Safe Speed Forums

I'm a recently convicted speeder. I don't condone speeding but I resent the methods used to prosecute and agree completely that you cannot measure safety in mph!

Of all the speeding related UK sites I went to, most obtained their facts from various sources, namely individual uk police forces, the government etc. What I want to see is indendepent source of speeding information collated from the the speeders themselves. A national register of incidents with specific details on the date, time of the incident, the level of traffic, whether it was night or day, means of capture, fine, points, type of car etc.

All the details from each incident. Armed with this 'proof' we have more of an argument for stating that scameras are not a fair means of prosecution.

I created a short zoomerang survey to kick off with to see whether any of my assumptions were correct. I posted the link anomyously in a number of chat rooms, forums and notice boards (not just motoring pages I hasten to add - wouldn't want to be accused of being biased!). In the 3 days its been running, there have been over 200 responses which I think is pretty good as a sample of data.

For those who are interested in the survey you can access it here:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2ER67MSM

I'll be publishing the full results within 10 days, but a brief summary of the results so far can be found below:

43% of respondents were prosecuted for speeding in the UK within the last 10 years (at this rate in another 10 years this could be 100%!!)

45% of those prosecuted were caught speeding in 30mph limit.

57% of those prosecuted were caught speeding on an A road.

31% said when they were caught that conditions were 'quiet'

Only 7% said the conditions were something other than wet or rainy (seems our boys in blue don't like getting wet)

of those prosecuted 0% were offered driver training instead of points.

44% were caught using mobile camera technology or talivans...

It seems you have more chance of being pulled over for speeding (26%) than being caught by a Gatso (23%).

Only 8% of all participants were committed of another motoring offence that wasn't speed related. It certainly seems to show that bad driving goes unoticed and speeding is penalised regardless.

Keeping a national database would also help us to spot trends in prosecution, and we could know for sure how much the government was generating from them!

Once again, I don't condone speeding. I just report the facts. I feel a national database where motorists could log their speeding incidents with more detail would give all the ammo needed in arguing that speeding detection is unjust and unfair.