Safe Speed Forums

Perhaps a quick review of the case is called for:

- 'Speed kills' policy is based on nothing but oversimplification and false assumption.

- Despite 'speeding' being endemic, virtually zero crashes are caused by it, althout around 5% of injury crashes contain it as a contributory factor.

- Speed kills policy and speed cameras come with dozens of known negative side effects.

- Driver quality is at the centre of real road safety, but may be adversely affected by Policy side effects.

- Even Department for Transport agrees that there has been a 'loss of trend' and commissioned TRL research to find out why. TRL says 'drivers are getting worse'.

- We haven't found a similar loss of trend in any (rich western) country that doesn't have a 'speed kills' road safety policy. But we have found a loss of trend in every country that does.

- The correlation between the loss of trend and the number of speed camera fines is virtually perfect.

- Department for Transport, camera partnerships and many road safety organisations are constantly caught out talking complete crap.



Any honest interpretation of the trend indicates a massive divergence starting in about 1994. The loss of trend is a simple fact. It's not a 'view'.

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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

Ah - it's changed again.

But it does not save lives. All it does is ping and fine a driver who drives past it above its setting. Since record numbers are receiving these fines - it cannot be then held to be "slowing them down" either

Two areas do not have forests of fixed cams. They do use speed cam technology to determine a speed and then use professional judgement to decide whether or not it warrants a prosecution or a very strong words only. Neither area is immune from accidents or incidents - but they appear to occur with a lesser frequency overall.

Some of the scams were placed because they met the criteria - only in some of them - the death count number occurred in the one accident and not three or four separate ones. This is one reason why the stats are skewed and we cannot thus measure effectiveness properly.

The other factor? People know where the cams are anyway regardless of colour if they are local We do move our only one Gatso around So.. they slow for the scam and then accelerate again. We also have people seeing these as the only hazard or danger to their mobility too

How to enforce? Keep trying to instill a sense of continuous learning, development within the driving population. This should be hammered home at the learning/training stage and we should then continue to remind via very frequent THINK! adverts. Put some motivating factor to help with running costs of keeping a car as well perhaps as a carrot maybe?

Blend speed controls with more VAS signs as these appear to have some effect. We have normal "Slow down!" and "To die for?" and "Think Bike!" along lots of roads here. Cheap but effective as it does also serve to warn that our patrols are larking around perhaps

We find that basic teamwork serves our area well in terms of being able to deliver what the public need and want from the police.

By the way - we do prosecute people here for many traffic offences - but we clear the roads of very seriously dangerous road users as a main priority. We do indeed issue prosecutions for speeding above our tolerance levels - but those people know and actually understand why they have received a penalty for it. That's the difference: with automation and no feedback - they will not ever learn from the experience and no improved standard occurs as a result.

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I see the sig has become increasingly irrational and troll-like (even though justification was never given for the original):

Interestingly his now spurious argument in the sig could equally be applied to proove the opposite:

Safety cameras don't save lives. Only irreponsible, unintelligent people think that the presence of an inanimate object somehow prevents fatalities, the driver is somehow always responsible, and that speed is always a cause.

It's true though isn't it? Justification:

* Safety cameras are there to make you slow down. How many fatalities have been caused as a direct result of the camera?

* Nearly every time a report is made on this site about a death, or serious injury - if the reports say the person was travelling at excessive speed, it is always written off as "being irrelevant to the cause".

* The driver usually has the final say in whether they hit someone or not.

It's really easy (at a high level) in no particular order.

* Make checks to ensure your vehicle is roadworthy on a regular basis.

* Concentrate on the road ahead, whilst also paying attention to what is beside and behind you.

* Drive at an appropriate speed within the speed limit. The appropriate speed is one that enables you to stop your vehicle in the distance you know to be clear.

(It may be advisable to learn how your vehicle feels when travelling at 20/30/40/50/60/70 so you can quickly recognise when you are exceeding the limit without having to make continuous references to the speedometer.)

* Show consideration for all other road users, while anticipating that the same consideration may not neccesarily be returned.

* Obey all traffic regulations.

If you do that, speed cameras become absolutely irrelevant and safety immediately improves for you and everyone around you. It's not the be-all and end-all, but it's a bloody good start.

Interesting that as you point out the following as important to road safety:



None of these are affected by the presence of a camera.

Another one:


No they are there to fine people who are speeding, no attempt is made to slow the driver down.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, if you see the safety camera you slow down. If you don't see it, you've made a serious observational failure.

No, I don't slow down when I see a speed camera. Why would I? (Don't pre-suppose that everyone here is a speed freak)

And since nearly 2 million people have been pinged, if they exist only to slow people down, they are extremely poor at acheiving this end. Any other product with such a poor success record would quickly be discontinued.

So indirect cause don't matter then?



Usually it is irrelevant. Usually it's the bleating of idiots. Where high speed is a genuine crash cause it's usually irresponsible driving causing both the speed and the crash. And usually a speed camera is even more irrelevant.



But meanwhile, back in the real world, that's not what people do is it?

And it's what people do that matters, not what you think they ought to do.

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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

Yeah. So it has.

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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

No, it's not. You keep saying that.

As an example (of which there are many) - thousands of kids play truant from school every day. Shall we just continue to let them, because that's what "people do"?

I think it's you who lives in the fairy land.

In deciding on the answer to this question, consider how much public money are you prepared to spend on stopping truanting? Is it really a priority to stop a few kids skipping lessons? How much harm does it do?

How much public money are you prepared to spend on stopping people going over the speed limit? Is it really a priority to stop motorists exceeding arbitrarily set limits? How much harm does it do?

This is not fairyland but reality where cost is an issue.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Have you seen panic braking at camera sites? I know operators who have!
How many of these fatalities would have occurred had the camera already been installed? Many cameras are installed where none of the 4 KSIs used to justify them were nothing to do with exceeding the speed limit.


There’s a big difference between exceeding the speed limit and excessive speed.


Yeah, like when a pedestrian (or an otherwise distracted driver) doesn’t look and places themselves in the path of the vehicle.


So what relevance is the speed limit if we are already able decide an appropriate speed? (at this point I should separate urban and non-urban roads)


And what if like me you drive various pool cars?


Ideally yes, but people have a habit of not respecting the law when it is being abused for the sake of money or saving face


How naïve. Do you know how speed limit reviews work?


Oh yeah, I regularly see cameras hidden behind signs and bushes:

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/g177.jpg

http://www.speedcam.co.uk/game.htm (don't forget the player's inherent advantage)



It’s funny, even though you put some effort into your post you still haven’t managed to justify the [edit] the original sig. (thank you for toning it down)

Even just driving one car isn't enough. Differences in the road surface quality can make one road feel faster than another even at the exact same speed - there's one road I use every day where the undulating surface is so bad that 40-50 feels like I'm doing 60-70 along a smoother stretch of road of comparable width, curviness etc. There's also changes in the peripheral audible/visible cues depending on the width of the road, the type of surface, buildings/parked vehicles along the road. Driving at 40 down a narrow road with walls/buildings encroaching on the side of the road feels a hell of a lot faster than driving at 40 on a 4/5 lane stretch of motorway, driving at 40 on a smoothly surfaced bit of road sounds slower than doing 40 across shellgrip, etc.

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Chris

Yep, I've seen panic braking, sometimes when the driver has been at the limit or inside it but usually when the driver approaching the camera has been well over the limit (taxi drivers are notoriously bad for this behaviour!)

Still, your point is irrelevant to my question - how many deaths have been directly attributable to the presence of a safety camera?




The way I see it:

Inappropriate speed is one which is unsuitable for the conditions.
Excessive speed is one which is both inappropriate and in excess of the limit.



Which is why I said 'usually' and another reason to drive slower so you might have a better chance of not killing them if the worst does happen. It's very well to blame it on drunks, idiotic kids running out, etc.. they should be dealt with - but at the end of the day we have to try not to hit them. Sometimes it's not possible, granted.



Both are just as relevant. Urban has high hazard density, unpredictability. Rural has lots of nice hidden dangers (watch the Think! video on "a perfect day" showing examples of hazards in a rural environment!)

I must make it clear that I am not at all saying you should drive AT the limit all the time, just that you should never exceed it, before I get some cheap shots from other people.



Even more reason to know how the vehicle feels at speeds. It's no excuse - it doesn't take long to familiarise yourself with a vehicle.



What about in the 1970s then when speed cameras weren't even heard of? What "money making" ideas did they have back then, when speed limit compliance was a lot worse (and cars were less safe)



What have speed limit reviews got to do with what I posted?



The big "60" sign makes the speed camera irrelevant to those who obey the limit. It's not like you get flashed at 61 either.

They are not slowing people down though. Now let's look at someof these deaths near scams.

Sisters tell me of a Truvelo on the A575. Road qualified apparently as it had had 3 KSI within 4 years. Only -

2 occurred half a mile from the camera. Each one involving a woman runnning across a busy road to catch a bus. The other one? Driver had a heart attack and mounted the pavement narrowly missing a woman pushing a pram and her toddler. The only K was the driver and thankfully the pedestrians were not even hit.

About a month ago - an elderly man was knocked down - close to the dual carriageway where the first two accidents had occurred. He crossed the road a few yard further down from the pelican crossing. A car had apparently set off from the traffic lights leading to a shopping centre and the chap simply started to cross without looking per the my two sisters who had parked up directly opposite this accident scene to do their shopping and other witnesses told them what had happened.

Two years ago one teenage girl died and her pal was injured when a drugged and drunken DJ whose party these girls had attended and he had driven them home and proceeded to show off some handbrake turns at a wide junction (no cams) but still only just under a mile away from this Truvelo and thus deemed to be "enforcing speed on a supposedly dangerous road"

So NO. They only control speed for the split second you pass them and do bugger all to save any lives at all

Co-incidentally my sisters do tell me that a car did skid into a car parked in a parking bay near this Truvelo. No injury - apart to the cars - one of which had to be written off as not viable to repair

Quote:

* Nearly every time a report is made on this site about a death, or serious injury - if the reports say the person was travelling at excessive speed, it is always written off as "being irrelevant to the cause".

I have been monitoring regional press. Each item which appears almost daily in these articles have been quoted directly, or scanned and the story from the link pasted as well.

Each one does suggest "speed" was involved. But 99% of the drivers did not have any legal entitlement to drive either. TWOCS, Drink,.. drugs.. fatigue... and the odd illness behind the wheel.

So the primary cause of these accidents would

Ahh yes


[i] a driver who would not be bothered or punished at all by one of these devices and will continue to cause carnage because of the blind faith in these and a reduction of real policemen.

Yep.. I feel a lot safer now. NOT! ::banghead:







What a strange pecking order..

Driver has the final say if he hits someone or not. Look matey - the driver who hit my wife had no say really. He was dying at the time.

Guy who took out Ferdl? Well had he or the operator serviced the damned truck .. then perhaps it would not have happened - but when that tyre blew - he had zero controls....

The guy who spun on black ice and collided with cyclists - he was NOT speediing. He had defective tyres and this would have caused a spin and he would most certainly have been very liable and rightly prosecuted for causing that tragedy had it been wet weather - but would not matter if old or new tyres on a deep black ice shaft like that. (Once set off in sunshine and hit black ice on a stretch of road around here. Fortunately not driving at all fast but it still took me just a bit by surprise and all I can say - good job I did that skid training after all. )

But basically all you are saying is still COAST and POWER

But you will still be blipping under and over all the time. Blip too much and you can get points. I would not advise "learning how the vehicle feels at various speeds" in either Wales or Lancs or Oxon or Cambs or Northants or Leics.

Do that and you could still get pinged as marginal as on a low level downward gradient or a highly polished road surface - it's very easy for a speed to creep upwards without actually discerning this very stealthlike increase.

Try riding your bicycle on one low level slope Martin. You may find you end up with a runaway bike on these quite easily. You would not necessarily feel this bike increasing its speed .. but it is doing. We do like to time ourselves on our loops and we like to pick up speed on the downs cos it's fun on a bicycle Add the child seat and a child for a little weighting and

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I’ve seen a great many abruptly slow down even though they were already within the limit, some braking to 26mph for a camera ** enforcing a 40 limit (yes I’ve done field work)


Probably none – with the caveat that they are indirectly responsible for a great many.

How many of the fatalities would have occurred had the subsequently placed camera already been installed?


I think I went off on a tangent here. Can you give some examples of some which were ‘written off’’ so we can discuss the merits?


Then I would disagree with your scaling. I reckon the driver usually doesn’t have final say whether they hit someone or not – is the ratio 60% the pedestrian’s fault? Granted drivers must act in a predictable manner (not exceed 30 in an area where others can reasonably expect them not to)


So are we or are we not able to determine an appropriate speed?
Is it not better to eliminate the ‘hidden’ or the ‘hazard’?


Nope. Twister has already elaborated as to why.


Oh maaaan, people were recovering from the 60s, give them a chance

Seriously, was compliance a lot worse back then?
I don’t think you can compare the attitude of drivers against those from another generation.
Regardless, it doesn’t mean we should now be overly regulative; doing so will make it worse.


If drivers go slow enough at survey sites (as detailed above) – which people usually mistake for enforcement sites ** - the limit is ratcheted downwards. Limits are being dropped everywhere, to well below naturally safe driving speeds (85th percentile)


I don’t see how your response is relevant to my answer.

At least one, to my certain knowledge. And that's one too many...


Agreed


Surely the bit I've highlighted is irrelevant if you adhere to the rest...


Agreed

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

They do indeed. Pavlov dog effect They seem to think all these speed doo-dahs are on 30 mph roads only. It's rather dangerous when they hit the panic button You think they don't. We had this at Ings and one on a 60 mph limit in Lancs a few times now



How many lives have been "saved" by one

All they do is ping a driver who can be traced. Most of the cases I highlight are occurring daily and very few of these illegal scrotes are caught. When they are - soul destroying for IG and Stephen and Ian as they get a ban and a fine. - then go off and do the same thing again If they are locked up - not long enough and we all know it.

But these are the real killers out there and no speed camera is going to save folk from them.

On the R4 prog - Kev Delaney recounted how he was one of the first to deploy the scams when a senior officer with the Met.

On the prog - he was driving along with the BBC journalist - commenting on scams on that route.






You can accelerate out of danger as well as slow down. An example of this might to be to accelerate out of the way of something approaching you on a roundabout. It works for drivers just as much as cyclists (see IG's post from C plus magazine)

Or once Wildy was overtaking a convoy of caravans on M6. They were at 60 mph in L1. Wildy tootles past at a legal speed and as she's about to complete her overtake and return to L1 ready to exit at our junction - the first caravan decides to accelerate. (He's very illegal by the way at this point in both speed and undertaking attempt). Wildy has a choice - she either stays legal and "hogs a middle lane" in a sort of bizarre "elephant race type scenario" or she drops the speed to a dangerously low level so as to drop back behind this entire convoy or she accelerates above the speed limit for a second to complete the overtake


She chose option three and within a blink of an eye reached a heady 70 mph - completed the overtake, returned to L1 with a courteous space to the muppet towing the caravan and eased back to 70 mph before reaching Shap Now this was by far the safest and most logical option as the others could have caused some very real dangers to the those towing a van - one of which was old and a little "unstable" compared to the two more modern ones in that convoy. (The muppet had one of the newer ones... Wildy said the middle one was " a bit dodgy and Hamster and Clarkson should have played "conkers" with it! )

But Martin mate - there are then definitely occasions when exceeding the speed limit for an instance could save your life. Had Wildy done this very safe and life saving manoeuvre in front of a van at Shap - we might have been arguing this logic to a magistrate. We would also have used the illegal speed of the caravan tower which was far more dangerous as well as presumably they would have required their £60 from him too.

Fortunately though - this occurred before Shap and this was not a timetabled day either

I have no doubt that Ian would have pulled the caravan for trying to prevent an overtake and accelerating to create a danger to another road user too.

Er- that's why we want police and not silly vans who are just interested in speed and not the actual situation.



But we still come back to COAST on this too

We also really need to deal with feral children, weak parenting skills and attitudes to alcohol in this country.

I once posted up the story of a teenager who drank 2 bottles of neat vodka - staggered out into the path of a car. He was speeding. He admitted this .. but even at a legal speed - she would have been just as dead given the alcohol levels in such a young immature body and the trauma of a collision He escaped a death by dangerous conviction because of her drunken state. She died at the scene .. after 11 pm . Just aged 14 years. Her parents campaigned and got a speed camera. Funny how they discovered their love for her after allowing her to mope around the streets on chilly February nights drinking vodka like "pop"

Parental love - it's not about letting the kids have whatever they want. it's about nurturing and nurturing discipline, morals and ethics within them. That's the best gift you can try to give them.. and it is not an easy one to actually do either.

You can only try your best on that one


See above comment re Wildy's overtake of the caravans which meant she had to accelerate to above the speed limit for a second or so to diffuse a rather daft manoeuvre




Hmmm .. PC Milton :scratcchin:

But it does depend on the driver and the car. Some find it hard to re-adjust after automatics and vice-versa.

Besides you know your own car. Wildy and self each own a Moggie. Mine feels different to hers (a soft top version) and our two Jags are not at all alike either in "feel". It's a bit like a favourite pen or keyboard. You know the feel of your own. If you use another keyboard or even someone else's pen .. it somehow "feels" different to you



You used to see loads of cops when I passed my test. They used to stop folk too.

Attitude then as now made a difference as to outcome

But people at least knew why they had been stopped and prosecuted.



Martin - far too often in Lancs - but to give Steve his dues - not so much here to be fair to him - we see them stationed just at the speed limit changes - pinging as people decelerate to comply with the new lolly - ie just at the border lines

And what about Folly Bottom? Incorrect placing of scams in tempo limits in Manchester (on archives here from Manchester press) and the M4 Wales stupidity?

These scams are not foolproof

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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.

Perhaprs 'mpaton'would like to regale us with his views on the period of Prohibition of Alcohol in the United States. Was a person having an alcoholic drink during this period a wicked criminal deserving of the most severe of punishments, or not ?

When everybody is being prosecuted, and we are near,if not beyond that point now with cash cameras, it is the law that is at fault not the citizen.

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