Safe Speed Forums

Frontline Scotland:

The Speed Trap

Wed 9 Nov, 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm 30mins

Speed cameras save lives. According to a government report, they've been responsible for almost halving the number of people killed at the accident blackspots where they are sited. Yet Frontline Scotland has discovered that the report is flawed. Samantha Poling investigates the effectiveness of speed cameras and examines claims that they are simply money-making machines which turn motorists into criminals.

I have participated extensively in the making of this programme. It's showing in Scotland only. I'm sure you'll be able to get it on Sky, and very likely on the web.

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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

Can a Sky user please post how to receive BBC1 Scotland out-of area?

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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

Channel 941

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

BBC Scotland is listed as being on channel 960 on sky so if you're out of area you should be able to get it that way instead of the default 101 for bbc 1.

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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

Maybe its a regional thing

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Former Military Police Officer and accident investigator

http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/digital_ ... bers.shtml

BBC ONE - Scotland: 941
BBC TWO - Scotland: 960

Oops totally misread the channel numbers

Or if you don't use sky then it's:

Astra 2 (28.2º East)
10.803GHz
Horizontal
22000
FeC 5/6
VPID 5000
APID 5001

*dusts off VCR*

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Andrew.

927 on Cable (NTL) or at least it is for me

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

I've just set the scheduler on my TV card to capture it so I'll have a broadcast quality MPEG recording of the program.

I should be able to copy this file to a DVD-R for anyone who misses the prog.

I was worried that the footie on TV tonight would hit exposure, but I noticed that the program is nicely sandwiched between the Scottish regional news and coverage of the CIS cup semi-final between Celtic and Rangers which should boost the ratings a bit (awfully nice of them to delay kick off )

Parrot of Doom on PH has said he can host an on-line version

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topi ... 7&f=10&h=0

Perhaps you could get in touch? It would make for much easier distribution

Cheers

Paul

Well.. Just finished watching it. One hell of a lot "better" than Sir Trevor's effort.

Didn't like the schmalzy ending much, but other than that, the only immediate criticism that comes to mind is they were very simplistic about the number of totting-up disqualifications... My own feelings are that the level staying the same is a lot more due to "points sharing schemes" than people on 9 points thinking "Ooohh, I'd better slow down a lot!".

7/10 - could do better, but all-in-all, not bad.

Oh, BTW Paul, you could do with a haircut!!

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

I noticed at least once Ms. Poling equating 'KSI' statistics with road deaths - a serious error in her reporting IMO, but perhaps the 'playing' with the figures using KSI as a measure is a matter for a followup.

Paul - you were superb!!

Notice also the scamera head honcho. When asked an obvious question like "cameras are just to make money" he was very quick with a well practiced answer. When challenged on regression to mean he was all "erm, well, you see, uuhhm"

As they say over on Pepipoo, They don't like it up em!

Oh Paul, were you too busy to have a tidy up before she arrived? tut tut.

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Less Kodak, more Kojak.
In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Superb programme, absolutely the sort of thing we need.

Well, now I know why the Scottish Executive (the trunk roads authority in Scotland) want to put speed limits on about 11 miles of the A725 dual carriageway (currently NSL, and has been since it was built ~ 25years ago), includng a preposterous 40 MPH on the North-Easternmost end.
It looks like that accident took place on the proposed 40MPH section.


It wasn't just simplistic, it was the usual lies.
If there wer no 'doublers' issued, over 10% of motorists would be being NIPped every year. There just isn't that much totally 'new blood'. The reason it must be new blood (to tie in wth his assertion) is that the % of vehicles exceeding the speed limit is, by and large, static.
If he was correct, it would have had to have shown a reduction, as the 6 + pointers slowed down.

So, why does he lie?
1) The usual, he claims he is having an effect by 'rolling-out' a reduction in the numbers of speeding drivers (which he isn't, see above).
2) If he said, "Well, that's because of 'point swapping'," he would give lots of publicity to the fact that it was possible, and how easy it was[*], and thus, cause an increase himself.
[*]Whilst people would pick up on how easy it was, they wouldn't realise the seriousness of the offence.
3) If he conceded that point swapping existed in any significant number, he would be conceding the pointlessness (no pun intended ) of the whole process, as far as persistant offenders is concerned.

I note that the long awaited government report on the successfullness of cameras has been delayed. I guess the figures need a lot of massaging.

VCR worked! Very good, very good! Lots of good points raised, and we all know there's more to come

I liked the number of shots they managed to get of beheaded Gatsos!

There's nothing wrong with long hair! :p

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Andrew.

Perhaps after only 3 years of high pratnership activity there aren't quite the numbers to increase the bans. Were they being specific about the number of bans on totting up that were entirely for speeding? I wouldn't put it passed them to have had a drop in totting up due to lessened trafpol activity and include that in their justification. The big rise in number plate cloning and people going to court about points must have also had an impact.

Ditto!

This program resulted in a bit of a disagreement with my wife. She (non-UK driver) thoroughly believes exceeding the speed limit is dangerous. ie. has fallen for the 'speed kills' crap. Trying to explain to her that the underlying young womans death story was NOT caused by speeding was brick wall territory, it was caused by the other driver carelessness - it was noted that there was 400m of clear road in fornt of her - yet she impacted at high speed, she wasn't looking. Perhaps she was texting a mate, doing her make-up, reading a map....whatever it was, she wasn't looking at the road & stopped traffic ahead. Excessive speed did NOT cause this death, dangerous/careless driving did. She did a 'whatever' and went into the computer room to faff about until I was done watching. I think 'Frontline' were trying to be a little TOO balanced and ended up undermining the initial thrust of 'do speed cameras save lives or is it a racket?" tipping it to the 'speed = death'.