Safe Speed Forums

Basingwerk,

I have noticed from various posts you have made that you believe that speed cameras are likely to improve road safety. I have questions.

1) Why, exactly, do you think speed cameras will improve road safety? (i.e. what evidence or information do you rely on to make your judgement?)

2) What proportion of road accidents do you think are caused or contributed to by speed in excess of a speed limit? What evidence?

3) What evidence do you have to suppose or suggest that rigid adherence to a speed limit might be important to road safety?

I'd also welcome sensible replies from any other pro camera folk.

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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

I don't know why you're so hung up on this "rigid adherence" thing. You don't talk darkly about "rigid adherence" to type tread depths, MOT testing, or blood-alcohol levels. Unless you think we shouldn't have speed limits at all, you've got to set the speed limit to something ( even if it's 200mph ), and similarly if you believe in speed limits, it follows they have to be enforced.

Could it be because the present régime of enforcement concentrates on "rigid adherence", so approving of cameras implies approval of this?

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Keep right on to the end of the road ...

Speed camera provide an incentive for drivers to obey the speed limit. I suggest that the term "rigid adherence" is an emotive smokescreen. We don't throw up our hands in horror when someone is prevented from voting even though it's only a couple of weeks before their eighteen birthday. Speed limits are enforced in a much more flexible way than many other rules I could mention.

I believe that speed cameras are intended to obtain "rigid adherence" - at least where they operate, and to judge by various statements, elsewhere too.



Sensible speed limits with intelligent enforcement concentrating on danger is a good way to go. Indeed that's what we had when we earned ourselves the safest roads in the world. It wasn't broken and we should not have tried to change it.

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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

Well, if driving round in an MOT failure with bald tyres and blood in your alcohol stream had little effect on saftey then we might be questioning rigid adherence to those rules too. As it is, very few doubt that a minimum tread depth or maximum blood alcohol limit are beneficial. MOTs are a bit more open to question, but they do at least encourage most drivers to do enough maintenance to get the car through the test.
You've got a point here. There is indeed more rigid enforcement in other areas of life that have no obvious relevance to safety, and voting age is a good example. If this forum was about everything that's not quite right with the world I'd probably have some suggestions to make about voting, but since it's about road safety I'll keep my ideas about that to myself . Anyhow, the issue is not whether rigid adherence to any particular law is always a bad thing, since clearly it isn't. Imagine if rigid adherence wasn't expected for murder or robbery! Here, it's specifically about rigid adherence to speed limits and whether there is any safety benefit from that. At least, that's what the wording of the question suggests to me.

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

Like it or not speed cameras cause drivers to slow down. Thay have also stimulated a debate on speed and road safety like no other device has since perhaps the inception of motorised road transport. That has got to lead to an improvement.

Why get hung up on this question it makes no sense? Speed cameras will have an effect on accident numbers by virtue of the fact that they change driving behaviour at their location and in the case of SPECS over a longer route length. They are not limited to an effect on accidents that are caused or have occured at or above the speed limit, they have an effect on behaviour so your question and logic, Sir, are flawed.

"rigid adherence"?!? Where is this intended and how does the deployment of speed cameras demand this? It does not, does it? If it were a hydraulic system, the system when locked has no flexibility. To build this in would require some form of accumulator or expansion system with a gas cushion. In the case of the speed/safety camera as operated here in the UK, the cusion is built in by ACPO abd Chief Constables when they decide their speed threshold levels. This provides the cushion in both attended and automatic non-attended speed enforcement systems just like the non-rigid hydraulic system has it's flexibility built in. Perhaps as a computer "engineer", is there such a thing, you may not have an understanding of such engineering techniques. Miss a comma and your system is goosed, as an engineer would say.
Hopefully your ideas and analysis will be goosed in due course as it should be.

Where is the rigid adherence?
Even the non-attended speed camera has a built in threshold to allow some give in the speed limit.
This cannot and must not be construed as "rigid".

We are not talking about enforcement here.

The question is whether rigid (or alternatively strict) adherence to speed limits is important to road safety, and if so, why?

Nobody seems to have attempted to answer that question directly - rather the issue has been clouded by irrelevant comparisons.

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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

So slow=safe then? What evidence do you have that cameras achieve anything beyond slowing people down - and making loads of cash into the bargain?



They've certainly stimulated debate, I'll give you that. Doubt if all that hot air'll have any effect on road safety, though.



And when will we see that improvement? We've had cameras for almost a decade now, and road deaths are starting to go up year on year, for the first time in decades. Last year we saw 77 more fatalities than in the previous year.



"Will" have an effect on accident numbers? When, where and how?
Precisely what sort of effect do cameras have on driving behaviour, and how does this change of behaviour benefit road safety?



Not even the spin doctors of the camera partnerships have cottoned onto that line yet. You should sell it to them, you'll make a fortune - they're always scrabbling around for soundbites.



A gallant attempt at obfuscation. Now would you please answer the bl**dy question.

Regards
Peter

My ideas certainly aren't going to be "goosed" with the sort of arguments (for want of a better word) that you have advanced here. Why not have a proper stab at answering the questions?

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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

Jolls!

MOT testing is subjective! This large family as collective are proud owners of lots of old classics - from 1940s VW to a Prat mobile (aka Fod CAPRI complete with the dangly dice and a Trabant (which is definitely scary!

Can tell you that same car failed MOT at one station and passed 10 minutes later at another! (We did, in fact, know of the defect in the underside chassis before we took it for test but wanted to test two MOT stations for own knowledge since memebr of this family would be behind wheel! And we did fix it and had it tested at the one who failed it in ]first place before it went out on any road - track, private or public!)

Tyres being under/over inflated or worn - or blood alcohol? They are rigid because COAST cannot help correct or aid you in hazard perception and avoidance!

Speed limits - type of tyre, camber, gradience, road surface and even circumstances which dictate you need to marginally exceed speed limit to either get out of trouble quickly or enable emergency vehicle to progress is not the same thing at all! There has to be some flexibility which trafpol sees and allows for - but scammers do not!

We are not talking of OTT speeding - but the kind of marginal and short overspeeds which we all make on occasion - and that does include you whether you are pedalling "fast and furiously" or in your partner's car!

Oh - just come up North and find out what we are talking about in Lancs!

They more or less have zero tolerance despite their "official" claims to contrary!

They cause people to brake sharply like Pavlov's dog at every white van on planet! That is no improvement! Downright dangerous!

They are not generally to be seen at danger zones - but on nice safe straight roads - usually near speed limit changes! That cause dangerous overtakes elsewhere - and does not teach people why their actions are perceived as dangerous! It teaches resentment! That is no improvement in road safety!

They have replaced traffic police in many areas - leading to upsurge in illegal drivers running around in "throw-aways" and hitting and running in unparalled numbers as per the BBC1 programme the other night. That is no improvement in road safety either!




They change behaviour at location because they have Pavlov dog effect of braking for scamera and then speeding up again afterwards! Not my idea of changing behaviour for the good! SPECS - do not have that much of problem with - but would say they should be more visible! But even then - they do change attitudes and behaviour in way that a ticking off and sound advice form an expert trafpol would! And the only way to change behaviour in all drivers is via the way many contributors to this forum - including myself, and my cousin(s) have suggested - periodic graded assessements with low insurance premiums as good carrot incentive! An idea which BiBs on PH agree with - as wife has posted this idea on there as well! And I-G and our other BiB cousins have placed it on BiB fora somewhere too!




Just come to Lancs. Even the Lancs BiB on PH could not deny the rigidity when pushed by my wife! They say "official" line is per guidelines - but have actually seen my colleague's 34mph NIP and he has promised me that he will send this for Paulie to post on site as glowing example when his lawyers have finished with it!

And Chief CONs do have axe to grind - they want "good" results! So they will set thresholds below guidelines! We even have partnerships which have speed courses as alternative and others which do not! And those with the commendable courses spoil it by setting tolerance thresholds ridiculously low in bid to entrap people and get bums on seats in those courses! That should not happen - should it! Nor should a driving licence depend on a post code lottery - any more than my patients' treatments should!

Of course - there should be a cut-off point for prosecution so that we all know what is acceptable and what is not!

But this - like date of an 18th birthday - should be universally applied throughout the land!

Or Thames Valley. 31 mph gets you on a speed awareness course, which still costs you though you don't get the points. Big deal though, 'cos if you do it again you get a NIP. That looks like zero tolerance to me, at least in 30 zones. In fairness, better there than NSL dual carriageways, but still 31mph means no margin and makes for easy pickings on some 30 roads that can be safely driven faster in the middle of the night.
Not the point of this thread, I know. But worth mentioning for those who still think the old 10%+2 rule still holds everywhere. It doesn't - a limited zero tolerance is already here, it just remains to be seen if it's the thin end of the wedge.

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

Back to (a paraphrase of) the original question:

What evidence is there that rigid adherence to numerical speed limits is more beneficial to safety than driving within the spirit of the law.

How do you define OTT speeding ? 20% over the limit ? Why not just raise the speed limit by that amount so everybody knows where they stand ?

( Oh, and by the way, speed limits don't apply to bicycles. Cue more rants about how the hard-done-by motorist is getting shafted by oppressive cyclists... )

Define rigid adherence.

Aiming to drive such that you never exceed the posted speed limit, as indicated on your speedometer, and treating this as a key objective in driving.

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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

You are Guy Chapman and I claim my £5!

Well, of course you can't do someone for speeding if they don't (and aren't required to) have a speedo! On the other hand, you can't do a driver for "pedalling furiously", whatever that means! Anyway, it's rare for cycles to exceed limits, especially the higher ones. Which, of course, doesn't mean they cycle safely all the time

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Keep right on to the end of the road ...