Safe Speed Forums

because nobody hits ice/oil at low speeds.

Higher speeds aren't just about the driver, its about the communities it goes thirugh. more noise, harder to get out of side roads, and so on. Speeding was a much bigger factor in fatal RTCs than the 5% total.

Just camapign for more training, your message is just being heard as anti-speed cameras and controls. You might think the message is OK, but its being misheard.

5 year old web chats are not for discussion. what about 2 year old web pages?

If there's room. Some roads have narrow lanes or traffic islands. Sometimes this is deliberate; having roads where safe overtaking is impossible is supposed to "calm" the traffic. In practice it leads to motorists who are anything but calm and cyclists who ride on the footpath instead.

Yes! We absolutely have to look towards 'root causes'.

Without that (And DfT aren't doing it) the best we can hope for is impatient and unsafe at a slightly lower speed.



That's not possible because:

- cameras effectively replace other policies
- cameras 'educate' drivers into legal compliance at the expense of safe behaviour. That's 'negative education' in my book.

If driving standards were a bank account, we're currently overdrawn and sinking into greater debt. Speed cameras are a thumping great standing order made out to a firm of accountants who keep saying everything will be OK so long as we keep paying them. But the standing order seems to defy all attempts to get back into credit.

First things first - we have to cancel the standing order and fire the cheating slimy accountants. Then we'll have a chance of managing the bank account properly.

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

and yet you are campaigning for more of the same... fixating on speed and ignoring the real dangers of poor observation and impatience.

I'll say once again, the people who attempt to squeeze past me where there are traffic islands ARE NOT SPEEDING - and if you want to stop them squeezing past you, ride in the middle to the right of the lane.

The overall political alignment of cyclists differs very little from that of the greater population and is probably identical to that of this forum. C+ does not represent cyclists in general, but a minority who take comfort in the knowledge that they are mostly left of centre and exhibit the rather intolerant tendencies resulting from that position.

Hobby cyclists comprising recreational, sporting and touring, comprise a fair proportion of riders who commute on bikes. I would not commute on a bike for the simple reason I believe the laws of average would, one day, catch up with me and I would become a statistic. I certainly never ride in the dark – I don’t even own lights for a bicycle. With 40plus year of riding experience, I contend cycling is still a potentially dangerous pastime on British roads. Why? Because many drivers are incapable of placing themselves in the position of other road-users, especially the more vulnerable groups, pedestrians, horse riders and cyclists.

I ride for recreation and health reasons, but I still wish I was born with a third eye in the back of my head, instead I have to rely on instinct to prevent myself and 3-grands worth of carbon fibre and alloy being turned into a puree. Most country roads are in a worse state than they were 20-40 years ago, but this does not prevent a very small minority of drivers travelling at inappropriate speed, unwilling to slow down, whilst I am trying to negotiate a safe route through a maze of pot holes situated in the “riding line”. Riders are becoming increasingly fed up with being treated as second class citizens on the roads we are all entitled to share. (“Road Tax/Insurance” - don’t go there.)

One does not have to be a life member of C+ to hold the view that (a small minority of) drivers would rather risk killing you than slow down. It is a schizophrenic process because the same riders will happily get into their cars and go about their business. Just to put things into perspective, I own a tweaked up 1.8 Focus with a bucket of gizmos which is exciting enough at the appropriate moment.

So are you implying that the 6000 cameras we have now just aren't working? If not, why haven't the fatalities gone down?

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

Agreed (and with most of the rest of your post). So first . Secondly, as a car driver - do you think you are a made to be a better driver because the "road safety policy" is focussed mainly on speed cameras?

_________________
Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

OK. Basic and fair question-

You say that you started the campaign as a result of the woman who lost her licence from passing the same camera above the speed limit twice in the space of a few minutes. Apparently she also had previous points.

Now, what does that have to do with road safety?

I have never claimed otherwise. You made a comment and I asked for clarification, as the comment seemed rather strange. Maybe my comment was too jovial for the discussion. I apologise.

But I still find the comment odd.

I note the edit.

No.

I try to be a competent driver, but still make the occasional error, the same as anyone else. I attribute this to the degree of multi-tasking that needs to be dome when driving. Adding the necessity of looking for GATSOs just exacerbates the situation.

I am as cynical as the next man when it comes to believing speed cameras are just another way of gathering revenue, many are placed in situations which can guarantee a continous income.

On the other hand - there are situations were they could do a lot of good, such as outside my own house. I am situated on a rat-run to the M25, it is only a matter of time before there is another tasty RTA outside due to two roads merging and the habit of drivers not slowing to take account of the potential hazard.

I have plenty of ideas on reducing accidents but I don't feel it necessary to raise my head above the parapet just yet.

This whole C+ vs SS debate on both sites is really down to one person. The C+ poster formerly known as Bimbley/Spindrift/wavydavy and now known as Yusuf has had an obsession with attacking Safespeed and Paul in particular now for years, and he has been driving the whole debate. It must drive him mad that he's not allowed to post here. Tourist Tony (who also loves to stir) is now aiding and abetting.

"mjones" is Marcus Jones from the Slower Speeds Initiative which is part of Transport 2000 lunatic fringe - the old authoritarian left who have latched onto the environmental movement. They hate private transport with a vengence and prefer socalist buses and trains. T2000 is of course funded by the public sector trade unions and the privatised bus and train companies.

You'll note that there are constant calls for Safespeed to have its work peer reviewed , yet no suggestion that Brake or T2000 should also submit to peer review.

All web forums have their lunatics , but its deeply unfortunate that C+'s lunatics ahave taken over the asylum

I don't think C+ is an asylum tbh. More like a hospital with MRSA.

All hospitals have MRSA.

if nothing else it proves that cameras don't work. IF she was actually driving dangerously a police officer would have stopped her and, hopefully, convinced her to change her ways. As it was she got a letter in the mail a week or two later and so had all that time to continue with her "dangerous" driving.

Even this place. The problem for you is that this place doesn't try and hide the fact.

I'm not campaigning for any kind of traffic calming. It forces cyclists into conflict with motorists and encourages poor driving. The only reason why traffic calming is considered necessary is because too many drivers will not keep to a reasonable speed without all those bumps, chokes and chicanes. I'd sooner have a wide, straight road, clear of obstructions; and a Gatso to discourage speeding.
I have noticed that the faster a driver is trying to go the more impatient they get when thwarted. If they're trying to drive at 30 then they're prepared to slow down a bit if there's not room to pass a cyclist; but if they're trying to do 45 then they're more likely to lean on the horn or squeeze past.
Riding in the middle lane to discourage overtaking takes a lot of nerve when the car behind is tearing towards you at 60mph.

And who does?

I'm a member of many cycling forums as well as one motoring one. C+ has a lot of London cyclists on it, which is why I post there.
I am not a left-of-centre minority.

That's not answering my question. And only Paul can.

As a response to your comment though, it got her off the road didn't it? So it did work. Of course, you could argue that missing the same camera twice in the space of however many minutes doesn't warrant a ban. But this woman already had points, and these two photos took her over the limit. We don't know the whole story, as it came from Paul and he can't remember the full details.

That argument for cameras not working is flawed. People obviously learn from being caught, otherwise they would carry on and wouldn't have their license for long. How many camera convictions would be needed for 4 each for the whole driving population?

Anyway, this is going off on a tangent again. I'd just like Paul to answer my question.