Safe Speed Forums

The weather here has been awful lately, with nearly continuous rain and gales.
The lakes are full nearly to bursting, and the rivers swollen and dangerous.
People have been to Homebase sizing up timber in case they need to build an ark!
But it is no laughing matter on our roads. Standing water, hidden potholes, and sections of wall or tarmac being washed out, coupled with blown bulbs on a number of vehicles, and pedestrians who are intent on keeping their heads down as they scurry through the bad weather, instead of watching where they are going are a constant threat to the unwary as they go about their business.

Despite the best efforts of our heroic Safety Camera Partnership, which includes the Highways Agency and the County Council, as well as the Courts Service, people have continued to die on our roads.

Early in the year they were congratulating themselves upon their various plans and campaigns, which in 2005 had seen fatal accidents fall to a new low.
Well just as the value of shares can go down as well as up, and your home is at risk if you take out a loan on it which you fail to repay, fatal accident stats have failed to follow the trend!

Year........Deaths........Serious Injuries........Other Injuries
2000..........56.......................437........................2292
2001..........49.......................432........................2183
2002..........49.......................410........................2437
2003..........53.......................393........................2245
2004..........57.......................377........................2300
2005..........45.......................369........................2209
2006..........54.......................265........................1896

http://www.cumbriasafetycameras.org/facts.php?link=2006&display=block
So there you have it - already deaths have surpassed the figure for either of the two years BEFORE the partnership started their work, and two of the three complete years since they started!
The only encouraging trend - the reduction in serious injuries, appears to mirror the introduction of more and more in car safety features, such as airbags, seatbelt tensioners, SIPS etc.

Child pedestrian casualties similarly fell as more and more children are bussed or driven to school, because parents felt roads were unsafe, and children should not be out unaccompanied!

So do the "safety cameras fill you with confidence, and make you feel SAFE while you drive around Cumbria???

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

Nope. The SI trend, present all over the country isn't reflected in the hospital admissions stats and looks like an ILLUSION of the reporting system. See last June's BMJ article.

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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

I don’t trust the SI figures, they can’t hide the K’s when they quote new stats so they now quote KSI which make the figures look good. the Si’s are also open to abuse and can easily be distorted.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

What has the 'Speedfinder-General' to say about all this one might wonder. One might also wonder if his public utterances, and those of his lickspittle Mr. Tea, are in line with their private thoughts.
How refreshingly honest it would be if just one of the cash-camera pratners accepted that their raison d'etre is fatally flawed and gave notice of withdrawal from the pratnership or handed in their notice to quit.
Oh no, the cash continues to roll in and the salaries get paid every month, so all's well in their little world of fleecing the ordinary driver and threatening their livelihoods. Wonderful!

Even 2005 wasnt the lowest for fatals in the last 10 years - 1998 was 44 (from memory).

CSCP were shouting from the rooftops last year about how sucessful 2005's fatals were - what do you suppose will happen this year? It will no doubt be the old excuse about it's wrong to look at one year in isolation or KSI's are down....

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That's how Nazi Germany started. They'll be burning books next. (Brian Noble, Wigan coach - updated 20/4/06!!).

Another fatal today unfortunately on the A5087 Barrow/Ulverston coast road

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That's how Nazi Germany started. They'll be burning books next. (Brian Noble, Wigan coach - updated 20/4/06!!).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/6181923.stm

Apparently, according to 5400 people who signed a petition, this road is dangerous, and should have a 40 limit.
Police survey showed average speeds were 45 mph.

I dont see anyone claiming Vauhall Nova/Corsas are dangerous and should be limited to 40 mph
However they DO seem to feature heavily in deaths of young drivers in Cumbria.

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

Yet another death last night, on the A591, just a mile or so from my workplace.
A local man in his eighties was crossing a dual carriageway in his car, and was struck by a van. The elderly man has died, and the road was closed to westbound traffic for some time.
The scene of this accident is just a few hundred yards from one of those Highways Agency boards, warning drivers of the number of fatalities so far on this road, which cost £2000 to place.

The Dual Carriageway starts near the brow of the hill, and only lasts for a quarter of a mile or so, before becoming a three lane ("suicide" lane) down a steep hill, where uphill traffic has priority.
There is often a frantic rush to overtake on the DC before it is too late, yet the slower cars who have been baulking traffic are often faster along this stretch - meaning a very limited oportunity to pass.
A woman pedestrian was killed along the same stretch a few years back, after being dropped off from a bus, and crossing the road to walk to her home.

I have crossed the DC here lots of times, and am not aware of any visibility issues... BUT you would be looking out of the side windows, and in the inclement weather we have had lately, this requires caution, as you are looking through rainsoaked, unswept glass, where making snap decisions on the speed and course of oncoming vehicles becomes more hazardous.

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

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/6185413.stm
Not much more detail - except the casualty was a local man, so would be familiar with the layout and hopefully the potential hazards


The inquest was held this week into the death of a teenager last February.
The coroner called for better training for younger drivers - the youth concerned had only held a license for 5 months.
It's on the front page of our local paper the "Westmorland Gazette", so it will be interesting to see if any notice was taken, given the time of year.
The coroner was the same one who commented on the fitness of elderly drivers to remain on the roads after a previous inquest where the elderly driver had failed to get an eye test, despite it being recommended by a GP.

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

Ernest and others will no doubt recall Kevin Tea's various letters in the Gazette recently, pointing out CSCP can now operate anywhere on the A591 between Plumgarths Rbt and Windermere.

Oh dear, this is therefore an "on site" fatal for CSCP's figures.

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That's how Nazi Germany started. They'll be burning books next. (Brian Noble, Wigan coach - updated 20/4/06!!).

What a pity their forum is no longer active.
Wonder if 'Callaghan, the Speedfinder-General' looks on here these days.
And still they take their salaries for making no contribution to road safety in any sense of the word. I wish I could get paid for doing nothing as they do.
How can they bring themselves to do that, or is it that they have absolutely no self-respect whatsoever.

Perhaps if they only counted the figures for people who live in Cumbria, then maybe they will hit there target. I see from the local news that more people have been killed in the last couple of days.

Exclude the trucker from Perth and thats one less statistic to try and manipulate.

I guess this points to the limiting factor on speed cameras' lifespan being the occasion upon which there is sufficient data to reliably conclude that their effect on road safety is neutral or negative.

Will 5 years be enough? Maybe 10? We can only hope it's sooner rather than later!

Sadly another fatal last night on the M6. By my reckoning that's now 58 so far this year, with the high risk Christmas period still to come.

That's the highest number of fatals since CSCP started in business and the highest since 1999.

I seem to recall CSCP's slogan at the start was "saving lives" - until thanks to the FOI Act we proved this to be a blatant lie

I think it's high time Steve and the Boys admitted defeat and closed down their gravy train; saving lives it clearly isn't.

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That's how Nazi Germany started. They'll be burning books next. (Brian Noble, Wigan coach - updated 20/4/06!!).

I think the woman killed near Lupton was judged to have been dead before the accident, due to medical condition, so therefore excluded from the statistics.
However, that DID'NT exclude the stats used to justify Ings!

Clearly a case of the kings New Clothes - and so far the public have not woken up to the fact he is walking around naked!

All it needs is a little boy who has not yet swallowed the swindlers lies!

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