Safe Speed Forums

The beeb story about speed limiters has been altered:

The original had:

'But Claire Armstrong, from the road safety charity Safe Speed'

this has now been changed to:

'But Claire Armstrong, from the road safety campaign group Safe Speed'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7803997.stm

The story only changed today, after this comment appeared on The Today Radio Four forum:

I was dismayed to hear your programme this morning once again give a platform to a spokeswoman from "SafeSpeed", and introduce them as a "road safety charity". This is wrong in two ways, one perhaps a matter of opinion, but the other straightforward fact.

They are not, despite their specious use of the word, interested in road safety. This is a marginal and small-minded campaign group of disgruntled motorists trying to discredit speed cameras and road speed limits generally. Their pretence at having done any research, or having any justification other than selfishness, for their position is easily refuted. There are many other organisations representing drivers and your debate would be better served by speaking to almost any one of them.

Moreover, they are not a charity. Since their political campaign is not supported by any activities---such as road safety research---which can possibly be charitable, they could not be a charity. Referring to them as a charity gives a false impression that the group does something of public benefit, and misleads your audience.

I would far rather never hear of this outfit again, but if you must let them have their say please do not allow them more authority than they deserve.

End quote.

Was the BBC originally given the impression Safespeed was a charity?

By whom?

I see that the vision of the "guardians of accuracy" on the message board only seem to extend as far as the charity issue.

It's correct that SS is not a charity. As for the rest of the statement, I leave it to you to assess who might have posted this unnecessary (and incorrect) vitriol.

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

Which part is incorrect please?

Whether you support the Safespeed campaign or not it is indisputable that none of the research carried out by the campaign has ever been submitted for examination or verification, nor are its findings replicated in any official study by government researchers or independent academic investigation. I think that explains the hasty correction, it is not a charity and the campaign relies by its founder's own admission on no evidence other than that published privately and independently by the founder himself, evidence that has never been examined or placed under review.

"Marginal" too is fair, I'd never heard of Safespeed till I saw that article. But how did the confusion over charity status arise?

Journalists are useless?
I suspect it was just a mistake, there is at least one "road safety charity" out there and they may have had that in their mind when writing the article.

I do believe SafeSpeed's findings are published on the main web site.

The government won't use anything which goes against its agenda.

_________________
Andrew.

I would also add that there is a lot of 'official' government documentation that doesn't support the position that speed cams are working, but this is not as widely publicised by HMG.

We are a mixed bunch here, some BiB, professional drivers, I'm a safety professional and from where I stand have a hard time taking the 'speed kills' message seriously. For many years in occupational / workplace safety there have have been principals of hazard elimination and control that are proven and work, yet they are almost universally ignored when it comes to road safety such things as root cause analysis, the hierachy of controls etc.

I live in Essex and have had dealings with what was the Essex camera partnership over dangerous sitings of camera vehicles, as a safety professional if someone where to point out that the way I worked was less than safe I would be horrified and would want to take steps to rectify this. In my dealings with ECP thier response was initially to ignore me then question me as to what did I know about safety - when I gave my credentials they promptly ignored me and carried on working as they had been.

For a safety organisation to act in such an unsafe and cavalier manner leads me to have serious doubts regarding competance.

Another of my concern is that after hypothecation the money raised does not go into a road safety pot it goes into general HMG funds, IMO wrong - it can and should be used for safety - the money raised could buy a lot of safety in terms of extra BiB out on the road, additional traffic engineering and improvements in eductation and testing of drivers. But it is not. And that can be ascertained from HMG information.

There are detractors of the way we view road safety, myself and others on this forum have had first hand experience with them, there are those on this forum who have lost loved ones on the roads. We are not the lunatics / selfish group of disgruntled motorists that some would have you believe.

Please, stick around read the website, chat, throw in ideas, question and make your on mind up.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

, as a safety professional if someone where to point out that the way I worked was less than safe I would be horrified and would want to take steps to rectify this. In my dealings with ECP thier response was initially to ignore me then question me as to what did I know about safety - when I gave my credentials they promptly ignored me and carried on working as they had been.

For a safety organisation to act in such an unsafe and cavalier manner leads me to have serious doubts regarding competance.


Well, without knowing the details of this it's hard to comment. Are mobile camera units such a danger? I don't recall their being blamed in accidents, and bothering to write in about sloppy parking, if that's what it was, is like those outraged writers to The Mail who take photos of a cop car parked on a double yellow near a burger van. It smacks of "Why don't you go and catch some REAL criminals", which response is bound to make the authorities peed off. I try to be polite to the cops and get rid of them as soon as possible.

"This is a marginal and small-minded campaign group of disgruntled motorists trying to discredit speed cameras and road speed limits generally. Their pretence at having done any research, or having any justification other than selfishness, for their position is easily refuted."

The above is opinion and not fact.

999, You aren't George Monbiot are you?

(Sorry, this is an "in joke")

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

Yeah we don't need to discredit speed cameras, we just need to point out the government's own statistics which do that for us.

What was it, something like 2% of accidents in 2005 caused by exceeding speed limits? Or was it as high as 7%? I don't remember.

_________________
Andrew.

The above is opinion and not fact.

Opinions are never incorrect, but they can be challenged. To challenge the above assertion you would need to demonstrate that the unpublished research upon which the campaign depends has had a bearing on policy or indeed has been replicated by sources other than a campaign's own website- surely that's a circular argument akin to saying "Because I said so". I guess you could cite:

Any independent source that supports the research here.

Any evidence that official policy has been influenced by what appears here.


Any evidence that academic or governmental discussions on road safety include contributions from here.

I can't find any, which would make the use of the word "marginal" accurate, IMO.

I'm not paticularly bothered either way, the cameras aren't going anywhere, they're here to stay, it would take 20,000 cops to replace the 6000 cameras and I don't want to pay for that.

What was it, something like 2% of accidents in 2005 caused by exceeding speed limits?

In Great Britain, data collected about road traffic accidents in 1999 to 2002 examined the factors involved in each accident. Excessive speed was the most common contributory factor in fatal accidents, playing a part in 28% of all fatal accidents examined in the trial.

"Analyses of contributory factor data" in Road Casualties Great Britain: 2003 Annual Report.

Plus, of course, nobody has to die to demonstrate that speeding is aggressive, anti-social, noisy and threatening to vulnerable road users.

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/trl421.html

Of course, things would be easier if publicly funded research figures didn't disappear when their results do not fit with the "facts"
Oh, and "excessive" speed does not mean speed above the posted limit.

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

For many, it's not just about speed cameras, but them representing the cheapened fast-track "justice" employed to get "results" at the expense of doing the job properly, [the "job" being road safety], and the erosion of liberties and respect for the legal system. That mentality and it's repercussions go way, way beyond speed cameras.


BTW, safespeed isn't wealthy enough to be a charity.

_________________
Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Citing the unpublished, unreplicated and unexamined research this campaign relies on is precisely what I meant about a circulatory argument. That link makes wild claims of collusion and corruption and posts no evidence to back this up. They're pretty serious allegations and linked to the absurd claim that TRL 421 suggests that the researchers feel that doing 20mph on a motorway would be safer than 70mph. The report said no such thing, check for yourself. Perhaps the largest mistake in that link is the assertion that lower accident rates on motorways is somehow evidence that speeding is safe. That's a staggering howler right there, for reasons too obvious to mention. That roads without shops, pubs, zebra crossings, schools, cyclists and pedestrians have low collision rates is hardly surprising, to cite this fact as evidence that speeding isn't dangerous is staggering ignorance and a breathtakingly dishonest manipulation of statistics.


[the "job" being road safety

Despite a huge rise in road traffic, accident rates are static or falling. The cameras free up police time and are only a part of road safety policy. It's not worth bothering about, honestly.

The cameras may well be here to stay, but an increasing amount of them are "empty" and unused.
Nobody really cares anyway, most drivers do not speed.
And drunks do not bother much about cameras, or speed (16% of deaths feature drivers over the alcohol limit) (speed cameras don't apprehend drunks) (14480 casualties....6%...drunks) but they still feature in the "excessive" speed figures (note: not speeding above the limit)

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

but an increasing amount of them are "empty" and unused.

Indeed. So they can't be "money makers" or a "tax" , can they?

If they slow drivers down at blackspots (the criteria for camera sites is three coffins, remember) then they're working fine, film or no film. Half the cameras in London don't have film in them, a fact that should only bother criminals who speed.

I have a stretch of the A6 near me, with 4 speed cameras within a 2 mile stretch.
There has been two deaths in the last 3 years. One was a guy walking along the road at night. The driver was not at fault, and was not speeding.
The other was a woman driver, and as I remember it was caused by overtaking.....both were after the cameras were installed (there used to be two more, but road improvements did for two of them)
Who cares ?
Not me....I have long been used to government funding research to confirm wanted results and not to find facts.
Just like I've long been used to being preached to about global warming, when it just gets colder.

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

This all rather vague, we've had unspecified misdeameanours by mobile camera van drivers, the wild claim that collusion or corruption exists among official researchers and that evidence goes missing, again with no evidence, and now I'm supposed to pass judgement on an unspecified stretch of road? The ACPO guidelines on camera sites are stringent, which leaves campaigners against anti-social speeding stuck in the horrible position of having to wait for someone to die before anything happens.

Well, to put it this way, the layout and set up of the site would have had a private contractor prosecuted under the NRSW Act, so something fairly serious as it could have resulted in an accident.

As for the vans regularly seen parked on double yellows, at the end of the day the law is the law, if a police officer breaks the law then it can prevent evidence being entered in court with the case collapsing. Is it that unreasonable to expect that the law is adhered to in this case?

After all one criticism of camera partnerships is the perception of one rule for them and another for us, by adhereing to the law it removes this argument at a stroke and to quote from my NCO cadre "Any figure of authority should be able to lead by example" something I try to do in my professional capacity. So why do some camera partnerships have such a problem doing this ?

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

So why do some camera partnerships have such a problem doing this ?

I've still seen no evidence of any problem nor any wrong doing. The plural of anecdote is not data. If a mobile unit parks on a double yellow who cares? It doesn't invalidate any prosecution and they could probably say they're on official business. Parking on double yellows doesn't kill 1200 people a year, speeding does, but, I repeat, it doesn't take a death to demonstrate the selfish arrogance of those who think the law ought not apply to them, the classic argument of recidivists. Why worry, you'll change nothing by making up graphs to try to prove your point. What happens is the media present the extremes of an argument, it's like the vox pop interviews with stultifyingly ill-informed passers by in the street-cheap journalism that illuminates nothing.

Christmas is the time for cynicism.

I doubt that any member of the campaign would dispute the fact that excessive speed is a major cause of road accidents. The point we would dispute is that exceeding the posted speed limit is always excessive speed. We even preach that very often driving at well below the posted speed limit represents excessive speed.

It is almost self evident that a single figure cannot represent the maximum safe speed in all conditions of traffic, weather and light.


A number of members do appear to fit that description and. regrettable, bring the whole group into disrepute

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Heartily agree with all four points.