Safe Speed Forums

Has anybody noticed how the first gear crawl along the M6 in rush hour is eased by the 40mph speed camera monitored section? Its excellent isn't.

Also has anybody noticed how people actually dont speed for a short amount of time when there is a speed camera?

Speed cameras are great aren't they? And to think, the people who hate speed cameras so much are the people who actually got them there in the first place (I think the irony is lost on them though). If they were not such excessive and persistant speeders then there would never have been the call for these wonderful examples of electronic engineering.

I suppose people like me who just do a few miles an hour over the speed limits, sometimes accidentally sometimes inentionally, suffer in that we may occassionally get caught out but that has never happened to me individually yet. Besides I am happy that people cant go around driving in an irresponsible manner anymore and its worth the occasional speed ticket if you ask me.

I know some people like to complain about the police and the government that they may get fined for driving their cars too fast but if it wasn't for people like them there would be no cameras. I kind of like the idea that they get annoyed by speed cameras. Its their behaviour that is annoying them but they dont realise it so they will persist in being frustrated (rather funny if you ask me!).

This smacks of a trolling attempt, but speed cameras don't do anything to protect us from:

* Joyriders
* Stolen vehicles
* Drunk drivers
* Uninsured drivers
* Cloned plates

I'm sure you'll agree that these people are much more of a safety threat than the responsible driver who is exceeding the speed limit by a few miles per hour. Yet, who gets punished?

You have to be trolling.

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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

But people with licences etc... who do speed are alright to then? After all they aren't going to have an accident are they not with their insurance and licences and their own car, no?

Furthermore if you read my post you might have noticed I do conceed some people who are not serial and excessive speeders will get tickets but that is the price we all have to pay for more irresponsible people's behaviour. You can avoid this if you are careful!

And why am I a troll just becuase I haven't gone along with the majority view that speeding is great and we should be allowed to do what we like. Why, just because I didn't come along and say speed cameras are simply a revenue generator, am I not allowed to express my opinion?

Speed cameras are there for your safety and my safety.

So they say. Shame it doesn't work.

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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

That's funny - I thought they stopped people from speeding, and thus, driving dangerously.

The simple question you have to ask yourself is: why do some people find it necessary to constantly break speed limits? What is the REASON behind this activity? What drives them to constantly drive more quickly than they should?
Could it be possible that they are selfish, aggressive, nasty people who think the world revolves around them?
That's certainly the impression I've got from the 10,000 plus speeders I've encountered in my lifetime, as they zoom up to my rear and I see their faces full of anger and frustration in my rear view mirror.
Pardon me for not going over the speed limit just because THEY'RE in a hurry!

itdontgo, thank you for cheering up my morning.

Your thread title "Speed cameras are Excellent" is one of the most blatant juvenile attempts to be antagonistic I have seen on this forum.

It made me chuckle.

May be you should become a spokesperson for Brake?

That's what the camera partnerships and the government would have us believe - but this is a well proven lie.

Itdon't go, have a read of this: www.safespeed.org.uk/rttm , then consider what other safety measures have been applied at speed camera sites (thus further inflating their effectiveness), then consider the group distraction effect as all drivers check their speedo - then weigh this up against other ways which that resource could have been spent such as: better road engineering, increasing as opposed to reducing trafpol numbers, better standard of tuition (currently all learner drivers are banned from motorway instruction - utter madness…..)

After considering all of those, can you still confidently state that speed cameras are excellent?

I have no problems with enforcing people who exceed the speed limit dangerously or by a wide margin.

The vast majority of people in this country exceed the speed limit in a safe way which is represented by simple fact that the vast majority of them do not crash.

It is difficult to support a single minded road safety policy which does nothing more than:

* Punish mainly safe drivers for purely technical infringements
* Neglect the most dangerous groups due to replacement of trafpol with speed cameras
* Fail to provide any significant safety benefit
* Cause a whole host of undesirable side effects

If you drive around Suffolk you would see numerous roads where it would be perfectly safe to drive at 20mph above the limit. Equally you would see roads where you would certainly kill yourself if you tried to drive at the limit. Speeding and dangerous driving are very different things - don't forget that.

Most of the dangerous driving I see happens well within the speed limit.

Evidence that cameras stop people from speeding?



Because to keep the needle on the dial at one exact point requires a large amount of attention that may not be available. Although it would be possible to drive well below the limit (eg 15 in a 30), this is likely to be illegal, embrarassing, and likely to raise other questions.



That isn't speeding, it's tailgaiting, and I agree with you about it.

Ifspeed cameras are excelent, then how have Staffodshire spent all that money and reduced the saftey on thier roads as a county.

deaths are up in the county as they force people away from the trunk routes and they avoid camera routes

They may have won thier ASA ruling but thier accounts tell a different story. £2.6 million pounds of turnover and more people dead than if they had done nothing. It dosent apear that they have improved any junctions, done any training of the young or cyclists. it is just "flash 4 cash" out of the motorists...

45 thousand speeding convictions , 135 points, the only people laughing are the car insures who are raking it in. All those causaulties are still dead. The relitives are still mourning. And some smug Camera partnership has the cheek to defend thier advert

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Can't say that I have, actually... There seem to be a lot more stupid "rear-enders" caused by people tailgating through the controlled section though.

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Actually, Cameras dont actually STOP anything or anyone. You simply drive past committing as many offences as possible, no insurance, no licence, no MOT, drunk/drugged up to the eyeballs, tailgating, bald tyres and liable to epilepsey, and a week later the camera partnership send you a ticket - but ONLY if you were speeding.
In that time, you can carry on committing offences willy nilly because the cameras enable police numbers to be reduced, and still give the impression to the public (like yourself) that they are doing something about road safety, and if they simply had enough of them, cameras would reduce accidents to a acceptable minimum.
This of course is a falshood - all the time you have blonde drivers putting on makeup, or not knowing how to stop the engine of their vehicle when the throttle gets stuck, because they never learned to drive, only how to pass the test, then things will not improve.

We have had long discussions here about PAS, ABS, headlights, fog lights, merging lanes etc., etc., yet people still come and harp on about people WANTING to break the law by speeding, because THEY happen to think that safety is about having SPEED cameras - which have NEVER stepped out and prevented an offender continuing on their way to commit further misdemeanours.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

... there it goes again.

This forum is full of the old 'bait and switch' trick: "Don't worry about me speeding, look over there!"

And? So?
Why do you find it necessary to drive above the speed limit? That's the only question. Why do you find it so hard to drive within the speed limits, no matter what the road?
I think we all know the real answer to this question...

Only in certain places, otherwise the speed limit would have been reduced further, but obviously roads vary throughout their length, and some parts require a slower speed than others, but it would be ludicrous to put separate speed signs every 100 yards...


More bait and switch: "Don't worry about my speeding, look over there!"

You're begining to sound like a parrot, carn't you give reasoned answers to these peoples questions.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

Do you get points on your licence when caught by cameras? (I don't know as I'm not sad enough to speed all the time, or any of the time for that matter). If so, you would lose your licence for a while eventually, so that would surely stop you from speeding?

So in other words, we have ANOTHER 'driver' who can't even maintain a constant, steady speed...

You shouldn't be driving, or you're lying, because nobody is that incompetent. Checking the speedo every few seconds doesn't "require a large amount of attention" unless you're incredibly slow witted? Which are you?
Can't you hear the engine and tell when you're speeding up or slowing down? Can't you see the surroundings moving past you at a different speed, and then know that you should check your speedo to see if you're now going any faster or slower?

Still, it's a nice try at bait and switch again: "I can't check my speedo because I'm too busy 'concentrating'". I really believe that - NOT.
You don't check your speedo because you don't CARE what the speed limit, you think YOU should be able to make up your own rules.

And I'm sure you sit there fuming in traffic jams as well...



It IS speeding, because if they weren't speeding, they would never have caught up with my car, which always stays right ON the speed limit...

Do I have to explain everything?

I'd love to spend all afternoon arguing with a load of arrogant people who will only ever see this subject from one point of view but I have far better things to do with my time. This will be my last post.

The reason I made my original post is because it was in a discussion I was having on another forum and they suggested I post my comments on uk.tosspot. As that doesn't exist I found the next best thing.

I dont like speed cameras all that much to be honest. Unfortunately letting people decide for themselves what speed they should do is never going to work either. One thing for sure though is that speed cameras make people concious they are more likely to be done for speeding than if we just had to rely on the police. If you cant see the fact that this makes people more speed aware then you are not intelligent enough to have an argument with so you'd better just get back to reading the Daily Mirror/Mail or NOTW...

Another thing I read on this forum is that a lot of people think speeding isn't dangerous. As you all know 3500 people die every year on the roads. One person has to get shot or one child has to be killed for an equiry costing millions to go on at the request of a tabloid paper. I think therefore 3500 un-natural deaths is rather a lot.

I have considerable knowledge of engineering and furthermore driving. Chances are considerably more than you the reader. I have been in cars driven at speed by very good racing drivers and rather poor (but typical) motorists and have a good perspective on the control most people have of their cars. I am very anti-speeding as a result of observing how motorists drive coming from a motorsport background. I used to like reading anit-speed camera rants in the media just like you but the last five years of my life I have learned so much about driving that I am very much against any speeding on the road. I now see it as very selfish that speeders risk other people's safety. I think anything that will slow motorists is a positive thing and have already stated why I think speed cameras will achieve this.

I dont blame individuals for speeding because they are sold cars on their performance and there is a culture of driving wrecklessly coming from television and paper magazines. If you have 100+ hp cars for sale then people are going to speed dangerously especially if they read about how that cars 'handles'. You cant really blame people because it is in their nature to behave like this. Ultimately if you give people the cars in which to speed they will and so the blame for speeding, in my opinion, is in allowing cars which encourage such behaviour to be sold.

There is one simple way to avoid speed cameras getting you and that is not to speed. The rules are obey the speed limits. If you do that then you wont get into trouble. If you dont want to obey the speed limits then dont drive or face the conequences.

I'm noticing that you make virtually no attempt to answer issues rasied by other posters. Many serious issues have been raised, well worthy of answers.



Why would "maintain[ing] a constant, steady speed" be a good thing? Is he driving in a constant steady hazard environment? Don't you think that speed should be adjusted to suit the hazard environment?

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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