Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/4076818.stm
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Children used in car speed checks

Speeding drivers are being brought face-to-face with children at the roadside so officers can press home the threat their actions pose.

Year Six pupils from College Town Junior School in Sandhurst, Berkshire, are the latest weapon used by Thames Valley Police in the fight on speeding.

Officers and road safety staff from Bracknell Forest council carried out speed checks in Owlsmoor on Thursday.

The children told those pulled over about how speeding could affect them.

"Being put in a situation where you are face-to-face with a child, a potential casualty from excess speed, has a real effect on most drivers," said Pc Carole Sessions.

"At the same time, it is a good lesson for the children, which we hope they remember when they start driving."

The unusual speed checks coincide with Police Week, where pupils at the school are given an insight into the work of the force.

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I'd give odds that the way in which a large majoity of British children are affected by speeding is that it gets them to school on time . Still, this smacks of emotional blackmail, which is usually resorted to when the argument isn't going too well. Besides that, this is a bit of a strange one. Owlsmoor and College Town are bypassed by the A3095, a single carriageway NSL road. The schools are located on Owlsmoor Road which isn't a likely rat run to avoid part of the A3095 due to some monster speed humps (1st gear or lose your teeth jobs) and often loads of parked cars, plus usually a long wait to get out of either end. I know - I've tried it! I can't imagine much speeding going on along there, or much traffic at all come to that. Beyond those who live there and whose kids go to school there I can't think who the plod are going to catch... which is where I started.

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

Hmmm, unsure about this, perhaps its a reasonably good idea...?

<RANT>
On the other hand, perhaps the police should visit all schools regularly and show graphic pictures to our arrogant Blair PC era children who can do no wrong just exactly the result of walking straight out in front of the car (which happens to be obeying the limit).

They are so arrogant now - they wander out in the road with the "I am right, the cars can stop" attitude.

When I was at school, green cross code was rammed down our throats on a daily basis, from school, regular TV adverts etc. All they see on TV now is crazy bloody frog. The green cross code sticks in my mind to this day, and I still am extremely careful about crossing a road.

Then you get adverts on the radio telling us what a HGV sounds like to a 16 year old with a bloody mobile phone or a personal stereo....WTF that sounds like evolution at work to me

We need to spend far more energy instructing our young citizens to the horror of being hit by a vehicle at any speed - even if the vehicle is at walking pace. Stop wrapping them in cotton wool and show them the real footage and just what happens.
</RANT>

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Not at that school. I've been back down that road since and no way can I speed down there. Even ignoring the parked cars the humps would shake my teeth out if I tried to stick to the limit, never mind exceed it. Of course, it might not be speeding coupes they have a problem with there. I imagine 4x4s, the school run mummy's tool of choice, could cope a lot better. Maybe it's them that this exercise was aimed at.

I'm right alongside your rant though.

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

I agree with the above rant totally.

I also think it is just wrong and manipulative to use children like this.

The issues involved are too complicated for young children to understand. it's a popular stunt of the Blair regime unfortunately.

When I was about 7 I got taken on CND marches and was given banners and the like to wave. From the little I remember, it seemed more to be about anti-American feelings than anything else (just as the present movement is more about anti-car feelings.) Now that I'm grown up I do not appreciate having been used in that way. Whatever the rights or wrongs of nuclear weapons, it was just incorrect for them to assume that at that age I could understand the complex details of thr politics that was involved.

So the scammers in this case may in fact be stirring up even more resentment for the future than they realise.

we

Type approval for cameras only requires 10% accuracy, so what gives you the right to lecture someone recorded as 1mph over the limit?

You get positive feedback because the government has spent many many millions portraying speed cameras as 'magic accident reducing machines'. No wonder some people want one.

Unfortunately the government case is based on nothing more than a few key false assumptions. The public has been comprehensively misled about the nature of road safety. Ironically, misinformation acted upon by members of the public automatically increases road dangers.

Key false assumptions: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/conspiracy.html

Wide effects of misleading messages: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/tiger.html

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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

No way would I allow mine to take part in nay such gimmick. After all, Ken Livingstone and the Met have issued a Nanny warning about taking sight seeing photos with digital cameras. If this is the case - who knows what kind of nut gets a kick outa being ticked off for sppeding by a child! if one applies this daft logic of his to this situation.

Not that I believe this is so for one instance - but if Ken and the Met are accusing tourists in London of goodness knows what and I still cannot believe what I heard on radio 4 about two weeks ago now (Livingstone's press release about tourist photography) - then by the same crass nonensical blinkered thinking, this practice is not exactly very safe if the same people are going to indulge in such nightmare politics.. but then there are nightmare politics and nightmare politics - and we are now going to have the next generation afraid to go out anywhere if we carry on like this.

Methinks Ken and the scam ilk tend to talk as they feel and any old gimmick will do - just so long as they interfere with other peoplle's lives and enjoyment.

My kids are taught how to cross a road safely and to be sociable and polite without according a blind trust in people. I would rather children be educated as I try to educate mine - Green Cross Code and supervsision until I know they are mature enough to be allowed a little freeer rein..

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I always thought that it was illegal as well as immoral to lasoo and incorporate children (especially young children) into politics or something else which they don't fully understand.

No doubt you will have told any children you may have "Daddy's been nicking all those naughty drivers so you can play in the street safely".

No matter what the typical or atypical speed on any stretch of road, I always tell kids to expect the unexpected - that if a car hits them they won't get the chance to hit it back, and that they will be hurt badly.

Using children in such an exercise - even if the message was 1,000,000 % correct (which we know in our hearts, it isn't, of course) is leading some of them into a false sense of security.

Still, I suppose if one of the poor sods is lulled into a false sense of security, that all the 'bad' drivers will have changed their 'naughty' habits and such a child, ignorant of the real dangers gets killed from being taken under your wing - well, at least you can bung another camera up, eh?

Maybe these drivers should have answered back about the dangers of children blindly stepping out onto the road, and them swerving to miss and them killing thewmselves in the process.

I must say I'm not happy about children being used in this manner.

Depending on the age range of the children involved I'm sure they will have their own genuine feelings on the subject, but in the main this amounts to them being primed with too much emotive nonsense to spout at drivers.

It would be more helpful to have better education of drivers, and better education of children regarding their kerb drill etc.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Exactly.

Come back Tufty, Nellie the elephant and any others. I'm absolutely certain those straightforward campaigns have saved hundreds of children from injury or worse.

No,

Can't support it, theres something decidely dodgy about it all.

One, you've got the moral aspect of using children for such activities.

Two, what if a driver loses it? ok there may be no violence but I don't think kids should be exposed to angry adults or even put in a situation where such a thing could occur. A policeman restraining an angry motorist is just what kids should be exposed to is it?

Three, what exactly are we teaching them? children go to school to be educated not to be used as tools to 'educate' others. Concentrate on what they can do to be safe, make them risk aware. Educate children about the things THEY can do to make themselves safer.

We seem to be embedding the idea that everything is someone else's fault! The latest Government sound bites are 'Respect' and 'Tackling Yob Culture'. Well how about starting with a few few basic lessons in personal responsibility?

A little bit more info on this. The speed trap was apparently in Yeovil Road, not Owlsmoor Road as I thought and which I've been down once or twice (enough to know speeding is prett unlikely there). So I took a detour and went for a wander to see what this Yeovil Road is like. Turns out it's off Owlsmoor but is quite different. Hump free, wider and without many parked cars, so you could speed there. Perhaps not often safely, but you could which makes it a more realistic place to catch drivers. Now here's the interesting bit. I drove around for a bit and as far as I could tell you can't get on to Yeovil Road without using at least one other road that does have speed humps. If there really is speeding there could it be that it's partially driven by frustration?

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

KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK THE KIDS:

1. Does anyone know how much money the government collected in speeding fines in the last 10 years?

2. Why do you think the vast majority of driver break the speed limit every day?

3. How many accidents involving children crossing the road do you think are caused because the driver was speeding?

4. Do you think its better for drivers to look at the road or their speedo?

5. Do you think it's better for the police to catch burgulars or speeders?

6. Do you think having a speed camera van outside your school will give you cancer?

OK maybe not 6, but we are talking about the exploitation and manipulation of children.

7. Do you like going fast?

8. Would you like to go 150mph in this red Ferrari?



I think the more serious underlying point is that kids aren't so dumb. They think fast is good, which of course it is under the right circumstances.

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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

The irony is that at least some of the scamerati joined up to drive fast police cars and now sit in mini vans eating donuts

Still waiting for a reply, no surprises there then............

MoJo.

sorry missed the posts

Maybe, but I am suspicious. As I said in the OP, I know the road the school is on having tried to use it as a short cut only to find it narrow, full of houses with cars parked outside (narrowing it further to one car wide with some passing places) and littered with more humps than a camel convention. And 2nd gear would shake your teeth loose on some of them, they're that bad. Then it turns out it wasn't where I thought, so I swung by that way and found out that it was the one road that's wide enough to make speeding a possible temptation (stressing possible), and doesn't have humps. You also have to use at least one hump-ridden road to reach it. It's only a few hundred yards long though, and not a realistic rat run AFAICT so we're not talking about a lot of speeding drivers with the possible exception of the school run. If they really do have a speeding problem there I wonder if they've created it for themselves by overuse of humps.

My current suspicion? Indoctrination of the kiddies. Someone at the school probably got all Helen Lovejoy and they ended up having the police visit for a week. The kids got to play coppers with the radar gun and regurgitate whatever they'd been told to anyone daft enough to break the 11th Commandment down there - though in fairness it isn't a road I'd choose to do more than 30 and I'd probably err on the low side. But if it's the sort of road I feel I'd need to keep my speed down on, it's also the sort of road where drivers could do without that sort of distraction. And where the hell they were pulling them over without creating a possible hazard for the next driver along I don't know, down a side road I hope.

I've had a glass of the old cynic juice, so I can't help feeling this part of the exercise is aimed more at getting the kids to grow up to love cameras. Mr Gatso Is Your Friend and so on (imagine a sarcastic smiley here please). Hopefully whatever they were taugh in the rest of the week was of more value. Green Cross Code, Highway Code rules for pedestrians, personal responsibility for their safety round roads etc.

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