Safe Speed Forums

Well having come back to just quickly check my email accounts and turn off the PC, I find that both you AND Steve have posted responses again. So just quickly (but I'll deal with your main point regarding 'reps' another time)........ On thinking about it again, I'm not sure it really makes sense to talk in terms of between two figures, as the lesser of the two is included in the larger of the two. But YES, keeping to within 12% of a 30mph limit is a doddle. 12% either side of it, that is!

As for motorways, allow me to elaborate: I very, very rarely use them (or have need of using them), and especially in the daytime when they're choc-a-bloc. I prefer to take the alternative route even if it does take a bit longer (I'm talking of journeys of 10 to 30/40 miles). But on the rare occasion that I DO use them - and I can't recall the last time......must be a couple of years ago or more - I stay on the inside lane, AND, I don't have to overtake THAT often. To be honest, I thought the max speed for lorries was 60mph on motorways, but praps that's because my speedo says around the 60 mark and I just didn't ever stop to think that that's more like 56 or 57mph.

Actually, it's just occured to me (after a few moments thought) that it's only sometime in the last couple of years that I learnt that speedos generally show your speed to be several mph more than you're actually doing.......I can't remember specifically when it was, but I'm pretty sure is was to do with something in relation to speed cams. But anyway, that's the speed I tend to drive at on motorways whether it's choc-o-bloc or more-or-less empty, because that's the speed I feel comfortable with. And I (can) stay within 5mph either side of that no problem.

So yes, I meant either side, and I guess I obviously misconstrued what you said - what you meant. So after ALL that, it transpires that we are more-or-less the same - in fact you are marginally better - and THAT no doubt is about the average for drivers.


PS

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I am trying, but it just can't do it!

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This probably isn't gonna come across like I actually mean it, but I'll say it anyway (what I mean is, that if it sounds as if I'm being critical, please believe me, I'm not).

I have just read through all the posts in this thread, and the further it goes on, the more confusing and convoluted it gets, even for ME, and I was contributing to it! But for anyone just browsing through it - or trying to - I can only imagine that most will just give up after a while because it's just too confusing to follow. And I think I've figured out what the problem is and, in so doing, what the solution is. So I would like to suggest starting a new thread on this topic, BUT, debating it with just one person. I am pro-camera, as will be more than obvious by now, or, to be more precise, pro slowing down traffic to a relatively safe, but practical level. Or to put it another way, I am pro whatever it takes to reduce the carnage on the roads and the devastation that it causes insofar as is possible.

I realise that most of the members of this forum are anti-camera and, yes, they have their shortcomings - the cameras, that is! - but I would hope that your objective is much the same as mine, and in that respect, we can debate the best way forward to achieve that outcome. I'm new to this forum, and only joined up yesterday as a consequence of seeing in one of the search engine results I got regarding the 'Cameras have caused 28,000 accidents' story, that there was a debate about it going on here. But I am of course familiar with Safespeed, and have been for many years. I am not affiliated to any group or organisation, but I have witnessed (many years ago), first hand, the total shell-shock and devastation and unbearable pain that people experience when someone they love with all their hearts' is killed in a car-crash (I was with my then girlfriend when her father told her that her sister (and she only had the one sister) had been killed in a crash.......someone speeding and dangerously overtaking coming in the opposite direction. She 'died' that day too.

So anyway, if there is someone that would like to engage in a one-on-one debate, so to speak, please respond to this post and we can start a new thread. And the debate doesn't have to be frantic, we can just take it nice and slow - like one of those games of chess where each person/player can take two or three days or more to make the next move. Over, and out.


Afterthoughts:

1) It's now 6.53am - about half-an-hour after I wrote the above - and it's occurred to me in the meantime that I didn't really make it clear as to what I would like to debate. I'm not just talking about debating the results of the survey being discussed on this thread, but the complete topic of speed cameras, and traffic police and road safety. But the starting point can be the results of the survey.

2) And just to be clear about how the one-on-one process will work.......There will be no need to use the 'quote' facility, which is OK when used once or twice, but just becomes totally confusing by the third or fourth time. The process will just be first one person making comments, then the other, and so on. I'm not sure that I completely understand how things work on this site/forum, but I think I'm right in saying that doing it the way I suggest will involve having the page up twice and copying and pasting comments that the other person has made........

No doubt there are other aspects to having such a debate that need to be sorted out initially, but they can be discussed and agreed upon prior to commencing the debate.

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One-on-one debates aren't really how forums work, to be honest! I agree it sometimes gets confusing, but they are, essentially, a debate between a number of people. I don't know if there's a mechanism for keeping a thread down to just two posters! There' is a "Private Message" facility - so if you click on a user's name, you ought to get the option of sending them a private message - to which they can then respond. That said, I find it quite stimulating when a group of people all chip in with various ideas - and it's often fun to see what path a thread takes as it unfolds!

You're quite right, most of the people on here are anti-camera. I'm sure we all have our various reasons - some of which will be common to many users and some will be more personal. As far as I'm concerned, I think they have a very limited place, but they've been abused over the years and I hardly ever see them in places where I think the might be able to fulfil some sort of useful purpose. (For instance, outside a school and on a timer so that they only work when there are likely to be kids about). The problem is that cameras make speeding an absolute offence, but they're not smart enough to recognise when exceeding a speed limit might be dangerous and when it is merely a technical infringement.

I'm very sorry to hear of your ex-girlfriend's sister's loss. I don't think you'll find anyone on here who WANTS more carnage on the roads - it's just a question of how best to go about reducing the carnage, whilst stil retaining the benefits that the motor car brings to society. You say that:

"...I am pro-camera, as will be more than obvious by now, or, to be more precise, pro slowing down traffic to a relatively safe, but practical level...."

Yes, that, of course, is the trick! I think we can both agree with your statement - the trouble will come in determining what is "reatively safe but practical"! I'm guessing that my interpretation of that will differ from yours!

It is interesting that you said the accident was caused by a speeding driver on the wrong side of the road. Clearly, cameras can only tackle ONE of the factors that lead to that tragic accident - and in my view, not the primary one! I know nothing about the other circumstances of the accident, but it seems to me that the other driver being on the wrong side of the road was the problem - the speed just made the consequeces worse. IF we were to limit speeds on all roads such that we could guarantee that the effects of a head-on collision would never be fatal, I think we'd end up way too far on the wrong side of your "relatively safe, but practical" equation!

...and just to further confuse the thread (and I'm just one poster!!!) ...



Yes, it's a legal requirement for speedos to under-read. Depending on what level of type approval the car was built to, most of them are allowed to over-read by up to 10% + 2.5MPH, but NEVER under-read (although I have come across the odd vehicle that does under-read slightly for whatever reason - that's illegal, but mabe a debate for a different time)! I drive pretty enormous mileages (even though I'm not a rep!) - maybe 25,000 miles a year, on all types of road from motorway to single track rural mountain roads. I most certainly do NOT keep my speed on motorways within a band as narrow as you do - usually because I'm forced not to by other traffic. On a motorway with little traffic, I drive at a much more constant speed, but I wouldn't normally bother trying to keep it within such narrow limits. On Friday, I did about 350 miles - much of it on motorway. Doing that sort of distance and trying to keep within (say) + / - 10% would be (for me at least!) very tiring and an unnecessary drain on concentration.

What carnage ? There is no carnage in the proper sense of that term.

In relation to the number of drivers and vehicles in use - and indeed the whole range of road users and their various means of travel - the accident rate is exceedingly low.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

I didn't say "Highways Agency" before; I answered your question "who says".
The stated "11 seconds" was not any form of recommendation, it was measured observation, taken from a table.


So is the point about refocussing (twice), as well as the total time needed for a check, is accepted?


So the point about the "better ways of solving the 'problem'" is accepted?


How superfluous was that response......


Thank you!


The reader will likely see it that way, even if you were being sarcastic.
Do you accept that cameras have replaced/displaced trafpol?


It was a multi-choice question. So is your re-considered answer the former or the latter?


Well, I'm sure the reader understands my point here, so I'll leave it there.



It is good that you want to contribute, but I completely reject that particular idea.
I have found that a lack of quotes allows manipulation of expectation. It is a classic trick: formatting a response such that it isn't apparent that the issues raised haven't been evaded - I've seen this done by upper managers during a redundancy 'consultation process' so I'm very wary of this tactic.
I'm not afraid of addressing all the raised points - and I like to show that too. Sorry but that's the way it is!

Perhaps it is easier for all if you learn how to use the quote tags properly

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

I think we need to step back a few years and ask firstly, were accidents simply not reducing fast enough with existing measures, that the government saw fit to introduce speed cameras - then "Safety Camera Partnerships"?

Then what made the government decide to make the cameras conspicuous? What reasons did they give?

So now why are some pro camera supporters calling for them to be made covert - hidden from view? What has changed?

And what does Kevin Delaney say about cameras? He WAS responsible for installing some of the very first ones I believe?

Punishing speeding is not the same thing as encouraging safer driving!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Perhaps, dependent on how quiet your engine is, and whether you have a manual or automatic. But this is under steady-speed conditions. It's not so easy when, due to traffic conditions, you're speeding up and slowing down all the time. Then it's not so easy to ensure that you're not exceeding the limit without frequent recourse to your speedo.

The thing that worries me is not so much the fact that it focuses peoples eyes on their speedo, but more so that it focuses their minds on speed, when their minds should be focused on hazards and potential hazards.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

This is something that perhaps has been lost in the mists of time .( and perhaps something the SCP wish to hide under the mat)


Ernest - my recollections were of major tabloids pressing the then Government to go back to the days of police being seen to be present .,embarrassing the ideas of hidden cameras a a means of covert cash collections.



quite right - safety ( IMHO) is about STOPPING an accident before it happens, not looking for the causes AFTER it happens

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yes, it's a funny thing really, but I've never yet met a driver who uses his or her speedo to decide how fast they can safely (or comfortably) take an unknown bend. The vast majority drivers have an innate ability to judge what's likely to happen as they put their car into a bend - and looking at the speedo doesn't play a part in that decision. I think it extends to stopping distances too, up to a point, - but that's a bit hazier. I'm sure we've discused this before, but I think that if you took all the speedos out of all the cars, you wouldn't get as many more crashes as you might imagine. You WOULD, I feel, get lots more prosecutions though!

I've often said, that a good driver can drive the length and breadth of Britain, without a speedo and without fear of an accident or putting anyone else in danger BUT they would certainly get points on their licence for doing so.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Thirty years ago I had a company car and we were charged for private mileage above a certain limit. So I used to disconnect the speedo cable once I got near the limit, usually six or seven months into the year. Aas you say, no accidents and - in those pre camera days - no prosecutions. And I was not a very experienced driver back then,

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I had the opposite scenario, whereby I used to put an electric motor onto my speedo cable to increase the "mileage", I had covered in a week, to justify the petrol I was using...

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Your two posts above are classic examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. All this mileage payment stuff came about because of company car taxation policy by successive Governments.

You remember that, years ago, your personal tax charge was halved if you did over 18,000 business miles per year. Hence the electric drill on the speedo. People also drove unnecessary journeys just to get their mileage up.

Then they changed to a huge tax bill for fuel unless you refunded private mileage to the company. So people disconnected speedos to reduce their apparent travel.

Totally daft rules thought up by Civil Servants who, of course, didn't get company cars and didn't realise they were "tools of the trade" for salesmen.

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

It wouldn't surprise me if removing speedos from cars (and presumably stopping speeding prosecutions) actually led, on average, to lower speeds. It would effectively legitimise the behaviour of the "40 everywhere" driver. Speedos are not needed to drive safely; they are only needed to enable you to avoid being convicted of the offence of speeding. In practice, whatever the Highway Code says, drivers do regard the speed limit as a target, or even a minimum.

Do pedal cyclists have a problem in riding safely because their machines have no speedos?

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"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

Oh, I was doing well in excess of 18,000 miles (and it was late seventies so don't think the tax changes came in at that stage). The company that I worked for expected you to put your own petrol in for private useage but because of the work loads I was given, I was tearing about at a very uneconomical rate, so was using more petrol than they "expected" me to do for the mileage (they even had some pratt from a ford dealer "prove" that I should be getting much more MPG than I was. My reaction was, that they should cut my workload and mileage expectations and I could drive around like he managed to do (all his driving was on a dual carriageway and mine was mainly urban and rural country lanes) to get the mileage/gallon figures he was. Hence I used to wind on a few miles a week to justify the poor mpg I was getting and so I wouldn't have to put in a lot of my own petrol for private mileage.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

I dunno! I'm ashamed to be in such company! I'm particularly disappointed in YOU, DCB! I've always regarded you as a paragon of upright virtue!

Wasn't there a story (from before the war) of the young man courting a lass from a village 5 miles away, who used to nick his dad's car to go and see her, and then reverse 5 miles back home in the small hours so that the odometer reading didn't change?

Once again, post of the week to PeterE. It might make the roads a very different place in termns of driver behaviour. I imagine it would eliminate the nasty bunching that's such a feature of the camera age at a stroke.

That is, essentially, the argument used by the Police against the provision of accurate breathalysers in Public Houses.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown