Safe Speed Forums

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transp ... 334686.ece

This really, really boils my piss.

• Firstly, the sheer bloody audacity and pigheadedness of an administration that thinks that this sort of thing is alright.
• Secondly, the sheer bloody idiocy of an administration that, despite a long and inglorious track record of vast IT cock-ups, thinks that it's going to bring the IT side of this in on time and on budget. It's going to hit me in the wallet. Again.
• Thirdly, the utter uselessness of such a system for tracking actual criminals; all you have to do is intimidate J. Random Driver into hiring a car in their name, cosh 'em over the back of the head and chuck 'em in the boot, and go off and do your nefarious business in a completely legitimate vehicle.

I didn't vote for you last time, el Presidente Blair, and I'm not voting for you next time, either (or Brother Number 1 aka Mr Brown).

*seethes*

*goes off to write a long and snotty letter to his MP courtesy of http://www.writetothem.com*

Edited to correct link, RP

I really can't believe that. Are you sure it isn't a joke? At the very least it is probably a gross exageration of what they would like to do. It has probably been leeked to a gullible journalist to guage public reaction.

The real criminals will get hidden in such a wealth of worthless innocent information that they will continue to do their dastardly deeds unhindered by blundering bureaucracy.

How will a camera know a car is stolen until it is reported as stolen and how long does it take to change a number plate? I really can't believe our bad boys won't very quickly find a way of getting around this while the good guys are still trying to work out how to use the system and put it right when it goes wrong.

We have already discussed ANPR and its faults on this site I can't see any improvement in this.

Imagin the cost of covering the country in cameras are you sure the manufacturers of CCTV aren't behind all this?

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Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

The london congestion charging scheme covers a couple of miles, used existing cameras and cost 200M

how are they gonna do it for 24M nationwide.

I suspect there will be very low confidence reads from the equipment. But the next step will be to automate speed enforcement too.

annoyingly it wont work - crims will simply clone number plate or remove them completely.

Heard an interview a few days ago where Ladyman or somebody else offical was talking about it. They plan to subcontract it like the London Congestion Charge, probably split into regions and to use a combination of mobile phone technology and gps for tracking and data collection. The subcontractors will issue bills monthly and collect the money for the treasury.

Still means fitting a box to every vehicle in the UK though. Will mean everybodies car journeys are fully tracked including speeds.

Potentially the technology could do a lot of good if it fed Sat Nav systems and trafic alerts with real-time data... but this will probably be an additional subscription.

From what I have seen the footage from existing cctv is so crap there is no way it could read a number plate.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I couldn't object more strongly. I don't wish to be monitored. I especially don't want to be prosecuted by a 'computer error'.

Who's going to take this on? Seriously.

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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

Not likely!! I'm buying shares in EDS...!

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

If eds are implementing it then we don't have to worry as they can't implement a wet cloth without help.

The system is going to rely on anpr so criminals will just clone plates. How many times do they have to be told only traffic police stop criminals using the road. If everyone had unreadable number plates then it just wouldn't work and there aren't enough police and court time to enforce it. It would be interesting to see if there was a correlation between traffic police and levels of crime. Traf pol numbers are at an all time low and crime is well out of control, inspite of what 'official' reports seem to say.

We seem to have some legal gents on this forum - perhaps is the time to stand up and speak out - or shut up - what we need is a proforma letter to download and send to our local MPs a a form of petition - either consider the motorist or lookout for the outher parties at the next elections ( which look like soon) ---or a letter to the new leader of the tories

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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

because only car drivers commit crimes, innit.

so when do we all get bar codes tattooed on our foreheads and explosive tracking chips?

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

PMSL, aint that the truth....yet they still keep getting gov contracts


That's what I heard. I seem to recall reading something about it in computer weekly the other week.

Like what Commander said, it really, really boils my piss as well - what f***ing right do they have to monitor our every journey? Surely this is a breach of right to privacy and freedom of movement?

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Now I don't mind them monitoring, say, a list of known stolen vehicles or whatever but not every vehicle!

If this happens then I'm not going to drive around with my own numberplates on show to be added to a "potential criminal" list.

Maybe someone will create a protest sticker which fits neatly over some or all of the letters of a numberplate!

If it actually happens...

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Andrew.

The Police State has officially arrived. This is Communism, plain and simple. Makes me wonder who we've really got in charge...

If used to detect the whereabouts of stolen cars, vehicles used in serious crimes and vehicles owned by people linked with terrorism, this blatantly "Big Brother" system would still be unworthy of support from the public. But we all know this is not what the system will be used for.

It will be used for only four purposes as far as I can see:

1) Revenue from blanket, zero-tolerance speed limit enforcement.

2) Revenue from additional minor fixed-penalty offences, such as tax discs 2 days out of date, prosecuting people for no MOT while driving to the MOT station, accidentally straying into a bus lane etc. The list is endless.

3) Revenue from Pay-per-mile road pricing. This will be IN ADDITION TO the fuel tax, VED etc that we already pay, not a replacement for. The system will enable them to determine in advance which are the most heavily used roads, so that these can be priced the highest. "Phase 2" will see a GPS-based system implemented to cover the roads where it is not economic to install ANPR.

4) Revenue from selling details of everyone's movements to market research companies etc.

I may be wrong, but I will be very surprised if I am.

And what about when the wrong people get hold of the data? The DVLA already give out your address, on demand, to unsavoury people with long criminal records (clamping firms). With the new system, all a criminal needs is your car registration number and a "mate" who works for the private company supporting the system, and he can not only find out your home address, but will know exactly what times of the day you're not in.

Make no mistake, the proposed system is the biggest breach of our civil liberties since the Second World War, and we should resist it by any means available to us.

If this infernal creation goes live, I will be removing my numberplates and I know I won't be alone.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

From my experience of the speed camera thing, I suspect the following:

* Heavily oversold by commercial interests - (the people who stand to profit from supplying, installing etc etc)

* Accepted willingly by sincere people (politicians, civil servants, etc) with a narrow career focus. These people DO intend to make the world a better place, but their thinking processes are not scientific, and they NEVER consider the side effects properly. Basically these decision makers have entirely the wrong skill set to evaluate the proposals.

* Supported by willing scientists or researchers who need an income and earn money by publishing what the decision makers want to hear. (These are the people I hate - the other groups, I can understand.)

I don't think there's a plot by politicians to make money out of us.



I would applaud such a principled stand. Nevertheless, to be effective such a protest would require substantial co-ordination and focus. It'd be 'off topic' for the Safe Speed campaign, so I won't be offering to co-ordinate.

However if I can help build a team and then set it free I will do so.

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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

Is there any law to stop someone ordering extra sets of their own number plate and then leaving them in dodgy areas? I wonder how quickly they'd end up on other vehicles.

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

Under the FOI/DPR I am sure we can see what data they hold about us. If several thousand people were asking then the admin needed would be immense. Also I'd imagine the movements of politicians would also be tracked using this system which would make it easy for terrorists to find out where politicians were at any one time. If politicians aren't going to be tracked then we just put their plates on our cars as clearly they will be excluded from tracking. More to the point, why would some people be allowed to be excluded. Yet another elitist measure.

Have they also thought how much easier car jacking will be with this system? It would be dead easy to keep watch on expensive cars and choose a point on their route without having to follow them around if third party companies are involved. As they're already running at 10,000 a year and the money used to implement this system will be taken away from the police for more actual live policeman then there will be even less chance of the criminals actually getting caught. Have they learned nothing from the whole camera fiasco? Automated enforcement will never work against those it is targetted against.

As dvla records are shown to be inaccurate what kind of farce is this whole plan going to descend into?

Also - it will probably be part and parcel of the European tax - they are planning to tax motorists directly from brussels to raise more revenue. Our goverment will be powerless to stop this as it will come in the form of an EU directive.

Get ready to bend over and grab your ankles - the EU wants more money

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"Are you sh**ing me?"
"John Spartan, you are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute."

Somehow I think the Isle Of Man is suddenly going to get very crowded

You've obviously not seen the photo they include with a congestion charge fine notice (boss typed in the reg plate of the works van wrongly, and they refused to refund the fine, or the original payment).

It was clear enough that you could identify me and my colleage who was driving, and they even provided a zoomed in image of the perfectly clear number plate. It may have been expensive, but that system is scarily effective.

Articles apearing in the papers today of this story.


Mirror one ---

Interesting bit ---
Chief Constable of Hertfordshire Frank Whiteley said: "If you commit a crime, you're going to use a vehicle."


Funny, didn't we all think it was the other way round

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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