Safe Speed Forums

KSIs have been falling steadily since the war - and car numbers and mileages have been increasing all the while. I don't think that's significant to be honest.





Initially, my local partnership (who predomonantly use mobile vans so they could have been at any one of a number of locations on a given road) DID refer to the whole road. Then, as it became clear that they weren't making any appreciable difference it was "at the camera sites".





That all sounds so familiar! Can anyone remember the initial claims for FIXED cameras? Now that the truth is known and the public are starting to "wise-up", we're seeing the change to average speed cameras with similarly ludicrous claims. Of course, this time, at least SOME of the public are a little more sceptical!

For the record, I DO belive that excess speed is responsible for SOME accidents. I also belive that excess speed ABOVE THE POSTED LIMIT is responsible for some (albeit a small number). Those are the only accidents which 100% limit compliance would address. If anyone really believed it would be advantageous, there would be a demand for speed-limited cars. It would be SO EASY to do! We have the GPS technology to know where the car is, and we have speed limiter technology (potentially) built into just about every modern car for the cost of a few lines of code in the electronic control units.

The fact that Glaikie claims he has "seen research that shows a majority of drivers acknowledge speeding to be a serious offence and support speed limit enforcement by the use of cameras" suggests a degree of hypocrisy amongst drivers doesn't it? You'd have thought they's all be clamouring for speed-limited cars wouldn't you? So why haven't they hit the showrooms yet? BECAUSE TEHRE WOULDN'T BE MANY CUSTOMERS!

If we look beyond the assertion that the only people who speed are militant Safespeeders who think their willies aren't big enough, we'll find that there is a great cross-section of the British motoring public with points on their licenses from cameras - district nurses, vicars, Womens' Institute stalwarts, AS WELL AS the maxxxed-out chavs in their mobile games consoles! (The only difference being that the first group are the ones that are more likely to have correctly registered their cars and paid up)!

At last I see someone who has similar sentiments to myself with regards to speed cameras as YES they are criminalising the ordinary motorist who inadvertantly strays a couple of miles over the limit for a few yards.

Not some of the "Boy Racers" who should be targeted.

Does anyone remember the case earlier this year where a group of locals in a village petitioned the police / local council etc. to locate a speed camera in their village because the village had a 30mph limit at the end of an NSL and drivers were ignoring the 30 limit then what happened was the "leader" of the campaign was one of the first ones to be prosecuted for doing someting like 42 mph past the camera!

Obviously in this case there is no excuse for "Not knowing about the camera being there so I didn,t see it" or not realising the limit was 30mph

_________________
"There But For The Grace of God Go I"

"He Who Ain,t Made Mistakes Ain,t Made Anything"

Spannernut

And what of 'bias on selection' which I mentioned here? Don't forget, it would seem this example is one within an urban area so the effect likely won't be insignificant.

KSI rates are not the only idicator of the efficacy or otherwise of speed cameras. That's a blinkered viewpoint. Speeding is aggressive and anti-social and it drives vulnerable road users off the roads. That's why it would be interesting if this campaign now makes its agenda clear- does it support EVERYTHING that Smith said? Up and down the country residents are clamouring for reduced speeds in their neighbourhoods including mine. Selfish gits use my quiet residential road as their own personal racetrack and from my diect personal experience the installation of a camera soon stopped this. Although we know from published studies that accidents and injuries are reduced at camera sites after allowing for RTTM, we should not get sidetracked into thinking that coffins and wheelchairs are the manifestations of the ONLY impact that speeding has on peoples' lives. There's the increased noise. The fact that it discourages walking and cycling. It prevents old people from feeling safe as they cross roads, divides communities, is bullying, anti-social thuggery etc etc. KSI rates are not the sole arbiter of success or failure.

Agreed, but the problem is that 'speeding' is seen as the number one demon thing that drivers do. What you are experiencing is surely anti-social behaviour which is not the same as driving at 35 mph up a deserted road armed with a camera to catch you.

I've never seen a deserted road outside a car ad, but if the price of stopping idiot drivers from terrifying communities is a £60 fine for someone else who gambled with the law, then tough.

OK, but do you believe that everyone who is now in posession of a speeding fine due to a camera was 'gambling with the law' at the time?
Because is so then there are a heck of a lot of them.

It’s possible that you’re genuine with your concern, if so you have my understanding and sympathy.

Cameras only detect technical infringements and can only affect those who are otherwise law abiding; they won’t do anything against the real dangers.

Trafpol can detect and act upon anti-social driving (as well as inappropriate speeds), regardless of the legal state of the driver's documentation.

Our over-reliance on cameras, mostly due to the dodgy stats portrayed to justify them, has led to a decline in trafpol activity. The camera policy is allowing the most anti-social and dangerous drivers to continue and get away with it.



Regardless, if limits and camera thresholds were set reasonably in the first place, I wouldn’t be here now supporting the cause against.

Trafpol reductions pre-date the introduction of cameras. Police forces wound down road policing further after Blair reacted to media pressure and concentrated on street crime- mostly teenagers nicking other teenagers mobies. That's what happens when a governments' agenda is set by tabloids. 26 teenagers stabbed or shot or beaten to death in London this year, ten children killed or seriously injured on our roads EVERY DAY. Sorry for shouting, I see no grounds for complacency.

Cameras only detect technical infringements

Given that I've explained that speeding is not a victimless crime since it threatens and terrifies other road users, do you not think your remark is staggeringly arrogant? Genuine question, I've explained that people in this apathetic country are exercised enough about drivers who flout the speed limit to picket, lobby, campaign against it. I for one feel threatened when drivers use the roads I use as their own personal racetrack. Do my views not count?

We have perfectly good laws to protect us from this type of irresponsible driver (racing on a public road is a VERY serious offence). Sadly this type are rarely caught by cameras as they tend to go to roads without them to do that sort of thing. I might add that the type of racing which frightens me most is the young men in their hatchbacks who race each other around built up areas - often without breaking speed limits - where the lack of policing makes it difficult to prevent. Remember that that most accidents where "excessive speed" is a factor are ones where the excessive speed is BELOW the limit.

_________________
I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Pay respect - he's "Mr Smith" or Paul



People in North Wales claimed juggernauts were hurtling through the villages at 80 mph each night.

They were perhaps loud given that sound more carries at night. They were not and could not have been at those speeds since these huge vehicles have limiters and these are set. Tachos are also examined. :rolleyes:

My main road is a twisty NSL and we are at the straight bit where our driveway joins the main road. NSL traffic does not really worry us .. but then we do use COAST all the time







Did this road have the 3 KSI required? They usually place these on main roads and not residentials. They may place a mobile on a residential through road .. based on complaints.. but this is rare. It is usually through the villages. Usually residential "speed watch"


99% of the time .. those using as a rat run are themselves locals and residents

Strangers would not know of a short cut... and Sat Navs tend to send in direction of main roads unless they detect a very sticky jam. Ours has not to date sent us somewhere strange anyway... and we usually ignore the "bossy woman" if we know better anyway

(She does get into a right strop though when you disobey her I tend to switch her off at that point )




The kids with the "go faster exhausts" perhaps. Most cars are quiet. There are moves to make engines louder though because some other research seemed to indicate that drivers are lulled into false sense of security because the engines run so silently these days.

(Source.. Autcar/AutoExpress ca mid October issues in the "News" sections)

But having said that.. noise does carry more at night.. hence the Welsh claims of "high speed juggernauts" :rolleyes:





I still ride a bicycle as do my kids.. and we do walk as well.

My only SI to date.. I needed stitches in my leg after being pushed into pavement works by a speeding pavement cyclist (Ruddy hurt as well... ruined a decent pair of trousers... (my blood) and stopped me driving (and cycling) for a week or so. as it was painful and my gear change leg...)





But we know that there exists hard core of boy racers - who are only copped by police - if we are lucky and who are not even stopped or even deterred by any camera.

We do discuss how to stop these fools and we try to promote safe driving standards to ensure all road users are safe.

Speed cams, alas, do not deliver safety nor awareness of good practice. Sure we can raise the age at which you can take a driving test.. but not all 17 years apply for provisional licences. Some will learn how to drive when they can afford it .. or when exams are over.. so even raising the age may not deliver what they expect. This is just to bring in line with France and Germany in all probablity and not really to do with "tackling the problem of the boy racer" - who is the TWOC-merchant and highly lethal.

I should post this on the other thread really .. but Paul suggested all drivers keep a diary to jot down all the "could do betters". The proposed log book would seem to be this same idea - and it has only been mentioned on this site by Paul.. so perhaps we are even seeing Paul's input being noted all the same

Ideas to beef up the test.. many of those ideas were put forward and discussed by all the forummers back in 2004. So just maybe the lurkers are taking some notes of what could work.

_________________
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.

Yes sir, they do count. But speed cameras are not a good soluition to the problem you are describing.
Two speed cameras were placed on Leegate Avenue in Telford just up the road from where I live. They were put up in response to the death of a lad who was killed crossing the road.
The cameras do not stop people driving at speed along the rest of the road, including up to the junction from which I try to emerge in the morning to go to work. Some of these idiots even have the temerity to blow their horns at me if they appear from around the corner when I am in mid-emerge. Did the camera stop them? No sir, it did not.

[Edit] You will now be inundated with posters giving their opinions as to why they think you are wrong. It will get very confusing, please be patient because most of the people here mean well and detest anti-social driving as much as you do.

Indeed they do prof. That sort of kid does worry us too. IG's chaps try their best as does Ian.

Why we want more of them

_________________
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.

I don’t know if that’s true. Even if so, would you not agree that the camera policy made it worse? Have you seen the infamous youtube video of the moped riders racing each other in a very dangerous and anti-social manner, yet said "we're too slow to be done for speeding"?


Isn’t that exactly what is happening now (‘residents are clamouring......’)? Aren’t the dodgy stats used to portray camera effectiveness making the situation needlessly worse?


Absolutely, yet the sad figures for children are now on the up when they used to be on the down, even though limits are only on the down and camera enforcement is ever higher – how can this be? Where are we failing?


Not at all.

I’m against drivers using roads, especially residential ones, as racetracks; nobody on this site will disagree with that sentiment. However, speed cameras still allow this; trafpol do not.

Can it be 'speeding' if it is safe?
What exactly does the word speeding mean - simply exceeding an arbitary figure? Surely it's a lot more complex than that?

Barkstar

_________________
The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

The figure of 10 per day is across entire age range and road user type. It is not restricted to children alone.

EU does not have child pedestrians being killed - and more of these kids ride and walk to school than here.. But then they seem to have more respect for their own road safety and road sense.

But the figure of 10 KSI per day has remained the same since the introduction of the cams.

So we have a claim on the one hand that the cams are reducing KSI on the one hand and an unchanged figure on the other


By the way.. it's actually more than 10 KSI per day in the cam-infest zones per the hospital stats and less in North Yorks/Durham and the areas which did keep police in charge.





But you said you had a camera on the road. All it does in reality - assuming it really is on a "quiet residential road used as a rattrun by the LOCALS" and not a main one - is make the person slow for the scam.. and then throttle back up again


Besides the cam only detects speed. It does not detect the poor standard of that driving (and numpty driving can be at a legal limit all the same) - nor the manipulator (about the only thing we agreed with Mr Callaghan over) - and by manipulator .. I mean the one who will blat up to the scam.. screech on the brakes and then throttle up hard again.

_________________
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.

It is now quite clear that the government has become quite hysterical in its determination to be the biggest possible pain in the arse to drivers.

Come on everybody, just tell them to get stuffed.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

That sounds very much like a pre-prepared speech to me.

And surely the main reason for all the ill-effects you report is not the speed of traffic, but the volume of traffic. In my experience, on most busy urban roads, the traffic tends to be travelling well below the speed limit anyway.

Perhaps you would be better off campaigning for a bypass rather than against "speeders".

_________________
"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

Clearly you weren't on the A515 last Thursday early evening - deserted (Took my Breath Away ). And between Ashbourne and Buxton it only passes through one community (with a 40 mph limit, which I stick to). Until recently the road was NSL but is now 18 miles of 50mph . Did I exceed that limit? Yes. Did I exceed the old one? No. Did I drive aggressively to achieve this? No. Has the nature of the road changed to create a clear need for a reduction? No. So no communities terrified, but you'd have me as an idiot - and you've never met me.



As above. No residents. No one to be anti-social or aggressive towards. In addition if you walk down any road with an appreciable level of flowing traffic a lot of it will be breaking the speed limit. In some cases that maybe ill-judged or dangerous, but on the whole no harm is done. But always aggressive? Always anti-social? Then 80 or 90% of all drivers are thus. And I would say that what we don't need are vulnerable road users. Drivers need to be positive, aware and pro-active. If driving in traffic makes you nervous it won't just be because other drivers are breaking the speed limit. Do the accident stats a favour and find alternative transport.



What is this 'like a racetrack' nonsense that gets dragged out - it's a bad analogy - have you been to a racetrack and does it bear even the slightest resemblence to what is going on in your neighbourhood? I don't doubt a few idiots drive too fast round your way, there are few residential streets that don't suffer from this. But lets not stray into Daily Excess hyperbole here. Yes they can be a danger and a nuisance, but do you really believe that they drive like model citzens now 'your' camera has gone in (see other posts regarding the veracity of claiming a speed camera was put in to stop this).



I don't think anyone here abouts thinks anything of the sort. But given that everyday a huge percentage of drivers will stray over the limit we clearly still don't have quite the crisis you allude too.



Speeding is less of a culprit (except perhaps in certain specific locations) than the levels of traffic and poor driving (at any speed). As far as the elderly are concerned it is a fact that their faculties fade - eyesight, judgement and movement. So they end up finding crossing the road difficult, regardless of traffic speeds.

Barkstar

"My name is Chris and I'm an idiotic, aggressive, anti-social, bullying thug - apparently"

_________________
The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

haven't we recently had a lengthy argument over speeding being "aggressive"? Or am I confusing it with another forum?

_________________
I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools