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 Post subject: Have you seen this sign?
PostPosted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 14:56 
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/7357190.stm
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Road speed safety device stolen
Image
The roadsign was fixed in place with a heavy-duty chain

Police are appealing for the return of a £2,500 road safety sign that was stolen from the roadside in Cumbria.

The Speed Indicator Device (SID), which displays drivers' speeds or a frowning face if they exceed the limit was taken from Jacktrees Road, Cleator Moor.

Cumbria Police spokesman said the 150lb (68kg) sign was fixed to a lamp post with a heavy-duty chain.

Officers found the sign was missing when they arrived to change its batteries on 14 April.

I cant help but hope that it is not in a lake or beck somewhere, but has been put up somewhere else by a financially hard up local council!
There is always the chance that a motorist has become irate because it displays a frowning face even when drivers are NOT over the limit - like most of the ones in Cumbria! :x
The one in Kendal varies, but is currently reading 33mph when your speedo reads 30mph.
Another good piece of safety equipment devalued by being set to intimidate drivers with an incorrect speed, instead of being set correctly! :?

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 15:20 
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It was replaced by this one...

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 16:07 
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So glad to see Cumbria using this type of VAS which indicates your speed. They are so much more fun than the ones which just flash "Slow Down". Is there a prize?

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 00:11 
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Probably stolen by the kind of person who steals... anything. There are a lot of them about. Like the man who stole thousands of library books. :D

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:08 
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Hah! There's one of those in Ormskirk, Lancs, which I visit quite often. It's always frowning at me. :D ;)

£2500 for one of these signs? That's £2500 of OUR money, boys and girls, not including maintenance costs such as officers going along to change its batteries. It would be cheaper to have a plain metal sign with the frown painted on in luminous paint, for all the good these things are.


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 18:31 
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It's kind of sinister in a funny way the fact that the government get signs to frown at us as a part of their traffic safety schemes :D What's more worrying is that they think it would have any effect. Not the fact as such, but if they are that misguided, what else might they think? :?:

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 23:02 
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Personally, I think they are more effective than a scammer hiding in a bush, horse box or half a mile away collecting £60 and giving 3 prize points out. At least it makes you aware of your transgression without punishing minor infringement. Anyone excessively speeding needs to be caught by the real police at the time as NIP's don't stop the offence and leave opportunity for the bad driver to kill him/herself or someone else on the same day.


More of these signs and no scammers please. They also cost less to run as they are now usually solar powered, ie no wage bill and no national insurance contributions or secondary items like an office, huge telly etc ...........


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 23:32 
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They're only any use if they are set to trigger at sensible values. We have a few that get moved around in the area where I live and the stupid things flash "30" at you even if you are going rather less than that (according to my GPS). If they were to trigger at, or just below, the ACPO limit then they might make those drivers travelling a bit quickly take note, but instead they flash at everybody, p*ss them off and thus get ignored.

Somehow sadly typical.

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 23:34 
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If it's the same one that gets used in lots of villages round here, it's probably pretty accurate (according to my speed anyway, which in turn, was pretty accurate against the GPS). I've often wondered wheher these devices also record statistical data (number of vehicles, average speed, times of day etc) so that Plod can go round with a hairdryer if they see someone doing well over the limit at about the same time each day on the way home from work...

Anyway, I expect it'll be in some student house by now and none of them will remember how it got there in the morning!


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 23:58 
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http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/TransportAndStreets/RoadSafety/RoadSafety-SID.htm

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 00:36 
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Flynn wrote:
It's kind of sinister in a funny way the fact that the government get signs to frown at us as a part of their traffic safety schemes :D What's more worrying is that they think it would have any effect. Not the fact as such, but if they are that misguided, what else might they think? :?:

While I think that the obsession with numerical speed is unnecessary, I think anyone who's anti-camera would rather have speed indicators than cameras. Apparently they're three times as effective as cameras at keeping people below the limit in the vicinity (whereas with cameras people tend to slow down then speed up again afterwards). Unfortunately they can only ever be so useful, and they can be misused (e.g. setting the speed too low or putting them in places where it's clearly safe to exceed the speed limit much of the time).

The fact that we still see many more camera sites than indicators is one sign that revenue-raising and/or making driving unpleasant are more important to many authorities than safety. Most of us knew that already of course.

A few months ago on PH there was a report of a SID which was situated shortly before a mobile camera site. Apparently the local SCP liked to turn off the SID while their van was operating at the site. "We just want you to slow down" my foot. (How is it that our troll friends can see reports of things like that and still wholeheartedly support every aspect of camera operation? It's another thing that points towards that support being for some reason other than safety.)

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 07:43 
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bombus wrote:
A few months ago on PH there was a report of a SID which was situated shortly before a mobile camera site. Apparently the local SCP liked to turn off the SID while their van was operating at the site.


We have one like that in a village I pass through most days. In fact, when it isn't working the traffic slows down immediately, because they know the van will be waiting !

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:26 
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jomukuk wrote:
We have one like that in a village I pass through most days. In fact, when it isn't working the traffic slows down immediately, because they know the van will be waiting !


:rotfl:


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:56 
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A few of the signs which display your speed have been put up around the Bolton area. These show your speed in green below 30mph and in red above 30mph regardless of the actual speed limit.

After having an indicated 38mph shown in red in what I was convinced was a 40mph zone I then payed far more attention than I would have liked to signs which confirmed that it is still a 40mph zone and I hadn't missed a speed reduction sign.

The worst one I've found so far is situated about 10 yards before the entrance to the local High School. Not the place where you want people to be glancing down at their speedo.


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:56 
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In staffordshire the road safety numpties put one similar right before a pedestrian crossing on a blind crest. Really a good idea to have people looking down at their speedo just when they should be seeing whether there is anyone trying to cross. They have also installed those artificial road narrowing things so that instead of being able to over take cyclists with a wide berth you have to squeeze past them between the narrowings as they are too close together to be able to overtake safely in between. Morons. What is even worse the natural wide and longer view line along the road has also been cut off because of these stupid things so you can't adopt a safer road position!

They also put a pair of VAS at either end of a road again just after a roundabout and just before a ped crossing so drivers are even more distracted. Those pair have since disappeared....


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PostPosted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 13:19 
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(Sarcasm mode on)

:idea: Maybe if it triggered a big screen shot of a crushed and bloody RTA victim complete with entrails hanging out? I'm sure Blunderstrom would approve :roll:

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