Safe Speed Forums

Telegraph Here

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

In general it has been reported that permanent SPECS installations do produce a very low rate of prosecutions, as you won't be caught out merely for a moment's inattention.

A year or two ago I posted a report on here about complaints that the SPECS system on the A2 in Northern Ireland between Belfast and Bangor wasn't working because nobody had been caught by it.

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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

Have you all forgotten your long lost friend Mr. J Thornley? HHave a look at Thornley v DPP, he even has his own High Court case on the issue. John Thornley will confirm they work, at least they did over the Thelwall Viaduct on the M6; Honest John has no more idea on the matter than the questioner, if he was "honest" he would have answerd "I don't know!".

They work just fine.

New versions of SPECS, SPECS3 work in a way that allows any camera to be used as an entry or exit so it can be any point to any point, lane changing is a thing of the past. Earlier versions were approved to enforce over different lanes some time ago.

I suspect that SPECS "work" because they tend to be used in roadworks where, when the traffic is heavy, you wouldn't be able to exceed an average of 50 without driving into the back of someone. If you've got 1000 cars all crammed together in three lanes, you only need (well, er, three!) of the ones at the front to be doing 50 and nobody else has any choice!

It will be very interesting to see the conviction rates for the SPECS that have just been installed on the Westbound A66 by Bassenthwaite lake (if they ever get them working)! Any ideas when that might happen Greenshed? The traffic there is much lighter than a typical motorway contraflow, so I'd expect much higher conviction rates (especially as the 50 limit is inappropriately low for most of that stretch) .

I thought all operators of speed cameras always said that they would be happy if their cameras didn't catch anyone...

... and Mole, you are correct, it's the inappropriate setting of limits that is the real issue not camera enforcement.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

He wouldn’t have been honest If he answered as you suggested, when he could have (and did) say “readers have been done”. How could he ‘not know’ [there aren’t SPECS triggered prosecutions] when he knows readers have been done?

PS, a sample of 1 doesn’t necessarily reflect the trend of a distribution.

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

Given the focus on speed that camera enforcement has created, those two factors aren't completely unrelated!

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

Makes you wonder why they don't want to promote that fact in the media really isn't it ?
After all if they really do not want people to speed, then promoting how they work and 'cannot' get 'around' any illegal manoeuvres you'd think that would be something that they would want to do !

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

.... and a complete miscomprehension about what an 'appropriate speed setting is', this seems to be long forgotten. Considering that the Police and engineers were once a big contribution to speed setting when predictable speeds were set too, it is not surprising that the local Councillors are now lost as to what to do with little or no knowledge, about what is correct or even how to gauge that.
Even understanding the 85th%ile is now skewed when you see motorists too scared to stay over the legal posted limit. You have to go a long way to still see the true free travelling speed at the 85th percentile still in action.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

They did.

Can you give various examples "in the media" showing this?

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

Really! you need to keep pace.
I couldn't find many but here you go:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/article4909662.ece

http://www.transportbusiness.net/content/view/437/35/

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2009/December/dec2109-bike-average-speed-cameras-approved/

http://www.bamo.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6677&sid=55e219992c1c17d7460c374a1daed14d#p6677

http://www.speedcheck.co.uk/specs3.htm

Not only SPECS3
http://www.redspeed-int.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=41

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/14023.aspx

http://www.motoringlawyersonline.com/wordpress/2010/01/19/how-do-average-speed-cameras-work/ not totally accurate but they have an idea and are aware of new technique

http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/East-London/Barking/IG11/News/Local-News/152538-Its-swings-and-roundabouts-for-A13-drivers

http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/opinion.php?BlogID=188

Maybe more on the way:
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/8116935.Home_grown_speed_camera_now_on_test/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8632440.stm

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/04/20/secret-satnab-115875-22198133/

http://www.ukwirednews.com/articles.php/53324-New-satellite-technology-speed-cameras-in-road-tests

(You ought to note when you make 'bold' another person's text, by the way.)
When did they promote it to ensure that the vast majority of the TV viewing, newsprint reading public, seem to be so completely unaware, of how to tell the difference between the SPECS 1 and 3 and how they operate ? I am not saying that there hasn't been a little in the press, because there has but nothing like enough to even touch the surface to ensure that the motorist is fully aware of them.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

A few when you consider your budgets and the fact that we are referring to the UK nation of motorists, this is no serious media 'flood' but a small trickle. You don't really think that that is 'good coverage' do you ?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/drivin ... 909662.ece - shows an image of a SPEC 1 not SPEC 3 that it reports about - confusing !
http://www.transportbusiness.net/content/view/437/35/ - shows an image of a SPEC 1 not SPEC 3 that it reports about - confusing !
http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/ ... -approved/ - shows an image of a SPEC 1 not SPEC 3 that it reports about - confusing !
http://www.bamo.org.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... d14d#p6677 = forum not really media coverage.
http://www.speedcheck.co.uk/specs3.htm - the site for SPECs which has both the SPEC 1 & 3 on that page - so potentially confusing ! Not media coverage
http://www.redspeed-int.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=41 - Redspeed - not media coverage Not SPECS.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/n ... 14023.aspx - talks about the new average cameras and tells you nothing about SPECS at all and no links ...
http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/East-Londo ... 13-drivers - is RedFusion not SPECS 1 or 3 !
http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/o ... BlogID=188 - is RedFusion too not SPECS 1 or 3.
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/8116935 ... w_on_test/ - vaguely talks about average cameras with an image of a Gatso !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8632440.stm - is the new SpeedSpike (but mistakenly called SpikeSpike) Pips system - not SPECS.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-storie ... -22198133/ - SpeedSpike - not SPECS.
http://www.ukwirednews.com/articles.php ... road-tests - PIPS or SpeedSpike.

So if this is what you thought might inform the Nations motorists about SPECS 3 I think it falls way short of the mark, no wonder people are confused.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Oh dear! Well maybe one more on this subject then.

Look back at the list of links. You will see that I have said "Not only SPECS3" above the list of Redfusion articles and "Maybe more on the way:" above the PIPs articles. I thought that it would be helpful to include similar systems to SPECS3 and not only that system because of the subject at hand, to make the public more aware.

You would do well to use the SPECS camera head as identification of SPECS and SPECS3 because the heads are interchangeable. You learn something new every day do you not?

If you look here we were very specifically talking about the media coverage for knowledge on the SPECS 3 cameras.
I am delighted to learn new things every day - do you not ? OK so the camera's are interchangeable be surprised if they weren't.
Makes you wonder though why many L1 Specs are not always 'on' though (ref at night time operation) care to enlighten me as to why that is ?

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Interesting list of "public" announcements there GS! Of course, if a car manufacturer has a vehicle safety defect, there is a well-established method for contacting the affected vehicle keepers and leaving them in NO DOUBT of the message you're trying to put across. It ain't cheap, but what price safety eh? Just think, you could reach every driving licence holder in the country so easily...

...if you wanted to!

in fact, if cost IS an issue (though I'm lead to believe it's not about the money!) you could even wait until tax reminders got sent out - at least that way you'd be able to reach every registered keeper in the country, at least once a year, for little more than the cost of the flyers!

I think you may be taking this a bit too far.

There is no obligation on the supplier of SPECS3 to educate or inform the public how they work or what capabilities they have. It is a speed enforcement system that will detect and has the potential to be used as evidence in excess speed situations. Enter the first location and carry on at a lawful speed until you exit the very last part and you will be just fine; no need to know anything more.
What possible reason would you have to want or need to know their tactical capabilities? There is none, hence no obligation to inform.
If you want to know it isn't difficult to find out.

I know that however I have provided you with information that not only SPECS3 are capable of that technique so is Redfusion and PIPs. Was that advance knowledge not useful since you were frustrated at not knowing about just one of the 3. There will be more after these 3.

Then don't complain when someone volunteers more than you asked for. I assumed you would want to know the extra information that was volunteered for you.

Is that a fact? Is it restricted to L1? Is it restricted to SPECS only?
Is there a camera system anywhere that doesn't consist of live and dummy cameras or cameras that are scheduled on and off? I don't know of any.
Very few systems are "always on" (well they are if I put them in) so why single these out?
Reliance of L1 SPECS being "not always on" is a bad tactic if you do not want to be detected speeding on that basis.

Assumption truly is the mother of all f*ck-ups.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.