Safe Speed Forums

"To Shut Down Or Not Shut Down"

Does this look to you just like one of those 'government consultation' processes??



How will the silenced masses (myself included) respond to this request???

It was inevitable. What else could be expected from a pile of wood placed in a barrow and just going where pushed.

Following all the banning its impossible for them to get any accurate response.

They have probably been told to increase profitability.

It was mentioned in another post that their server subscription contract was up for renewal.

http://www.cumbriasafetycameras.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=894&hl=server

Is this just an attempt to make operational cost cutting measures look like a face saving exercise, blaming the anti-camera people for the demise..

They blame them for everything else.
They use the site as one way media
More so they dictate

At least shutting it down will save some of the ratepayers money and their time can be better spent trying other profitable ways of increasing the KSI's.

If it means a few less fines need to be extorted in order to meet their 5% operational profit target then I guess it is no bad thing..

I sent this rambling email:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Closing the forum...
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 03:04:34 +0000
From: Paul Smith <psmith@safespeed.org.uk>
Organization: Safe Speed
To: info@cumbriasafetycameras.org

Hi Kevin,

I think it would be a damn shame if you gave in and closed the forum.

I don't see why the forums shouldn't be a roaring success. It has to do with
openness and transparency. It is utterly absurd to manage and conceal road
safety information. There shouldn't be any unanswered questions. If the camera
project works then let the facts speak for themselves. If the camera project
doesn't work then let's kill the damn thing off as soon as possible. Lives are
at stake.

Now we have the FOIA I can't see many of the unanswered questions remaining
unanswered for long anyway. You have an opportunity to lead the way (again)
with new standards of openness.

But maybe you're just too muzzled by unpublished rules. If you are FOIA will
expose those too.

I guess the bottom line from this rather rambling email is that if the forum
has problems, then they are the result of a lack of openness on your side.

If I can do anything to help, or if you would like to chat it over, I'm on
01862 832000.

I'd be very sorry to see it go. It was bold and promising. I congratulate you
for giving it a good go (at least).
==================================

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I feel the same way as Paul. It was a brave move to do what they have, and I do sense persuasive power - big brother if you like - encouraging the closure.

could not be further from the truth. The forum keeps on repeating itself over and over again, all that comes from it is constant slagging off of the staff. hence the bannings and the thoughts about closing it down. there is no pressure from above to close it. it is not costly apart from the time we spend responding to member comments.

if you think we should keep it then i suggest you email Kevin with reasons why, maybe start a 'save our forum campaign'

I'm pleased to hear I'm wrong about the sense I have of constraint/regulation.

Believe it or not, I also am disgusted with the personal afrontery. The trouble is, Steve comes out with a howler - and we all know he does, quite often - and locusts pile on it like ants on a sugar bowl, but attacking the bowl and not the sugar. That's really sad - but I'm not sure what to do about that.

I will be writing to Kevin, but I want to make it count and not waste his time, so I'll do it a little later - and after several edits I expect.

A lot of the bannings seemed to have much more to do with people expressing opinions unpopular with the "management" rather than slagging them off - indeed many of the "banned" were extremely polite.

I still feel it is due to the entirely sceptical tone of the non-official contributors.

If opinion polls supposedly show a majority of people in favour of "safety cameras", then why is it that none of them feel sufficiently strongly about it to express their views on the CSCP forum?

_________________
"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

My 1 month (!!!!!) ban is due to end this Friday and my intention was to post publicly my reasons why the forum should remain and my thoughts on the whole matter, but 'mole' pretty much sums up what I was going to say in the 'To Shut Down Or Not Shut Down' thread before I got my chance.

Something the forum managers need to understand - there was no organised concerted effort by speed camera partnership critics to congregate at CSCP and vent their spleens. No-one rounded us up and pointed us at you (or at this site, or any other for that matter). If they have appeared there then it has been through a natural process. If there are no 'pro-camera' posters appearing there through the same means then that speaks for itself.

If the anti-camera people say what they say it is because it is how they feel. If what they say turns from polite questioning to frustrated ranting it is because they have been shown zero respect from, and have been treated with utter contempt by certain forum managers.

Take an honest look at the cause and effect in each case. No one has registered and with their very first post launched an 'attack' on Steve - he generally comes in with a facetious, or useless, or no reply that escalates things and gets people's backs up!!

However, the closure seems to be as a reaction to the managers' distaste of the feelings expressed - in other words 'it isn't going your way', but ask yourselves why. It will be an extreme admission of defeat if the forum closes under the current climate, regardless of the reasons expressed by JJ above as these are effect, not cause!

CSCP needs to look into why things are happening that way and seek remediation.

That's a very good point.

In fact I was just thinking about it, and I can honestly say that out of all the people that have posted on CSCP during the ~2 years since I joined, the entire count of people I knew from outside the forum was...

One!

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

What I can't figure out is if cameras are so popular and have so much public support, as we keep getting told, where are all these people?

Why don't they appear in great numbers on your forum? All the defending of camera enforcement is left to you....

Maybe cameras are not as popular as they are made out to be. It was only a matter of time before the "positive" spin ran out of momentum. I did warn you last year that if the death toll went up you would be held accountable.

SCPs are living on borrowed time, and of course the misery of drivers...

Having said that I think it would be a shame to close the forum. You have to understand how emotive cameras are to drivers who see a deterioration in road safety year on year. You would have to concede failure in the public eye to camera policy. The consequences to SCPs would be quite dire.

Imagine the headline “overwhelming public criticism of speed camera policy results in partnership run discussion forum to be closed”. Anti-camera groups will have a feeding frenzy.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Slagging off the staff?
I have been accused of posting distorted photos to give a false impression of the Ings site, questioned as to whether the van was actually there, and accused of calling Steve a Nazi when in fact I said things were not as bad on the CSCP forum as the Nazis burned books.
Actually, in YOUR defence Kevin, it was the same person each time! And he banned one member who came to my defence over the Nazi comment!
Even a bit of light hearted banter over the Valentines day thread became a diatribe on the cost of Valentines day items, which had Steve snarling his replies, and deleting a link I put in for his own benefit!

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

In a way it was inevitable that the CSCP forum had to be closed.
The repeated questions which were never answered, except with sarcasm, was showing they have no real answers to the logic and common sense expressed by the majority of those posting (posibly myself excluded, but that's not for me to say).
Logic is something all the partnerships lack and the truth that the entire scheme was started without a base line figure of what could be achieveable is, to my mind, the biggest condemnation of them possible.
Do they honestly believe that they can improve KSI's by a factor greater than the percentage of accidents caused by this factor. They seem to, even though they won't say what the percentage causation is.
The other point for which they should be condemned is their failure to use, or to publish statistics for, the 'control' sites which met the criteria for enforcement but at which no enforcement has yet taken place. Do they really not know? Of course they do, but to give the fiigures would interfere with the cash-collection.

I'm still here, Remember! i've been displaced as well

Suggest you get hold of some STATS 19 information Prior to 2004 and After 2005.

JJ

Good point. Can you shed any light upon why this data appears to remain such a closely guarded secret?

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I think this topic should be "retreating into their rectum(s)"

Lookout, Cooperman is back!

Welcome Coops! Glad you made it.

well im still here is this what you call retreating.