe 6 months. 18 months later it was removed and the speed limit put mack to normal.To give some idea on how cretinous the speed limit was I have conducted an experiment.

Apparatus:

1 1998 1.4 litre Honda Civic

4 175 section tyres

1 driver with 9 years NCB and no points.

Method:

Drive car at above the old speed limit past camera and prepare to crash and die

Conclusion

I picked a wet day when the roads were very slippy, I drove my car within the poxy average speed camera enforced limit but 20 mph higher than the one imposed by the camera. I continued at 60 mph past the hatch marks on the road where I would have been sentanced to death or summat before, (slippy road remember and boring car). I then applied the brakes, block changed to 2nd gear and, now your not gonna believe this mate, got around the corner, having smashed the previous low speed limit. But not only did I manage to get around the corner, but did so in a dull boring, old car, in the wet with out crashing, understeer, oversteer, or having to cut the corner.

Recommendations

allow people to think and stop patronising them.

Traffic lights encourage driving by numbers/colours and take away the need for people to think. Of course traffic lights are a good thing and are needed in certain places (especially for other road users), but there are too many full-time traffic management lights these days; needless restrictions caused by these lights means people will be less minded to abide by them - that's not a good thing!

In that clip you can see the ones who do think, they're the ones who continue looking at other traffic paths and react even though they have green/priority; they didn't need the lights.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I have yet another story from Germany . about amber gamblers.. They are now blitzing them .. including cyclists


Green only mean you can go if it safe for you to do so. I think we need to get this idea across .. that just because it ist green light . may not always make it safe. You still have to look up to all COAST headings. That apply if a police officer on a shout as they still have to slow up und look properly before they can proceed on red.. or amber or green just the same. I have to say that I have seen emergency vehicles do just this more often than not. .. when in town und more likely to see these. You do not tend to get traffic lights in rural wild country. (Und where we go to live ..in Arizona .. , ist outside the town in the green belted area. But we come back und forth as we have closest family ties und pals over here. I simply love Cumbria.

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BOT (back on topic)

Average speed cameras engender taking safety risks to avoid points. Picture the following scenario: You see an average speed camera in the distance and are not certain that your average speed is below the threshold. Three option:

1) Continue with reasonable progress, keeping a good cocoon of time space arounmd you, risking a ticket

2) Slow right down to add some seconds to the clicking point, risking being rear-ended or, worse, being instrumental in cvausing a following vehicle to swerve and maybe be involved in a bad pile-up.

3) - and I am ashamed to admit I have done this - identify a large-ended vehicle (typically a lorry) with plenty of space in front of it so he has no reason to brake - and get up behind it in its slip-stream and tailgate until past the Specs point, but being wary in case one's chosen target vehicle does Option 2!

It is only option 3 that takes the heat off until past the NEXT SPECS point. so this transient risk only needs to be adopted every OTHER camera pair, and then only if one cannot be sure that one's speed has not crept up to one that feels natural for the road.

Of course, before GreenShed - or anyone - comes back saying "drive within the limit and no worries" - quite so. However, I'm talking here about situations where imposed limit is quite well below the unpoliced 85th percentile, such as the A127 stretch referred, and traffic of sufficient density to make regular speedo checks much more unsafe than option 3 above, yet not so dense as to make the obvious free travelling speed at or below lolly number in all labes.

Adding to this: when I used to commute (car share), I noticed my buddie (who was driving) had gone significantly above the specs enforced 50 limit on the M3. Having used that route every day, he is well aware of the cameras, but this time he simply forgot and drove to the conditions. When I told him he literally panicked (but didn't brake). I saw a truck up ahead, so I told him to ... well, you can guess the rest.

I once did option 2 (same motorway, different place, same reason) but to an extreme, which was actually more a case of doing a number 2.
I realised what I had done only when noticed the next camera set rapidly looming, which resulted with an involuntary, full on panic brake Thankfully the motorway was clear (which I why I had inadvertently drove to the conditions in the first place).
I had an anxious 2 weeks Those two weeks helped strengthen my resolve to expose the SCPs for the fraudsters they really are.

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign