Hi Everyone. In the wake of the CSCP forum demise, I thought I’d repost my last anti-SCP critique here. It set off some interesting debate when first posted.
Firstly apologies for a rather long post.
However, before along with their millions of ardent supporters attempt to dismiss this post as conspiracist fantasy, we should firstly remind ourselves of recent statements made by some senior public figures. Richard Thomas, the UK Information Commissioner, has warned that the UK could
"sleepwalk into a surveillance society" as a result of ID cards and other plans. George Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad in the late 1980s and early 1990s, recently stated that
the home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state.
When I posted the link to a news article about
RFID-tagged number plates, Mr Callaghan was quick to ridicule the
original source of the information. However his legendary wit failed to resurface when the article was
proved genuine. I also read that the ITV transmitter network has been sold off to a company who will be using it for, amongst other things, road toll enforcement via RFID, once the current users of certain frequencies have been migrated elsewhere. I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. This network infrastructure has something like 95% coverage of the UK. Who needs the Galileo satellite system when you’ve already got this?
Whilst any rational thinking individual would regard this application of technology as potentially very sinister, support for it comes from a surprising source:
Quote:
(From CSCP's ian) I would like to see it (speed enforcement) linked with number plate recognition and electronic vehicle identifiers, linked to police intel and DVLA databases, with dedicated police response. Also more use of specs, with variable enforcement strategies linked to risk. National standards of enforcement, livery and methodology etc rather than locally agreed. Who knows what the future may bring.
In order to create a Police State you need a state full of criminals that requires policing. One very effective way to help achieve this objective is to criminalise Britain’s 30 million motorists - circa half the population. Steve Gooding, Director of the DfT’s Roads and Vehicles Directorate revealed this part of the Government’s strategy last summer in a
statement to the House of Commons Transport Committee:
"Specifically, we are aware that some chief constables do have teams specifically going back through the records of people who have been caught on speed cameras, working on the principle that people who disregard one law tend to disregard several, and they then would pursue those in the sort of intelligent way you are suggesting to see what other offences they might be associated with."
What utter ignorant, fascist thinking. However the widespread and totally unnecessary lowering of speed limits accompanied by venomous enforcement is an essential component to this operation.
Extensive studies by Parker during the late 80s and early 90s clearly demonstrated that, by merely changing the speed limit signs along a given stretch of road, there is no effect whatsoever on vehicle speeds. Yet this is the method of choice for “speed reduction” by the Government. Their sycophants and useful idiots are only too willing to implement it at the local level.
To quote the Parker report summary:
The results of the study indicated that lowering posted speed limits by as much as 20 mi/h (32 km/h), or raising speed limits by as much as 15 mi/h (24 km/h) had little effect on motorist' speed. The majority of motorist did not drive 5 mi/h (8 km/h) above the posted speed limits when speed limits were raised, nor did they reduce their speed by 5 or 10 mi/h (8 or 16 km/h) when speed limits are lowered. Data collected at the study sites indicated that the majority of speed limits are posed below the average speed of traffic. Lowering speed limits below the 50th percentile does not reduce accidents, but does significantly increase driver violations of the speed limit. Conversely, raising the posted speed limits did not increase speeds or accidents.
So, armed with this knowledge, it would be very easy to embark on a programme of systematic entrapment and criminalisation. This is exactly what the Government has sanctioned. Forget any notion that the current speed enforcement policy has anything to do with “saving lives” or “road safety”. Those absurd storylines are merely a front.
The official cover story becomes even more laughable as the DfT’s twisted ignorance manifests itself in some unbelievably crass publications. Consider their “new” thinking on how speed limits should be set:
Update of Circular Roads 1/93, Setting Local Speed Limits.
"Practitioners' thinking has evolved since then and many have expressed concern that 85th percentile speed can be heavily influenced by excessive speeds travelled by a minority of drivers. Some Traffic Authorities have therefore adopted the use of Mean speeds in assessing what is an appropriate local speed limit, as they are felt to better reflect what the majority of drivers perceive as an appropriate speed for the road. The Department shares this view and therefore recommends that mean speeds be used in future assessments of appropriate speed limits."
What total rubbish.
Although the rest of the world knows better (i.e. the 85th percentile rule), it would appear the DfT are obliged to invent some ludicrous, pseudo-scientific counter-principle in order to give their speed limit lowering campaign a “credible” front. Remember also this statement from the Parker summary above:
"Lowering speed limits below the 50th percentile does not reduce accidents, but does significantly increase driver violations of the speed limit."
Even Richard Brunstrom now appears to talk (some) sense. Whilst addressing the recent IAM annual London meeting, he declared,
“Every one of us could think of speed limits not 200 metres from our front door that are utterly bonkers. And if you think it is bonkers, you are less likely to comply with it.” Yes, he really said that!
And where have we heard that before?
Next let’s consider the new
graduated fixes penalties for speeding offences - discussion note. Getting caught doing 57mph in 40mph zone would earn you 6 penalty points and £100 fine, i.e. just two strikes and you’re out. But suppose the 40 mph limit you were caught on was previously NSL and had been lowered by the manner studied by Parker above? Get the picture? Nasty, isn’t it?
And it gets worse. Now let’s consider the DfT’s
proposed ban on radar detectors in the Road Safety Bill Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA).
"We are also seeking to ban the carriage of radar detectors. These identify where cameras are by sending out a radar beam that detects the signal emitted by the camera equipment."
Are they having a laugh? How the hell did the DfT ever get away with publishing this unscientific rubbish? Radar detectors contain passive oscillators which happen to emit very low levels of electromagnetic radiation. This is what the VG-2 anti-radar detector devices scan for. Insulting the public’s intelligence appears to be a Government priority, certainly a higher priority than road safety. MORI research in May 2001 reported that UK radar detector users are involved in 24% less accidents as they are more aware of their speed than non users. The statistics resulting from the MORI poll supports the earlier US survey by the respected Yankelovich, Clancy and Schulman consultants, which disclosed a figure of 23%. So why is the Government so desperate to ban them along with laser jammers?
GPS detectors are great for fixed camera sites and even if
camera-specific GPS detectors were to be banned, many GPS navigation systems can easily be programmed with the camera waypoints. However
mobile speed enforcement is the Government’s deadly weapon against the motorist, and they are now seeking to relax the rules for both Talivan visibility and siting (an increase in operating radius from the current 5km to 12km for a designated “black spot” or “area of concern”). Radar/laser detectors offer the only effective protection here (along with laser diffusers, of course).
The legendary Greek philosopher Plato made this very accurate observation: “
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” This is exactly what voter apathy has led to in the UK. We are indeed governed by inferiors whose inadequacies have driven them to control and make a misery of the lives of ordinary people. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Government’s obsession with speed enforcement.
Best regards,
Max
PS In the wake of the original post I would like to point out that ian said his support for electronic vehicle identifiers was only in the context of stolen vehicle recovery and accident reporting. He did not advocate it being used in a “Big Brother” fashion.
In addition Pistonheads subsequently reported that Talivan numbers had increased by a whopping 35% over the last 12 monthswhilst fixed post speed enforcement had increased by only a small amount. I rest my case.