Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4774720.stm

Driver seriously hurt in accident

A motorist suffered severe head injuries when his vehicle struck a central reservation on Tyneside.

The accident happened on the Felling bypass, Gateshead, on Saturday morning.

The driver, a 20-year-old local man, was taken to the intensive care unit at Newcastle General Hospital where his condition is said to be serious.

Due to the proximity of a parked police camera enforcement van, the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

No one else was injured, and police are appealing for witnesses.

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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

Dear Lord
I ask for two things

1) The driver pulls through, and
2) The scamera van is found to have been a causal factor.

Thanks for listening.

I also hope for 1). 2) is so unlikely that I would start believing in the tooth fairy if it hapened. The driver (I'll wager) will have been found to have been speeding, and despite having not crashed until the vicinity of the van, the input of the van's presence will be neatly ignored.

If that was the case why would it have been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Maybe the police van did have something to do with it. Still makes you wonder.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

are you sure it is going to the IPCC, any incident / accident where a police registered vehicle is directly or indirectly involved is investigated by the traffic sgt initialy, then passed onto the relevant inspector,

i read somewhere that the driver skidded on black ice after trying to decelerate on the sight of a van, the operator of the van was also seen to be using his radio to summon assistance and give first aid,

IMO if there was black ice around what was thevan doing out in the first place

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now retired

Prof, my children have profited quite a lot from the existance of the tooth fairy!

...if you get my drift!

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

Got to try to keep the cash coming in somehow

In the event 2) is true - there is a precedent - after a rail accident the directors were on the rack - why not now the management of the pratnership concerned.
At least the HSE is reasonably unbiased.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

if this was the case backfired as no doubt the road was blocked for quite a while

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now retired

Now has its own article on the BBC site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4779632.stm

They're not sure if this is the first time, or are they hiding something? Also they only mention camera van incidents. Have any ever been reported at other types of camera sites.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

If this was the case maybe they'll learn something, and realise the effect speed cameras are having.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

It suprises me something like this hasn't happened sooner. The amount of panic braking i've witnessed in the vicinity of cameras is staggering.

The acccident will certainly give the SCP propaganda machines something to put in their pipes and smoke.

I fully expect that it will work the other way, and that someone will (perhaps rightly?? I don't know, I didn't see the young man's speed) claim that the driver was going too fast in the first place.

Still begs the question asked above though?? Why was the speed camera van out on an icy day? A police car pulling over fast moving drivers to tell them off?? Maybe.

Even if this 20yr old was in excess of the speed limit, getting a letter containing a £60 fine is no use to him now. Poor kid.

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maybe just maybe, the reason for the camera being there was as the result of the poor kids who also traveled that road,

an unfortunate incident for all concerned, but lets put this into reality, every day thousands, tens of thousands of motorists pass cameras without incident, yet when an accident occurs the blame is taken off the driver who no doubt panicked braked, locked his wheel and lost control (lets see if ice was a factor),

and then low and behold, cameras cause accidents, if this lad was traveling at the correct speed or even under the limit due to the conditions would the accident have happened, he suffered serious life threatening injuries was his seat belt fastened, it seem a trend with younsters these days to drive with their belts off and seats tilted backwards

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now retired

As a fairly competant mathematician, something that really annoys me is people jumping to statistical conclusions.

I'm still completely anti-camera, but ultimately the boy lost control and crashed his own car by the sounds of things. 100% his own fault.

What I was saying, was that a Police car following him would have pulled him over if driving too fast and knuckle wrapped him. What seems likely to have happened is that he saw a camera poking out a hole in a white van making instant judgements on safety by speed alone. He has one shot to make sure he wasn't going to get pinged and miss-judged his braking.

Ultimately it's his own fault, but if it was the case, it would never have happened with a Police car following him. That's not the same as claiming that Speed Cameras (I absolutely refuse to call the "Safety Cameras" - they measure speed, not safety) cause accidents.

If one sees a Police car with blues flashing in the mirror we can slow down and eat humble pie. If it's a genuine short term infringment then many Police officers will use their better judgement and let you off with a good talking too. Cameras don't work like that. It doesn't matter how much you slowed down for the school back there, or how much space you left for the car in front. Let your speed build up on a downhill gradient and get shot by a camera van and thats you had it.

Everyone is fully aware of the total lack of context that a camera has, and that's why so many people panic-brake.

Again, I'm not suggesting the scamera caused the crash, but it certainly didn't help avoid it.

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How do we know that the scamera van was not in a 40 zone or higher and the young driver was not sure of the speed limit so slammed on to slow down to 30 ?

Just a thought ?

[devils advocate] but then SPEED KILLS[/devils advocate]

Accept one ,CO, (though i don't think you do) and the other becomes a possibility.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Camera operator wrote:

Drivers don't continually know exactly what speed they are doing and so will panic brake no matter what speed they are doing. It also doesn't help having all these different limits such as 50 to 40 then to 30 then back to 40 then into a 20 for example.

Regards

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

anyone know the limit, the article states A184 bypass

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now retired