Safe Speed Forums

I wish I had a camera to hand... this morning, as I followed the Cumbria "Safety" Camera Van to Ings from Windermere.

As he passed through Bannerigg, he lit up the "SLOW DOWN" VAS sign!

It would have made an excellent picture for the Westmorland Gazette, who have been hosting a prolonged exchange of letters regarding speed cameras in this area over the last couple of months!!

It would appear that more and more people are seeing through the smokescreen and chaff of the Safety Camera Partnerships, even though accident statistics are down.
It also appears that Jan has left CSCP - and that Kevin Tea is manning the bridge on his own!

You can find an online version of the Gazette here: Online Page Edition
Click the left hand version, then select a previous edition from the archive link on the top left of your screen.
The letters pages are usually around pages 10 and 11 when you open up an archived edition.

The site allows downloads of PDF pages which can be saved to your PC for easy viewing in better definition than the online page view!!

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

Worth reminding them, perhaps, that accident stats have been going "down" since long before scameras were invented! The trick would be if they're falling any FASTER since the deployment of the scameras.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!!!

Come, come, sir. Second derivatives are beyond their understanding

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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

Hands up those who said they were.

Greenshed, where did that graph come from, I just had a quick look at CSCP and they don't seem to be claiming such an improvement. I would have thought they'd have been shouting it from the rooftops, since it bucks the trend in the rest of the country.

During mobile "enforcement" at Ings, KSI's went UP, which was the reason they put in the fixed cameras! One accident took place in front of the cameras, and the riders of a motorcycle had to be airlifted to hospital.

One gets the picture of a dog going round and round chasing it's tail!
As I follow vehicles away from Ings, the compliance (even with mobile cameras) rarely lasts more than the sight of the camera - fixed or in a van! Not to worry - NONE of the accidents at Ings used in the site history by CSCP have ever featured speed as a cause... not even as a contributory factor.

In another twist, the big blue "shock board" at Ratherheath has been removed. Apparently despite the £2000+ cost, casualties were still rising quicker than the board could be updated!
Now at Bannerigg, where we have had a number of major but unreported accidents which left holes in the walls, and a couple of serious ones including a fatal, we now have little yellow signs informing of this, and urging drivers to take care... but NO speed cameras!

GreenShed is using a graph, which uses a questionable reduction in SERIOUS injuries (see BMA article on medical admissions for serious injury via auto accidents) to offset rises in fatals including a near record number in 2006.
Even so, rather conveniently, widespread use of in car safety features matches the start of speed camera use.
Commenting on the effects this has had, one commentator claims a large reduction in FATALITIES which should relate at least to a reduction in serious injuries!

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

Quite!

Also, assuming that graph is genuine and correct, it’s naive to think the stats went down as soon as cameras were introduced since drivers would not react to them until they became both widespread and the fear of getting done along with it. (Maybe 2004ish?) So why did it plateau and fall from year 2000?

Government stats at it again I suspect, like the man who drowned in a lake of average depth two feet...

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Nice try!

Here's one showing just the "Ks" compiled from CSCP's own website.


Not quite such an easy trend to establish or, indeed, relate to camera deployment!

As has been said, the number of "SIs" vastly swamps the number of Ks. As a measure of efficacy, I rather went off "SIs" after a CSCP operative on their now defunct board posted that the SIs were determined by police at the scene of the accident. The definition of "SI" was somewhat vague and in any case, it was never adequately explained how officers attending the scene with minimal medical equipment or expertise could make that judgement with any degree of accuracy! As has also been said, there is something of a disparity (nationally) between the number of SIs in road traffic accidents recorded by speed camera partnerships and those recorded by hospital staff...

Put another way, the "K" statistics are "a lot easier to audit"!

Nevertheless, I can't deny that 2008 was a very good year for a reduction in road deaths in Cumbria. Of course, 2008 was also the year when the infamous A74 Cumberland Gap upgrade was completed too. A stretch of road that, it has to be said, was a rich vein of KSIs for many years. Moreover, I don't think it was the only Cumbrian accident blackspot to be improved!

I'm sorry, but I don't think either of our graphs provide conclusive, scientifically robust proof either way. We can each make the same set of statistics tell a different story (or the same story from differnt angles). Road safety is, of course, a multi-disciplinary field and in order to conclusively prove the efficacy of any one measure, it is important to filter out all the other variables. There are a vast number of these, including vehicle and civil engineering improvements, enforcement practices (including cameras!), the Foot and Mouth outbreak (had a big effect on visitors to Cumbria)...

....and so on.

I can answer both at once here: http://www.cumbriasafetycameras.org/facts.php

The figures are there for all to see...or ignore as some choose to do.

You make a good point and you are perhaps not aware of exactly how the efforts are integrated. Maybe the safety camera system is integrated with the rest of the organisations in the county, perhaps they collect and provide essential data for the other organisations, did they provide facilities that were previously not available, have the personnel involved with the safety camera partnership introduced and led key activities that were never thought of before or wee simply not possible to do????
If you cared to look further you would find there is more to safety camera partnerships than catching people exceeding the speed limit...the influence of the camera is beyond the criticism that superficial amateur analysis allows and reaches far beyond its influence on the speed of drivers at their locations.

The graph doesn't say that does it?

Look closely and you will see thee is a delay of 1.5 to 2.5 years in the resolution of that time scale. Effects are usually 9 to 18 months when the resolution in time is finer.

Yes, it has alienated the general public from the police quite effectively.

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

No, absoultely, if SCPs actually do something useful AS WELL AS issuing FPN for speed limit infringements, I'd LOVE to hear more about it! Do tell! Of course, if what you're saying is that some of the claimed improvements in accident statistics are down to activities OTHER than speed limit enforcement, well, it only strengthens the agruments against camera enforcement doesn't it!



Ah yes! The "run along sonny and don't medle with things you don't understand" approach to debate!

What was it Ghandi said?

"first they ignore you...
...then they ridicule you...
...then they fight you...
...then you win"!

So, at least I guess we've reached "second base"!

You remind me of an SCP manager I once used to exchange posts with - he did a good line in patronising too!

- Bias on selection (non-camera-based safety features),
- long-term trends (non-local improvements),
- exposure ('push'ed displacement to safer roads),
- less overall travel (prohibitive fuel costs, credit crunch),
- concerted crackdown of other offences (e.g. driving while impaired)
No one can reasonably conclude cameras have a positive impact until these factors (and perhaps more) have been quantified and properly accounted for. Anyone whose analysis doesn't allow for these are IMO less than amateur.

Speaking of which...

How can they do that? They can't! They cunningly used the 'OR' to sneak in a bad behaviour cameras can't affect.

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

If you can't conclude that cameras do affect the KSIs then how can you conclude that the cameras do not affect the KSIs?

Not knowing whether an action does or does not have a desired effect is not a justification for perpetrating that action. I don't know whether hanging a small brown teapot on every lamppost in central Manchester will or will not reduce the incidence of knife crime. But I doubt if I could persuade GMP to try it.

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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

An extremely good point, it in fact illustrates my position on speed cameras very well.

Whenever I ask anyone who supports the use of cameras (this includes politicians and partnership employees) the answer always seems to amount to "Cameras work because they do!"
I personally cannot see how an event that is not caused by speed can be mitigated by reducing speed.

In your teapot example, if such a policy were strictly enforced, I would question how knife crime could be mitigated by the random ditribution of teapots, which is unrelated to knife crime. I imagine that I would receive a dearth of stats showing that since teapots were deployed knife crime can be shown to have reduced.

Both are examples of what I like to call elephant repellant.

Works both ways.

I don't see how you can ask for the removal of speed cameras if you can't show it will have an effect.

Or keeping them if you can't prove they will have an effect?

Well that's the question, but if you base your argument against them by saying their benefits are unprovable then you've got to say their disbenefits are unprovable too.