Safe Speed Forums

I saw two lads in hi-viz jackets fixing what looked like a mini litter-bin at chest height on a lamp-post near my house. Being the nosy sod that I am, I asked what it was. Turned out to be a speed recorder which records the speed of every vehicle that passes. (No photos) The council is trying to determine whether another hump is needed, as the local chavs can hit 60 (in a 30) between the two that have been refurbished.

The thing is, it's an innocuous black box with a door and no holes whatsoever, but it contains a radar? speed detector! Never seen owt like it before.

You could get everyone you know to drive past it in 1st gear to stuff up their averages.

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

I doubt it; the formula is probably something like this:

*If the speed of vehicles is low, then obviously the speed limit is too high and should be reduced to 20 to reflect traffic speeds.

*If the speed of vehicles is high, then obviously there is a speeding problem and a camera or humps are needed to slow traffic down.

You could pass word around that it is a speed camera.

Then one of two things will happen.

Everyone will drive past it at just under the limit.

Or.

It won't be there at the end of the week.

When the black box is installed it will have one or two rubber strips that go across the road. If it has one strip is measuring traffic volume. If it has two it measures speed and volume. I think the strips are hollow tubes that give a pressure pulse when a car goes over.

Recently they have appeared near all the camera sites where I live. I think they are looking at speed compliance.

I have seen them shredded, must be if a car locks its wheels going over them....sounds like the makings of a sport....

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Speed camera policy Kills

No connections to it whatsoever. Runs on a ni-cad battery!

Yes, I've pondered this quite a lot, the question of what speed you should drive over the rubber strips, for the exact reason you describe. The only rational thing to do is to drive over them at precisely the speed limit, preventing them from taking either of the undesirable courses of action.

I always interpret it as recording the speed that drivers want to go at, so I often speed up to increase the 85% speed. If there are no accidents on the road, and the average speed is higher than the speed limit, then the logical conclusion is that the limit is set too slow. They cannot put cameras in without accidents, and by sticking at the new lowered speed limit that is often being testing would just confirm to them that were right to lower the limit in the first place. They are using this information as part of the confirmation that speed cameras are workng by lowering the average speed, so this is my little two fingers worth.

On the other hand, they also use these boxes at potential speed camera sites to check whether 20% of the traffic is speeding -- so by going over the wires fast, you might actually be sealing the case for the scamera.

But they can't put in any new cameras at the moment, and I refuse to do anything that they can use to imply that them abominations actually work. All co-operation went out the window when they categorised me as a criminal.

best just to bash or burn it to be on the safe side (joke).

after all the best camera is one that never goes off. Someone round my way has been installing some excellent after market mods to the cameras to ensure they never go off.

just what the scamera partnership wanted - well done.

pitty burning tyres is so unenvironmentally friendly.

Having had a few days to clarify my thoughts, I have concluded that for speed survey equipment I will always drive at what I think is the correct speed for the road, because it is the ONLY mechanism through which I can make my view know.

It doesn't matter whether they then corrupt the use of the information or not, that is not my fault, but by driving like a sheep to the posted limit I a throwing away my opportunity to demonstrate that I think that they have got the limit totally wrong.

I will even deliberately slow down to open up a gap before speeding up to my target speed over the device if the traffic is congested, just to get my view recorded.

But you on your own can't really affect the 85% speed by very much, unless you happen to be driving past the place very often, or the road is very quiet.