Safe Speed Forums

It is the nature of organisations in general and bureaucracies in particular to seek to sustain and justify their existence. I do not see ANY possibility that 'speeding' will become so infrequent as to to threaten the partnerships' ability to undertake sufficient detection activity to justify their existence and to raise sufficient revenue to meet their costs. Don't forget they have a target of (at least) ~3.5 billion offences a year to aim at, so their market penetration at present is a pretty pathetic 0.06%.

And, even if speeding drops down the agenda, you can be pretty sure that they'll find some other technical infringements to go after.

Well, by my reckoning, even taking an American Billion, that's every driver in the country banned 47 times a year!!

Some of them have started --

http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/articl ... 10,00.html

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

edited

Thats wat i thought - last i heard the police were supposed to prevent robberies ( oh hang on ain't they involved with that other dodgy lot --the partnerships ), so maybe not these days

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

As you can imagine, we hear this argument a lot, ru88ell. There are three counters to it:

1) It is possible for a driver to unknowingly exceed a speed limit. Take for example a 40mph urban road which has its repeater signs removed, reverting it to 30mph (since street lamps are <200m apart). The omission of signs that have been there for years is not noticed by drivers. Then there's the driver who didn't notice the signage for a change in speed limit on an unfamiliar road because he was distracted by a genuine road hazard. "blipping", as described by InGear, is another example.

2) Keeping within the speed limit by no means guarantees you safety from prosecution. There are countless cases of inaccuracies in speed measuring equipment such as GATSO and LTI 20/20. There are more cases still of speed limits being enforced outside their scope (such as the Upper Thames Street debacle) and speed limits that are illegal due to irregularities with the signage. Then there are the clerical errors. Some incorrectly issued fines have been refunded, but the majority stand. As the number of total fines increases, the number of these miscarriages of justice will increase in line. SCPs show no interest in investing in the improvement of speed measuring technology to make the system fairer. But when someone invents an automated ticketing system that will increase their volumes, they are there with chequebooks open.

Read the cases and reports obtained from them under the Freedom of Information act, then tell me if you still trust these people.


3) Does "Nanny" always know best? Speed limits are increasingly being set unreasonably low, for example 30mph limits being extended a mile or more outside villages on NSL rural roads (see "Oxfordshire"), with seemingly no justification. Despite the law being unjust, people show respect for it by driving at 40mph rather than 50-60, but still get prosecuted.




The placing of the signs is abused to the point where the signs are of no value. What they do is stick a sign every mile on a 20-mile stretch of road, then operate a camera in random locations anywhere within the 20 miles. It's like having one big sign on the Scottish border saying "There are lots of speed cameras in Scotland, but we're not going to tell you where they are - you have been warned".



That sounds like a throwaway soundbite to me. Stupid people are actually more likely to abide by unjust laws without question. An intelligent person will say "The limit is 30, but I know this road well and it's safe to do 50 down here. I'll drive at 40 as a compromise".




I don't believe that for a minute. Empires have been built. Hundreds of jobs now rely on this "industry". The industry will justify its continued existance by any means necessary.

If we were to reach 100% speed limit compliance, they would just lower the speed limits further and we'd be back to square 1 (except 10mph slower). Compliance will lead to a Great Britain which has a blanket 20mph urban limit, a 40mph limit for SCs and 50mph for Motorways, which is not what the majority of the public wants and we ARE a democracy.

Then there are bus lanes, box junctions, "hatched off" areas of road, red routes, new congestion charging zones, new document offences. All waiting for incorrect application followed by draconian enforcement. How about turning every "Give way" junction into a "Stop" junction and installing cameras?

Believe me, these people will NEVER be out of a job so long as they have the unbridled support of the Government.

National road pricing is the big one. Our Government dreams of the day when having to use road safety law as an excuse for fleecing motorists is no longer necessary. When National road pricing goes live, their revenue gathering capacity will be limited only by people's ability to pay. Then, and only then, when revenue is out of the picture, will we see an end to speed cameras and a return to an objective road safety policy. Road casualties will finally come down, but we'll have paid heavily for the privilege. Welcome to the future.

_________________
“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

edited

I don’t think Ru88ell will be responding to these comments, there are simply too many (as usual).

All respondents in this thread have added something new; I think this goes to show just how flawed the original statements were.

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

Driving is NOT a privilege and it is well-past time that people stopped saying so. Driving is by definition an ENTITLEMENT gained by passing the appropriate tests and meeting the necessary criteria of age and fitness to drive. By the same criteria the entitlement can be revoked. To say it is a privilege suggests that it is something that can be granted or taken away at a whim or on someone's behest with no justification.

(Credit to Observer for the above definition).

Thank you for the acknowledgement {tugs forelock} (a vainly optimistic expression as I'm becoming increasingly .... errrr ..... follicly challenged?)