Safe Speed Forums

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4530464.stm

Rise in speed cameras could end

An end to the rapid rise in the number of speed cameras could be signalled in changes announced by the government.

Money from speeding fines may no longer be spent automatically on more cameras under plans due to be outlined by Transport Secretary Alistair Darling.

Instead, councils and police forces would be given extra money for other road safety measures.

Changes in a scheme between government, police and councils could mean there is no addition to the UK's 6,000 cameras.

Cameras 'removed'

Speed cameras have spread quickly in recent years, because under the camera partnership scheme - which involves government, the police and local authorities - a proportion of the money raised through fines can be reinvested in more cameras.

But a statement from Mr Darling is expected to say that in future it will be centrally allocated by the government for a wider range of local road safety improvements.

There will be fewer cameras and more 20mph zones, warning signs and traffic calming. Some cameras may even be removed.

BBC Transport Correspondent Tom Symonds said: "It's a sign ministers recognise the concerns many drivers have about speed cameras, as well as the desire of councils to spend road safety money more flexibly."

New figures suggesting cameras continue to save lives at the accident blackspots where they have been introduced are also expected to be released.

Mr Darling's statement is likely to come out alongside a report on the fourth year of the camera partnership scheme.
================================

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 06:50 this morning:

PR265: Speed camera announcements: initial reaction

news: for immediate release

Initial news on the Department for Transport plans to alter the speed camera
programme suggest that camera partnerships will be encouraged to spend speed camera cash on other road safety measures. Previously speeding fine cash has
only been spent on
more speed cameras fuelling viscous expansion.

However this new approach raises extremely serious issues:

* Will urgent road safety improvements be delayed until sufficient motorists
have been fined to pay for it?

* Will camera partnerships step up enforcement to pay for road safety
improvements?

* Do camera partnerships have the expertise to spend the cash wisely?

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "This announcement is very bad news for road
safety. It is hugely illogical - if the DfT still believed that speed cameras
save lives, why don't they continue to blanket the country? Clearly they have
realised that speed cameras don't work, but they lack the courage to shut down
the greedy camera partnerships, or even to admit their mistake."

"Speed cameras have proved to be a road safety red herring - they cost lives
because they focus everyone on the wrong safety factor and have replaced
worthwhile road safety policies. Apparently this totally unacceptable
situation is going to be allowed to blunder on costing lives."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

BBC News story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4530464.stm

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

Noted - using cash to put up 20 mph lollies and more humps :banghead - per news on radio!

Still - can cope with that so long as to lethal cycle lanes, speed cushions and humps and chicanes around here

_________________
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So this isn't the dramatic u-turn we hoped for the scamerati have long been toiling with the idea of improving their image through funding local 'safety' schemes. But to date the focus has always been 'speed management'.

I actually think traffic calming schemes are less popular than cameras as they effect everyone. Not just 'irrisponsible petrol heads'.

There is an excellent example of such a bad proposal near me. A major through road from one side of town to an industrial zone is to be fitted with a 7' pinch point at each end. Amusingly many of the residents who live in the road drive commercial vehicles (pickups, transits, flat beds etc) so how will they get home?

The real story is that quite clearly the new report has damming evidence.
Secondly the positive side is that we can legitimately campaign for the closure of dedicated scamerati as their business model has now gone back towards pre-hypothication.

Its a political gesture to try and shut the like of us up.....or more accurately the rest of the motoring public and press who are waking up to the decit.

I challenge Darling to Scrap Hypothecation and make the partnerships fund speed enforcement out of their own budgets!

Only then...when police and LA's are spending their own money will we see if they REALLY see speeding as the issue they make it out to be!

When the choice is 'cameras or schools' or 'mobile vans or community policing' lets see what happens.

I know we think they're slimy, buy are they really...

Seriously, it sounds very much like they are on the back foot and reeling. We need to keep punching!

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

Its very very true,

Bruno would have beaten tyson all those years ago if he'd kept on punching instead of backing off.

'They don't like it up em'

I am suspicious of the wording so I will reserve judgement till later.

This sounds like political window dressing to me.

If cameras were doing such a good job (still quoting massive reductions) why do a U turn on deployment.

Nothing on Toontown2000 web site yet...

Many of the Scamera Squads are running very tight on funding. It will be interesting to see how this will go for them. They rely on new sites to keep harvesting the crop of fines. Old sights give a very low yield.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Report out now!

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 10815.hcsp

Ok, as far as I can see from a quick "scan read" they've dealt with RTTM by saying that it reduces the claimed KSI reduction by an unspecified amount of approx 0 < RTTM < 42%!



What a load of bollocks!

What they seem to be saying is that KSIs are down 42%, that this figure can be reduced by RTTM, but we aren't going to do so!

But reading between the lines, of KSIs they say that...

"some proportion of the reduction in KSIs is due to regression-to-mean..."

then of PICs they say...

"A modest proportion of the reduction in PICs is due to regression-to-mean..."

Of course we already know that RTTM is inversely proportional to sample size. This is demonstrated by their "smoke and mirrors" quotes above, as the PICs are approximately ten times the sample size of KSIs. Given that fatalities are typically a further order of magnitude smaller then it seems very possible that the RTTM figure will be higher still.

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Appendix H:

"Thus RTM accounts for about three fifths of the observed reduction in FSCs with the effects of the cameras and trend each accounting for a fifth.

So that's 0.2 * 40% = 8% for the camera benefit then...

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

See my post in this thread for some conclusions, basically they buried the detail further in the report, P154 (H4.2) is the main conclusion - THREE FIFTHS of KSI reductions can be attributed to RTM, ONE FIFTH due to long-term trend and ONE FIFTH to the cameras.

Considering KSI is the MAIN target for partnerships this is a bit of a bomb-shell the government surely tried to bury.

Gareth

Which surely is just "lost in the noise" and not statistically significant.

_________________
"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

You got it - one for a press release I think. The headline said a 40% reduction in KSI, the detail says only one fifth of that could be attributable. I can't believe they did all the work, came to a figure and then described three fifths as "some reduction" in the executive summary. It would be interesting to see whether the summary in the draft report was different....

Well done Paul - you finally forced them to look at RTM in detail and the results must have been even worse than they feared!

Gareth

It's not Jeremy Clarkson who should be questioning them about this, but Jeremy Paxman!

This is huge, isn't it? By their own admission RTTM is three times bigger than the effect they are trying to measure. In the same document they say they can't reliably measure RTTM, so how reliable does that make their estimation of the camera effect?

Two other things that leap out of the page are that

(a) fatalty figures are studiously avoided - what are they trying to hide?
(b) fixed cameras are now considered more effective than mobile ones, which is something of an about turn if my recollection of the previous statements is correct. Is this a pre-cursor to them dropping the flawed LTI20:20?

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

Oh yes. Safe Speed issued the following PR at 10:42 this morning:

PR266: Truth finally emerging about hopelessly ineffective speed cameras

news: for immediate release

In the report of the 4th year of the speed camera hypothecation scheme,
published today by the Department for Transport (DfT) we finally get an
estimate for THE major error in speed camera claims.

The error is a statistical effect called 'regression to the mean' (RTM or
RTTM). Appendix H contains: "Thus RTM accounts for about three fifths of the
observed reduction in FSCs (Fatal and serious collisions) with the effects of
the cameras and trend each accounting for a fifth."

This is a clear and unequivocal admission that the benefits of speed cameras
have been wildly exaggerated. Last year's claim of 40% reduction in killed and
seriously injured at speed camera sites becomes 8%.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "With the truth about speed camera
ineffectiveness finally emerging it is staggering that the DfT has not found
the courage to pull the plug."

"Speed cameras are 21st century snake oil. They have made our roads far more
dangerous by focussing everyone on the wrong safety factor. They must be
scrapped immediately before more people die of 'bad policy'.

<ends>

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

Isn't the 8% rather close to the 7% attributed to 'excessive speed' collisions?

Whereas the bogus 40% is similarly close to the bogus 33.33% (one third lie)

ratios of 1.14 vs 1.2

lies lies lies

P7 - There has been a slight reduction in the level of support for safety cameras

p82 - The cost of processing a fixed penalty has almost doubled since 00/01 (and now accounts for 50% of the fine). this breaks sec 5 of the rule book (benchmarking). as new scamerati are clearly less efficient.

p86 - they are still misquoting their 'public support' surveys and totally ignoring their bias questioning.

See also appendix D2 - the data has been tampered with - can we see the original submissions.

E1 many of these sites now have avg. speeds below 30mph??? we should also exlude any site with less than 10 visits.

It costs london 50 quid to process every ticket!!! Surely that makes them fall foul of the benchmarking rules?

2M drivers per year now pay 60 quid a year to the scameras - I'd say unpaid and unrecoverables (court process) probably add another 50% - we've hit the 3M mark.

Mobile cameras have the least safety benefit, but the highest margins.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

daily mail... add your comments

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Added...if it gets through!

I just posted in other thread that this is now on the bbc's have you say.

link