Safe Speed Forums

I found this today while browsing my ISP home page.

An old age pensioner has been fined £100 for flicking a double v-sign at a speed camera.

Frank Benson, 71, from High Above Park in Selside, Cumbria appeared in court on Friday after he made the gesture in Kendal.

The speed camera in question had previously resulted in him being given a £60 fine for driving at 44mph in a 40mph area.

But after getting his own personal victory over the camera, he found himself hauled in front of South Lakeland Magistrates for not being in control of his car.

He was fined £100 and told to pay £35 costs.

His son Tom defended his father saying that the folly was a "spur of the moment reaction" to having been caught by the camera before.

It's certainly a sad story, but I don't really think we should have drivers taking both hands off the wheel.

Perhaps I should add it to the list of speed camera side effects?

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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

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as the guy wasn't speeding should the camera have been able to take his picture, or is this a case of "trawling" for offences.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Apparently it was a mobile, manually operated camera taking video footage. I did wonder why a competent (??!!!) legal individual didn't challenge the existance of the 'evidence' on the basis that the officer should have formed an (incorrect) opinion the vehicle was speeding before actually taking a reading.

Tis Cumbria after all

They claim they play according to guidelines (10% + 2 for first one )

They zap anything that moves! We know this! They zap us on regular basis!!! Not very good at judging speed at all!


Their chief twit turned up on PH and ran over the wife there! Gather furballs flew! Predictably, he was asked questions which required longer and more informed details than the rhetoric - and he was off back to hide in his vans!

However, can understand his frustration - but should not have removed both hands at 20mph - especially in front of someone who just loves to stir and make money! Wonder what they make of our 6 year old - though! He sticks out his tongue at them! Bringin' 'em the right way!

Bloomin' heck, can't you poms steer with your knees?

You'd never ride a farm bike in NZ!

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Alan Wilkinson (at http://www.fastandsafe.org)

Get enough of that from my aussie mates, now it turns out you lot are just as bad. No mate. Can't be done. It distracts us from whining about things.

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

Saw him on there and thought he was abused by the juvenile attitude and regarded it as pointless rather than ran off.

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It's Champion Man

I suspect there's a bit more to it than that.

Give S.C. his due, he's neither naive nor stupid, so I don't think he'd exactly have been surprised nor too offended when one or two of the PH members gave him a bit of stick. Most did seem to accept that he was quite brave in sticking his head over the parapet, so to speak, and kept it non-personal.

No, I suspect the real issue was that sooner or later he'd have ended up at loggerheads with one or two of the Traffic Policemen who post regularly on there, are well respected, and who are basically "anti-camera". I think he had the wisdom to jump ship before he backed himself into the untenable position of having to suport either cameras or TrafPols!

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

To Chumps - WildyCat (my wife - mate) is not juvenile. Much as it pains me to have to admit it - she is one heck of a brainy lady and a darned good, safe motorist. She blew a fuse at SC because he disputed his aggressive talivan activity on tourist roads over Bank Hol weekend. We both saw the talivan acitivteis for ourselves - and we get zapped repeatedly by their vans - despite driving under speed limit! She simply and very rightly called him to account on this. He did not take the hump at her - and there was a jolly friendly-ish banter between them after she drew some blood!

True! Wildy can be a little OTT at times Suspect this has more to do with fact she is still alive after the nasty incident than anything else. She lives to the max all the time - does not waste one second. And because of the incident (non fault) - probably more aware than anyone else on here of what a crunch at high speed actually means. But she is not one to tolerate b*********t from anyone !

Her response was straightforward and honest - and in fairness - he did accept her views as far his job enabled him to. I could read that within his answers to her anyway. Not a daft man as JT rightly says! But Chumps - no offence but - you sometimes appear to be so

But. agree with JT - suspect our Steve was perhaps a little scaredy cats of the BiBs on there. I have posted on the Cumbrian site - but not as MM. In Gear was thinking of posting a nasty response to SC's comments on his boss - the one about the speeding and the offer to set up scams for them - but we might get Wildy to join up and do it. Think this would give more laughs!

You know what she is like - cat burglar (who has not managed to crack my codes to my PC (haha) since - so far ),l and went on all my fave forums calling everyone "dahhling!"

They had a new BiB on PH - joined up at the weekend - who has just announced that forum, after 168 posts, is "not for him!" . Dunno if Wildy did upset him! Wildy is a little concerned as she now thinks she "hurt his feelings by playing a rough girl!" In all honesty - I read through the threads - and all she did was poke a little fun and just pull his arguments apart a little. Good heavens - he must meet tougher lawyers. We have those in this family too - Beagle did make response to Mrs Law Abider . Beagle and the road safety nerd are both silks - and ultra-aggressive. I have watched them in court a couple of times - just to see what they do - and they really play to win. Would not like to be opposite either ot them - and they have batted for both CPS and defence!

This new BiB on PH did seem to get all lathered up at slightest criticism. Wildy passed comment on another BiB;s poor parking at the supermarket - and he got upset. He took hump at any contradiction to his point of view - and Wildy clawed him over it . Goodness know how he would cope with Willcove. I-G - if you note - does not get all steamed up at criticisms. Wildy did ask same question as willcove to PH BiBs. They, especially the new one, got steamed up and automatically supported the type of pracgice as outline by our Will. I-G's comment - if you note - was "not ideal but necessary" and used "reasonably safe" and not "perfectly safe"

The thing that upsets me is that whenever one asks a question that might actually be revealing he simply doesn't answer.

I REALLY can't get my head around the idea of controlling access to road safety information. How did we come to this?

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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

There's a phrase concerning pots and kettles that comes to mind. You've got a politician's instinct for dodging difficult questions yourself.

That's false. I'll have a stab at any question.

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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

Have a stab at this one, then.

Returning once more to the 12mph page:

What is the mechanism for causation of fatality in drivers in a 12mph collision in a modern car?

12mph is a pretty big impact you know. And the formula suggests that 1 in 1,300 might be expected to die. I certainly wouldn't regard that as impossible, which is what you seem to be implying.

As for mechanism, it'd be the same as any other - banging the head on the steering wheel or something.

But we really don't need to know or to care because we can't recalibrate all collisions to 12mph. What we can learn about from the page is that driver response mitigates the average impact speed massively and is therefore a key part of our road safety system.

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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

Sorry to "butt in", but I can easily envisage scenarios where a 12mph impact might kill the driver. Here's a few:

1. Impact with an (unseen) single prong sticking out of the back of a tractor, of the type used to pick up bales. driver runs into back of tractor at 12mph in a car with a relatively short bonnet, the first point of impact could easily be the prong entering the windscreen and hitting the drivers head, before any mechanisms have had a chance to reduce speed.

2. Impact with a protruding piece of scaffolding, perhaps distorted and pushed into the roadway after being caught by a passing lorry (say). Result same as 1 - driver doesn't even see what hits him!

3. Sports car legally travelling at 70mph down dual carriageway. Lorry doesn't see him and pulls across his path. Car brakes but is still travelling at 12mph when he goes under the side of the trailer. Not all lorries are fitted with skirts, and most agricultural vehicles aren't. First point of impact is windscreen at head level where (say) compressed air tank unluckily hits first, piercing the screen and hitting driver's head. Driver could have ducked but "froze" due to inexperience when the accident first seemed inevitable, so took no avoiding action.

All of these are pretty plausible, don't you agree? And a 12mph impact between a solid object and a human head will kill pretty much every time, especially if it is sharp.

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

Incorrect. As has been pointed out to you many times before, the Joksch equation is not valid at speeds below 30mph.

I'm not saying its impossible, simply highly unlikely: not nearly as likely as it would have to be for your model to work.

So you are finally admitting that the 12mph page bears no relation to the real world ?

In other words, you have discovered that drivers tend to slow down when they see a hazard, rather than ploughing straight into it. Ground-breaking work indeed, on a par with discovering that the sky is blue, and water is wet.

Almost everyone would see slowing down on encountering hazards as a Good Thing that drivers currently do.

The gist of some of the Safespeed arguments is that this very useful behaviour is being eroded by a culture of speed limit compliance above all else. We have already seen examples of crashes where people have said in their defence - "I wasn't speeding".

[/quote]

Come on, lets go a bit slower! How about some 5mph fatalities?

1. Same scenario as my previous (1), except this time the driver is in a traffic jam and is actually struck from behind by a tractor with the prong on the front. Could very easily kill, even with the car stationary and the tractor at only 5mph. Not much speed but a whole heap of momentum!

2. Mrs old lady lives in the country. halfway to the shops she realises she has forgotten something, so does a 3 point turn in a layby. whilst reversing into the layby at 5mph she misjudges and backs right off the road and into a drainage ditch. Car lands upside down with doors trapped shut, she is too infirm to climb out, cannot be seen from the road and expires due to exposure or perhaps drowning.

Now let's go all the way....

3. Driver negotiating icy country road, trying to maneuvre round uphill corner leaves road travelling at 1mph. slides into ditch and is trapped in car. Fresh snow covers the tracks within the hour.

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

How about, driver pulls out from junction without due care, heavy artic coming down the road, brakes, but doesn't quite stop in time, collosion speed 5-10mph, finally stops on top of car - driver crushed.

Regards
Peter