Safe Speed Forums

Your argument is iffy at best. One could equally well argue that 1) contributes to 2), 3) etc instead of 20)

In fact you "could" argue that if speed was a contributory factor in an accident, then it is likely (but not absolutely) to have been excessive for the conditions

The set of accident causation stats published in 2007 (I think, might have been the year before, but if you search my back posts you could find which) contained an interesting bit of information about "excessive for the conditions" speed versus "above the limit". Police had been instructed to always record speed as "above the limit" where that was the case, but the published stats noted that frequently police had recorded speed as "excessive for the conditions" or (very tellingly) as BOTH "excessive for the conditions" and "above the limit". This indicates that the police know full well that speed "above the limit" is not necessarily "excessive for the conditions".

As far as cultural norms go, people tend to flout rules they see as inappropriate - possibly because they are - and always have. Law only works with the consent of the population.

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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

Nearly every official road safety body in the world is congruous with the view that SS is opposed to.
Now it may be, by some remarkable misjudgement that they are all wrong and SS is right (I don't believe that personally I might add), so why not seek to get the work of SS officially reviewed and validated/dismissed by top road safety experts, rather than leave a website which hasn't been updated for years as the sole evidence?

Well in answer to Big Tone and the 20 mph around schools in term time - our area has started to place flashing lights around most of our school zones telling drivers that the limit is 20 mph along these stretches whilst these lights flash as peak school times .. morning .. lunch hour and afternoon sessions in term time only.

Do we actually enforce this .. Whilst we may not "ticket" the person because of absent lollipops etc - we would have a word in some cases .. Um.. we would include inconsiderate parking on the part of parents as well in this too and we find we can realistically now leave this in the domain of specials and "plastics" We call it using our resources wisely

We find that normal law abiding folk do take note of the PCSOs. Chavs on the other hand would abuse anyone they percieve to be "in authority" .




But taking you up on this point .. we are fairly OK and tolerant if the flow is a safe flow and conforming to an 85th percentile of moderate fluctuation within a tolerated margin of fluctuations either way.

But driving too slowly for the prevailing road condition is equally dangerous and equally changing to "cultural norms" and I would say poses the greater danger as we then find folk get frustrated and acccelerate harder than they would do otherwise - a state of red mist if you like spawned from "frustration" - of the sort which can force a driver to make a catastrpohic error in the heat of that second's "strop"

For that reason - we may well charge the other party with inconsiderate driving just as we might charge the overtaker with speeding/careless/dangerous if the evidence pointed that way too - as two wrongs do not ever make a right -

BUT

the situation would in fact mitigate outcome at later trials - which means we would go for the one which we know may gain a conviction if the driving standard so warranted such.

It is a limit and not a target - and if a person is driving at say 30 mph in a 30 mph zone when road conditions are bad .. and 30 mph may be too fast for the prevalling road condition - then again we would be looking at how the driving standard matched the standard as expected of a reasonably competent person.

We tend to look at the whole situation here as we are a bit old fashioned like that. By no means a "soft touch" and we sometimes find ourselves being accused of being quite pedantic over driving standards

Safespeed is campaigning more for a national return to tried, true and tested enforcement of motoring offences. A NIP received in the post 14 days later just does not teach folk much nor improve standards. It leads to all manner of further nonsense like "fibbling on the return form" and a hell of a lot of manipulation at known cam sites - but does not actually slow the traffic down along the entire stretch.


We have "Slow down!" signs /.. VAS and various other warning signs dotted around. The difference is that folk know we are around somewhere and just might be around the next corner We find it works out just fine overall


Campaign has moved on from just "get rid of speed cams" to debating how driving could be improved.. and how we can motivate aspiration to improve and how we punish the fools out there - the ones who never will learn no matter what sticks or carrots are dangled around. - and encouraging folk to cycle too SAFELY

By the way B Cyclist - you can be just as dangerous at the speed limit if complacent - and you can be extremely lethal if you travel on a fast road at a deliberately slow speed such as 10 mph - 30 mph on a free flowing motorway.

You can be just as dangerous if you drive at the speed limit when weather and other traffic conditions would suggest that to do so would be stupid - and in which case the safe speed would be below said limit.

If you are overtaking a lorry limited to 56 mph on a 60 mph dual carriageway - then we would not be prosecuting the person who hit 70 mph to complete the overtake safely /../ easing out and returning to lane and reasoned margin as an "elephant race" creates its own dangers. :roll; There are then certain situations which you see and apply common sense over the letter of the law .. and this applies to ALL police work in reality across the whole crime range.

We apply such rules here. N Yorks applies a similar code of practice. Our stats (not peer reviewed no one's has been ) are consistently below the national average as regards our KSI incidents. WSe compile our figures according to procedure.. but as we know from 2002 - some chose to read something bizarre into our returns because we had a marginal increase over 2001 which was a year of significantly lower traffic volume in this region and which factor proves that some folk will deliberately choose to read whatever they want to read into statistics - but nothing so far has proven a speed cam works as one professor at Bristol Uni found - there is no standard data collation and thus any research into the stats would be flawed. :roll; Police stats, on the other hand, do follow a set procdeure against which our performances can be measured to some meaningful extent ;wink:

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

So, In Gear, what kind of campaign is it? In one sentence, if possible.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

I think Claire is working on that

But Paul Garvin was not convinced ... nor Della cannings. Neither of these forces have changed their minds and still have strong RPU in operation. Even Kevin delaney remarked that one cam had a 100% "success rate" because no accident had occurred at the site before or since the one accident which claimed 4 young lives and thus qulaified the site under the guidelines. What the SCP failed to take account of was the little fact that these kids had stolen the car and were "wunning from a pursuit car at the time.
:roll;

Delaney was highly critical of this practice on an R4 and a an R5 programme.


Yes.. we use cameras and various "toys" - but I think we do so from a balanced view and not purely to tick some target in a box. Let's face it .. last years chart topper fears they will be bottom this tim because they made a decision not to police to "set targets" but to needs of the public. It will be interesting to see how they performed . GMP was propping up the bottom leach year - but if you really look at their figures - they are actually the top force in many important aspects of policing - in particular their tracking down of would be terrorists and getting the evidence to convict too. There are many other areas which this "bottom force" lead the tables in.. but they cannot tick the right boxes on a "target met list" - which means such charts are actually meaningless in value. Likewise "official statistics" which are coillated perhaps to a set criteria and will mislead as a result NHS waiting lists come to mind. Kids with A* grades unable to add up.. spell.. or use a brain cell and think for themselves :roll; also com to mind. Yet they all met the "target"


Oh why did we not go down the SCP path? We know folk will slow for the cam and learn very little as a result. We tend to go for the real fools out there and whilst we collect fewer £60 as £PN verbal offers than elsewhere - we collect more from fines imposed by the mags's courts for more serious offences... and we also make a fair bit from our own DIS and Speed Awareness Course (we now have one .. Do come here. I would love to meet some of you )

But martin .. the authorities have not had their own stats assessed or peer reviewed and the only one which tried to found that the raw data was too skewed to actually draw a safe conclusion as to efficiency which ranged from 15% to 70%.. which is a bit too wide to be credible. If it was a margin of 60% -70% based on set criteria - perhaps .. but the researcher found that there were too many inconsistencies in the raw data as provided by the SCPs to draw a conclusion and commented on this in his conclusion. (It was discussed on here in 2005.)

Thus no one has established formally how "successful" the sped cam actually is . but police and NHS and insurance company stats do not seem to support the camera lobby's claims Now these are also not "peer reviewed" but collectively they support each other. Oh . forgot . the NHS ones have been.. by Oxfor University This peer reviewed piece does contradict the official party line and justifies our stance at retaining a fully staffed and equipped RPU

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

a campaign to return to real road safety enforcement - by real professionals and not some remote camera which teaches nowt as regards raising overall safety standards and awareness.

Paul never claimed nor sought charitable status. Claire also has not sought such. The person who tries to claim so is not a road safety expert nor a "fanatical or any other kind of cyclist" as he is never on a bicycle per the omnipresence in internet chatrooms.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Well, a company can state it brews the best lager in the world, doesn't make it true (which is why it's got to say it's probably the best lager in the world).

The challenge is to show evidence that Safe Speed really is a campaign concerened with road saftey.



I'm not doing this and I've never done this, it's intentionally deceitful to say I have.

Sure sure, if you say so

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

It is slightly eyebrow raising statement considering two seperate media outlets (who as far as I am aware do not use the same syndication service) have described Safe Speed as a road safety charity.

You've had your answer, from the horse's mouth, what answer are you trying to elicit by asking all and sundry?

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

Aren't you art least going to attempt to provide some demonstration of me "insisting that anyone else posting on these forums represents the official SafeSpeed line".

Tomorrow's headline:

"More Than One Person Makes Same Mistake: Internet Troll Incredulous"

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

No, I know its true, you know its true, anyone who can read this thread can see its true, I'm not going to play your slithery game.

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Regulation without education merely creates more criminals.

One of which would perhaps use the BBC as "source" One syndicate may well use the other one for sourcing. We know this from our own press releases


Syndicates can and do get things wrong and may well use each other for a story source.


You find this with government stories. All press and their syndicates publish the same things and get the same things wrong. Ending up retracting stories later.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I don't get it though, if I went and set up a campaign for the proliferation of speed cameras and called it a road saftey campaign would you not challenge my description of it?

At the risk of another catch phrase.

The campaign promotes the replacement of the current speed fixated policies with ones that work.

I do not speak for SS obviously, so the link I posted on the first page is just a suggestion as to what I think those better policies might be. Reducing injuries by a third looks great, and not a mention of speed camera you will note. It site does mention Sweden as a leading example of what can be achieved, this to me implies that much of the improvement in safety there was accomplish through improved road design rather than speed cameras and lower limits.

Some time ago there was a thread on here about the Vision Zero initiative, I have searched but not found it yet unfortunately. I remember posting on it that while it laudably supported road improvements including better sight lines through corners and at junctions UK councils were actually implementing changes to make sight lines worse. So wrapped up are they in the speed kills message that they believe making the roads more dangerous will make drivers slow down and this will be safer.

I will try to find this thread because it does point towards a difference in what road safety means in the UK and the continent.

I am quite aware that speed cameras are used on the continent, like Dixie and Big Tone I too think there is a place for them as part of well thought out road safety policy. This is the key point though, the cameras in themselves are not that bad, it is they way they are used in this country which does not help. Cameras as they are must be removed to dispel the negative effects SS believes they currently cause, if and when they are re-introduced it should be in much lower numbers and in very clearly defined situations most of which I think should be urban ones.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Did you sign Paul Smith's "Scrap Speed Cameras" petition?

I don't think you can scrap something and then bring it back...

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

"What kind of campaign is it?"

In the interests of not getting personal, I don’t want to aim this at anyone...

I would never have joined, or continue to subscribe, if I thought for one minute that Safe Speed was in any way whatsoever about some covert operation to deceive in order to let actual or potentially dangerous drivers hurt others or take the lives of innocent people on our roads!

Moreover, it would actually do me immeasurable harm to associate myself with any such campaign which does. If anyone thinks I’m a fake take a look at our website. http://www.actwmids.nhs.uk/

I am very proud to be part of a wonderful team of doctors, SLTs, OTs and clinical scientists who help glue the pieces of victims and families back together and give hope to the many others whose lives have been turned upside down because of, but not only, bad driving. (It’s why I occasionally go nuts here )

I don’t speak for SS, (and maybe a signature change is due), but I am also proud to be a part of the only serious initiative I have come across to date which gives me hope for a better and safer way forward when it comes to real road safety.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.