Safe Speed Forums

There's a thread on this, Here

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"CAMERAS "DO NOT" SAVE LIVES" !!
(Richard Brunstrom Says so !!)

ACPO are issuing a denial:

Ian Bell - ACPO's National Safety Camera Co-ordinator said:

"A number of national newspapers have carried reports concerning certain statements made by Mr Brunstrom on behalf of ACPO Roads Policing concerning developments within the National Safety Camera Programme. I have spoken personally with Mr Brunstrom who assures me that these articles are a case of selective reporting from presentations he has recently given.

Mr Brunstrom’s point being is that with almost 6000 approved sites the majority of casualty cluster locations are now in the programme. We know from the Three Year Report that safety cameras work in reducing speed and casualties. The programme now needs to develop to take account of other locations where safety cameras can assist in reducing casualties."

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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

As the saying goes, if it looks too good to be true it probably isn't.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Assuming that the words attributed to Richard Brunstrom were accurately reported, they'd it would be one hell of a context you'd have to put them in to make them line up with Ian Bell's statement!

This demonstrates beautifully the problems of trying to "live a lie". The more you weave the more you get tied in knots!

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

Oh Yes! Safe Speed issued the following PR at 16:59:

PR179: ACPO's shameful spin

News: for immediate release.

Following the Sunday Mirror's revelations concerning Mr Brunstrom's
opinions about the effectiveness of the speed camera programme, ACPO
have issued a denial statement. But the denial statement serves only
to highlight and confirm the failure of the speed camera programme.

In the denial statement, ACPO's Ian Bell says: "Mr Brunstrom's point
being is that with almost 6000 approved sites the majority of casualty
cluster locations are now in the programme. We know from the Three
Year Report that safety cameras work in reducing speed and casualties.
The programme now needs to develop to take account of other locations
where safety cameras can assist in reducing casualties."

Safe Speed says:

* If the majority of the accident cluster sites are covered and deaths
are going UP then the speed camera programme is a complete failure.
It's purpose it to save lives, but it doesn't work and never will. We
have a decade of proof.

* The casualty reduction claims in the report of the 3 year pilot is a
fraud that depends on statistical errors well known to the authors.

* The idea of developing the speed camera programme to take account of
'other locations' is absurd. Are these places where there are no
crashes this year, but where there will be crashes next year unless we
install a camera?

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "Who is going to bring these 21st century
snake oil salesmen to account? Speed cameras are not magic accident
reducing machines. They don't even work. They hand out misery and make
the roads more dangerous, particularly by replacing worthwhile
policies. I am deeply ashamed to live in a country where road safety
facts are spun and twisted to support sad little careers at the
expense of human life."

<ends>

Original Sunday Mirror article:
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_o ... _page.html

Safe Speed PRs concerning deliberate statistical errors in the report
of the three year pilot:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr126.html
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/pr127.html

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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

It's good to see a bit of common sense appearing in Mr Brunstrom's opinions on road safety. I must say however Paul, that I think your call for his resignation, is totally wrong. I have submitted previous posts in other topics making my feelings clear on our 'Resignation Nation'.

Just because some one in some peoples opinion makes a mistake, doesn't mean they should loose their job as a consequence. Mr Brunstroms views may not be popular, but then as I like to say "I didn't join this job to be popular".
Over the years he has dedicated himself to law enforcement, and certainly should not have to resign because he has implemented a policy that appears not to have worked, and has had the common sense and indeed bravery to say it hasn’t worked.

PS, if he resigns, the person who fills his boots, may be all for more camera's

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'Detritus, get yer stoney arse over ere'

Neil

It's not that he made a mistake, it's that he perpetuated it in the face of both circumstancial and statistical evidence that he must have been made aware of in words of one syllable, but was too besotted with his own falsehood and too blind to see it for many many years.

I'd rather have a former scamera fan who's seen the light keep the job than resign in favour of someone who might carry on as before. Unfortunately the evidence that he's really had a change of heart seems a bit equivocal at the moment. Even without the ACPO denial he hasn't actually said anything about removing all the scams or (better IMO) getting a truly independant audit of every single site, mobile and fixed, and leaving the whole shooting match switched off until that's complete. I'm not holding my breath.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

On the other hand, the fact that supporting cameras cost the last bloke his career might be quite a good incentive for the guy who takes over...

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

Exactly. We're gradually moving towards the core issue: Responsibility.

Leaders can back a hunch, but if they are wrong they are responsible.

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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

It'd be nice to think so, but it could just mean the next guy is scared to speak out against the scams... that's assuming they'd hire someone that isn't rabidly pro-scam in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I haven't suddenly turned into a Brunstrom fan or anything. Right now I think he should resign because he hasn't done a u-turn on the scams. If he ever did... well, the the least he could do is stay to long enough clear his mess up, really .

Anyway, it's a moot point because I don't think it's happened yet and I doubt it's going to. When he publicly calls for all the North Wales scams to be removed and withdraws his force from the pratnership, then I'll be convinced he's come round. Until then I suspect anything he says that sounds vaguely anti-scam is merely playing to an increasingly sceptical public and media gallery.

Edit: One final thought about sacking/forcing resignation on a CC who changes their mind on scams. If it turns out to be career suicide it might disincentivise anyone else with doubts from going public as well. Keep shtum, keep the job, don't make waves, I can always write a piece for the Mail once I retire and my pension's safe. Maybe the new guy will fix it. Someone is bound to sooner or later. I'd rather not wait that long for the return of sanity.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Meg alink

No U-turn on speed as crackdown goes on
Mar 15 2005
By Tom Bodden, Daily Post

POLICE bosses last night defended the use of speed cameras despite claims of a U-turn by North Wales' anti-speeding chief constable.

According to reports, Richard Brunstrom appeared to admit road deaths had risen despite the blitz on motorists.

But anti-speed campaigners in North Wales insisted the camera crackdown would continue.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) claimed Mr Brunstrom had been the victim of "selective reporting".

Mr Brunstrom suggested the majority of speeding hotspots were already covered by almost 6,000 cameras.

And he is said to have hinted at a U-turn after 3,508 people died on UK roads in 2003 - the highest number since 1997 - despite fines for 2.2m drivers trapped by cameras.

Ian Bell, Acpo national safety camera co-ordinator, said yesterday the reported comments by the chief were off track.

"I have spoken personally with Mr Brunstrom who assures me that these articles are a case of selective reporting from presentations he has recently given. We know from the three-year report that safety cameras work in reducing speed and casualties.

"The programme now needs to develop to take account of other locations where safety cameras can assist in reducing casualties," Mr Bell said..

Mr Brunstrom was reported to have said: "We cannot keep going until we have a camera on every lamppost. We have to stop somewhere. When we look at road deaths, we discover we are dreadfully out of step. We want to create a culture where cameras are our friends."

Mr Brunstrom previously branded speeders "anti-social yobs" and said: "It is beyond doubt that speed cameras prevent death and injury."

Beth Mitchison, from Arrive Alive, said deaths and serious injuries on 61 targeted roads were reducing.

"But collisions are migrating to other routes not enforced by cameras," she said..

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign, called for the chief con-stable to resign, and added: "If speed cameras had never been introduced, UK road deaths would be down to about 2,200 per year by now - just by following the previous long term trend.

REALLY?



And his drug addict friends are really nice people despite slipping knifes into people

Regards


Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

Famous last words....should be printed on the top of his P45

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Speed camera policy Kills

Finally more press to back up the Sunday Mirror article.

http://www.thisisbournemouth.co.uk/dorset/bournemouth/news/BOURN_NEWS_NEWS0.html

This link only lasts 24 hours, so the text is repeated below, word for word.

Filched from a police website, the following comment by posters on there.


Excellent because they cause accidents

the best example of this is durham police - no speed cameras, more traffic patrols and the lowest accident rate in the country.....

there was a thing in the paper about % of tickets per person from cameras and dorset for it's size was really high rate. only a couple of yrs ago our fatal rate per person was also high (think the highest in england at the time).

Same here for North Yorks, no cameras, just patrols and the number of accidents is pretty low!

Shame forces like staffs (no traffic dept, hundreds of cameras) havent spotted this link....

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

ACPO in Speed Camera Disarray After Brunstrom Speaks Out.

Rethink of Speed Policy Urgently Required.

The ABD today encouraged the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and North Wales CC Richard Brunstrom to press ahead with a rethink on speed cameras following the recent confusion surrounding their position.

This week, Mr Brunstrom, ACPO's road policing supremo, was quoted in the Sunday Mirror (1) accepting that 6000 speed cameras placed in so called "accident blackspots" have failed to cut road deaths, and calling for a rethink. "We have to stop somewhere," he said.

This prompted a swift but somewhat contrived statement by ACPO's Ian Bell (2) that Mr Brunstrom was really calling for even more cameras to be put where there had been no accidents.

"We can understand why ACPO are trying to wriggle out of this," said the ABD's Nigel Humphries. "But the quotes attributed to Brunstrom were pretty clear to the Sunday Mirror and pretty clear to us. They have put cameras in all the accident blackspots, caught 2.2 million drivers in a year and it has made no impression on road deaths. That's enough to make anyone rethink their position."

The ABD is not surprised that Richard Brunstrom has started to doubt the value of his fanatical support for speed cameras. Late last year, he told the Institute of Advanced Motorists that some speed limits were "barmy" (3) and should be changed, as they had no public credibility.

"You don't have to be Einstein to work out that his position on cameras became untenable as soon as he uttered these words," continued Humphries. "Campaigning for the rigid enforcement of limits he thinks are bonkers just makes him look foolish. And if he thinks the limits should be higher, he cannot credibly use safety as a justification for their indiscriminate enforcement."

So it is not surprising that this particular penny has begun to drop in Mr Brunstrom's mind.

But he needs to develop his thinking further. The failure of the "speed kills" policy to reduce road deaths over the last ten years means that he has to deal with the fundamental problem - the road safety industry has got the relationship between speed and accidents completely wrong. Unless Mr Brunstrom corrects this, any rethink of camera policy is doomed.

"It is the driver who must manage his speed according to changing road conditions. Nobody else can do it for him - there is no robotic driving process that can match a human," continues Humphries. "So any effective safety policy must focus on helping the driver to do this better, and applying sanctions only when he wilfully does not."

The reason for the failure of "speed kills" is that rigid enforcement of barmy limits prevents the driver from correctly managing his speed, eventually removing his ability to do so. Unbelieveably, key influencers of road safety policy actually think that this is a sensible thing to do. It isn't - it is ruinous thinking that has been banished from every other field of human endeavour as reactionary and dated.

"Speed Kills" is a pernicious and damaging philosophy, born out of sheer ignorance about driving, which is destroying the ability of the motoring public to drive safety," concludes ABD Chairman Brian Gregory. "Only when it is laid to rest can road safety be rebuilt."

Notes

(1) What Brunstrom was quoted as saying in the Sunday Mirror:

"We have 6,000 cameras in the UK covering every identifiable hotspot, yet road deaths have gone up," said Mr Brunstrom, head of road policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers. "We can't keep on going until there is a camera on each lamppost. We've got to stop somewhere."
The ACPO wants to double the number of cameras to 12,000, but Mr Brunstrom called for a rethink after latest figures showed 3,508 died on our roads in 2003 - the highest figure since 1997. And last year deaths and serious injuries actually increased at one camera site in seven, even though 2.2millon drivers were fined and had three points put on their licence.

(2) ACPO's Ian Bell said:

"Mr Brunstrom's point being is that with almost 6000 approved sites the majority of casualty cluster locations are now in the programme. We know from the Three Year Report that safety cameras work in reducing speed and casualties. The programme now needs to develop to take account of other locations where safety cameras can assist in reducing casualties."

(3) Full Brunstrom quote on speed limits at the IAM dinner:

"Every one of us can think of a speed limit that appears to be completely barmy, utterly bonkers. And if you think it's bonkers you are much less likely to comply with it, he said. What we need are speed limits that have credibility in the public mind. We need to have a root and branch reform of every speed limit throughout the country."


http://www.abd.org.uk/pr/433.htm

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"CAMERAS "DO NOT" SAVE LIVES" !!
(Richard Brunstrom Says so !!)

I posted that mad mullahs comments to the Suffolk SCP, with a heading, 'Your days are numbered'

Hopefully we can go back to watching the road ahead instead of having a speedometer fixation. But cynic that I am, I bet Brunstrom's been told to keep his gob shut until after the General Election.