Safe Speed Forums

Interesting report in todays Sunday Times drive section

(http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/articl ... 07,00.html)

--Now the odds are loaded against you--
The number of speed cameras with film in them has quietly been increased, reports Emma Smith of The Sunday Times

Thousands more motorists face fines and penalty points because some operators of speed cameras have quietly doubled the numbers that collect evidence. Back in 1997, one in eight cameras was “live” — they contained film and motorists who were flashed would receive a penalty notice. Other cameras would flash but contained no film.
Data obtained by The Sunday Times under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the number of live cameras has jumped to an average of one in five in areas we sampled.

Safety camera partnerships have been accused of raising the levels to increase revenue. The Department for Transport has tightened constraints on how many cameras can be installed but there are no restrictions on the proportion that are live. At the same time, more digital cameras — which don’t need film — are being installed.

“This goes to show the camera partnerships are interested in more than just creating a deterrent,” said Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation.

The original police advice was that to cut speeding only one in eight cameras (12.5%) needed to be live. But the latest figures show that Avon and Somerset has 66 live cameras out of 114 fixed housings at any one time — 58% compared with 33% in 2002-3. In Strathclyde the percentage of live cameras has risen from 17% to 24% in two years. Derbyshire has 19 active cameras at any given time, out of a total of 110 fixed sites, just under one in five.

Another disturbing aspect of the Sunday Times research is that some safety camera partnerships tried to avoid producing the information requested. Several failed to provide details of live cameras, despite being given twice the 20-day period of grace to reply under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Mid and South Wales, which handed out 121,000 tickets in 2003-4 — more than any other partnership — did not provide answers. No information was forthcoming from the London Safety Camera Partnership. The Sunday Times also obtained minutes of a meeting of Derbyshire partnership that advised the shredding of documents as a response to the introduction of the FOIA in January. The partnership cited “concerns about the workload” generated by the act and suggested ways of coping including “surplus information to be disposed of”. Derbyshire denied any wrongdoing but the RAC Foundation said the timing of the memo was dubious.

The increase in live cameras is partly behind the sharp rise in motorists with penalty points — up from 29% in 2002-3 to 42% last year. Revenue generated by speed cameras went up by a third to more than £20m in 2003-4, with 1.85m people paying fines in the 12 months to April last year.

Motoring organisations have called for more openness from the 42 camera partnerships, most of which are alliances of local councils, police and magistrates’ courts. “The problem with a lot of these partnerships is that they have become self-fulfilling bureaucracies,” said King.

Cameras are used at just under 6,000 sites in England and Wales: almost at the limit for sites set by government. To increase their revenues partnerships have to raise the number of live cameras.

Well there you go! An unfounded statement quoted by an unknowing journalist of an unknowing spokesperson.

I doubt very much that Mr. king has ever met someone from a Safety Camera Partnership but is quoted with regular monotony.

Webster should base his anti-camera stories on something with more foundation, these false accusations do not become the institution in which they appear.

You don't value your credibility at all do you? Have you given up trying to be reasonable and accurate because too many vested interests are telling you you're right?

How about that Radio challenge? Are you up for it?

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

Come off it Paul, you dont actually expect a positive response to that do you?


Which is ripe coming from somebody who would'nt recognise a sensible road safety policy if it crawled past one of his cameras with flashing green LED's, yet is happy to go on radio and try and pedal his flawed ideas on speeding motorists to an uneducated public!

Steve on Radio Cumbria tried to tell us cameras slow motorists down, and reduce casualties, yet admitted they speed up again after the cameras, and they need cameras to watch the cameras, to catch these motorists

Actually Steve might look a laughing stock, but more people DIED in Cumbria last year than the year before!

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

Steve saying people speed up after the cameras? Surely not! I can remember him saying that the "zone of infulence" extended some considerable distance either side of a camera site! He used this argument several times if I recall correctly, as an attempt to justify cameras not being that close to the actual "hot spot".

every day

He is a well known figure within the RAC - who know a thing or two about defamation laws - "Sunday Times" also knows the law well enough to know that they would have to print a retraction .... and not noted any scammers challenging these quotes and stories....

But then the article did say you are not forthcoming with information - and even Pilkington could not get hold of adequate research for his BMJ "study." - and found what was presented to him to be a "bit lacking in verifiable detail" - and he commented upon the fact in the paper - a comment which was glossed over by scammers and they took great delight in fact that BBC and these same papers glossed over this comment at the time. Did not note any cries of " FOUL!" at the time anyway ...



Been watching that documentary regarding the after-life of a footballer.... wonder if same will apply to scammers when they are past their sell-by date ....

But still - you supported an inaccurate report on a BMJ article which claimed 71% life-saving success at scam sites - when the writer said in both the article and the appendix that the research he was evaluating was not scientifically consistent in its collation, and that all of it needs much improvement.

Not exactly what I term as a runaway success - and when I write my reports in the BMJ on my pet lurgy - I am required to back it with bomb proof evidence.

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

You work for Steve then.... he does this too. Proves it's money making really as well. We are wise to this little trick anyway ... My wife usually has our youngest boys with her and they do all the saluting necessary. We have the little talk about sticking tongues out at grown-ups - only these kids don't regard adults who play hide and seek like this as grown-ups!

Shall blame my Wildy - she's the mother....

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Well done! You must really enjoy your work.
How many offenders do you actually stop each day, before they go on to kill somebody? Do you give them a lecture about the dangers of what they are doing wrong, before you let them go?

I suppose if you had enough camera vans, you could lay them out like speed humps, from one end of the road to the other, but then you'd be doing yourself out of a job!
Better to "give them enough rope to hang themselves" eh?

Presumably those wicked evil taxi drivers are immune, as they will have radioed in your colleague's position too, so they will only speed up after the second van. Somebody should be tasked to sort them out for parking outside pubs at night, facing oncoming traffic with their lights on, or double parking on busy main roads while they wait for their passengers to come out!

I dont suppose YOU ever worked in Submarines did you? Ex submariners seem to have a flair for this sort of thing!

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

Hey that's a good idea! Are you in Cumbria? I suppose using this tactic you should save even more lives than you currently do!

...or make more money at least!

Kind of reminds me of the Speed Kills mantra don't ya think

Speed Kills.......false
Inappropriate speed kills.....true

You get the picture...

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Why, is it hidden?

The reason that there's a second van is that your bosses are having a big panic about 'race away' crashes.

"Race away" crashes are just one extremely hazardous side effect of speed cameras, and just one of the reasons they must be scrapped.

What you're doing is dangerous and kills people. I recommend immediate resignation. If you're not man enough for that, I won't rest until you're out of a job.

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

Panic I do not think so. as you all know camera sites are larger than the location of the fixed camera or mobile camera hardstanding ( You did know that did'nt you) so placing other vans within other areas of the site is part of the strategy in slowing drivers down. So take take heed of 'safety camera operator' you have been told. If you want to put us out of a job instead of criticising why don't you encourage drivers to slow down.

You bloody well should be panicking because people are dying. In the words of Richard Brunstrom:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 62,00.html

Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales, said: "We have a particular problem with motorcyclists slowing down for the cameras but then speeding up and dying on the next corner."

See that word: "dying"? Do the decent thing, Steve, and resign!

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

To put it in a local context, I've seen "race away" pretty much every time I pass through Ings towards Windermere, with the traffic slowing for the limit and cameras and then sprinting off towards the notoriously hidden dip and complex of bends at Bannerigg.

An even clearer example was one day last summer (or it might even have been the year before) when a temporary site was set up on the westbound A590 between Haverthwaite and Greenodd. We had travelled all the way from Kendal in traffic that was busy but flowing, right until the speed check, where the "ripple effect" of everyone needlessly slowing to 50mph nearly brought the traffic to a standstill. This then opened up an empty gap in the traffic after the camera, so it was like watching a rolling start when the "pace car" returns to the pits in an F1 race, as everyone accelerated straight into the notorious accident blackspot of the "Toll bar lane ends" just east of Greenodd, ironically the scene of the multiple fatalities that were doubtless used to justify the deployment of the camera!

An extreme example of "race away" I admit, (and even CSCP seem to have realised how disastrous it was, as I haven't seen them enforce there since), but surely the same effect exists at most camera sites, it's just the ones immediately followed by a hazard that show it most.

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

We'd rather encourage them to drive safely and attentively. Unfortunately that aim is wholly out of your remit.

Encouraging them just to 'slow down' encourages the social engineers to keep dropping the limits as they perceive a way of achieving their anti-car agenda and bring private vehicles to an eventual standstill.

You are either too stupid to realise that, or tacitly support their aim.

So 'WE' what are you doing about it. I know what we are doing about it. but all I can see from the majority on here is that you just frequent a few forums and make a noise.

But you're not doing anything, apart from taking pictures of the vehicles as they go past, and then blackmailing them for £60 a couple of weeks later.

The safe drivers are victimized and start to hate the police, and the dangerous drivers are left to drive off and possibly kill themselves or someone else.

Here's what 'WE' are doing..

Manifesto


Pretty much as Zamzara says ie. not much apart from create a load of non-jobs for yourselves pretending to be a road safety initiative that doesn't seem to be able to save lives....

Oh, and act all self righteous when in fact you are merely ignorant pawns of ignorant masters.