Safe Speed Forums

Camera scrapped to cut tailbacks

A controversial motorway speed camera is being removed in a bid to ease congestion on a section of the M4.
Motorists, braking as they see it, have been blamed for causing tailbacks of up to five miles in the westbound lanes near junction 41 at Port Tablot.

It will be replaced by electronic signs displaying the speed of each vehicle, but not recording their details. The 50 mph speed limit will remain.

Tory AM Alun Cairns said the camera's position had always been "nonsensical".

An assembly government spokesman said the camera would be removed early in the new year.

He said there were problems with congestion on the westbound lanes of the motorway at Port Talbot.

"We are working with the South Wales Safety Camera Partnership on the M4 junction 41 and will be supplying two electronic vehicle actuated speed display signs," he added.

"These will be located on the westbound side but further east on this 50mph section of motorway."

Mr Cairns, who is South Wales West AM, said he had raised the effectiveness of the camera on several occasions at the assembly.

"This has been an issue for some time because the siting of the speed camera has always been nonsensical," he said.

"Being so close to a junction it causes a lot of congestion where there is not a history of accidents.

"Westbound congestion of a Friday evening regularly tails back in excess of five miles because people brake through instinct on observing the camera even when they are travelling within the speed limit."

WAG said there were no plans to remove the nearby speed camera that covered the eastbound lanes.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6179113.stm

So there was very little history of accidents and yet they placed a camera there which causes untold congestion and danger on a motorway. Maybe they're removing the camera because all the congestion they’ve caused has dropped the speed of vehicles so their revenue has fallen off.

As there are very few (if any) accidents why are they replacing the camera with electronic signs just to inform everybody what speed they’re doing, or is it just to save them from the embarrassment of having to remove the camera.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

It's always been a cash generator

And it has caused massive conjestion.

It annoys me that the fact that the number of collisions increased during their tenure has not been reported, only the resultant tailbacks.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Is that right? The partnership bod on Radio Wales gave figures suggesting that crashes had dropped markedly - I said RTTM.

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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

There was an article in one of the local papers (western mail, echo or the local Gazette) when the Welsh Office first became interested some months back. (might actually have been last year). The article suggested that the number of collisions had in increased during the time they were operational. I don't have the article I'm afraid.

I was not surprised as a colleague of mine lives in swansea and had to tackle this section twice a day and in his experience he went from seeing the results of RTC's once every few months to a couple a month during rush hour periods alone.

If the local scammers figures show different then the article was incorrect as is my colleague's experience. Could they be quoting the figures directly at the camera spots and not those in increasingly slow traffic in the few miles either side?

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Should this not be grounds for scrapping all of these nonsensical devices at once on its own!!??

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 15:12 this afternoon:

PR421: M4 Speed camera side effects

news: for immediate release

So a speed camera is to be removed from the M4 because it has the side effect
of causing congestion. Safe Speed applauds - finally - the acknowledgement that
speed cameras come with negative side effects.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "The removal of the M4 camera represents the first
substantial acknowledgement that speed cameras have side effects. There are
many more real horrors to come."

"It is both a scandal and a tragedy that speed camera side effects have not
been studied. The side effects are terrible and ensure that the cure is far
worse than the disease. Safe Speed maintains a list of 30 different side
effects resulting from speed cameras, many of which strike directly at the core
of road safety."

"When all the side effects are finally acknowledged and evaluated, the full
horror of the speed camera folly will be revealed. Speed cameras will go down
in history alongside thalidomide as a truly dreadful mistake."

"The greatest cluster of side effects impinge directly on driver quality.
Everyone knows that drivers are getting worse, and TRL says road deaths aren't
falling as expected because of it. I know for sure that speed cameras are right
at the heart of the problem. They have replaced genuine life-saving policies
and distracted everyone from far more important safety factors."

"Road deaths are running about 1,200 per year above projections based on earlier
trends. I am certain that bad policy founded on speed cameras is responsible
for this tragic and scandalous loss of life."

"Let's make speed cameras as unacceptable as drink driving."

<ends>

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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

Why is it to take until January to remove, can't they just cover it up?

regards

It's a bit like changing the light bulbs...

* Select the Consultants for the planning stage
* Award the contract after writing up the 50 pages of conditions (with the help of another 3 consultants)
* Check there's enough in the budget
* Receive the project plan
* Brief the PR department
* Try and find some cones that aren't in use
* Submit the planning application
* Discover that planning permission isn't needed
* Amend the project plan based on the above
* Get tenders for the work
* Award the tender to the guy that did the councellors extension last year

* Send out the man to dig it up

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

I found this South Wales Evening Post article about the removal, which makes reference to an earlier article about the accident history, and in doing so repeats the figures...

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Chris

Excellent work Twister, thank you. I expect the following years there may have been slightly less than 8 and that is where they've claimed a benefit.

_________________
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Maybe a bit strong there with thalidomide there mate, perhaps DDT or CFC aerosols would be a more publication-friendly comparison!

Yes, we have discussed this thalidomide analogy before and we thought it was unwise then.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.