Safe Speed Forums

Brace yourself for the latest sound of bad research funded by the camera squads.

I read in a freebee paper that they have commissioned a study which shows that drivers who have points are also more likely to have accidents proving (?) the fact that cameras catch bad drivers.

No mention of the actual research or whether driven mileage was taken into account.

Sounds like a last ditch desperate attempt to sway public opinion. Why else would they have paid for the study?

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Speed camera policy Kills

errr, are they confusing cause and effect? (panic braking at cameras)

….and points for what? Drink driving? Dangerous driving? No licence? Yeah, I can see these guys suffer an increased rate of accidents!!!! So will the SCPs apply this entirely in the context of speeding?

Looks like I’m psychic……..

Sky News front page: “speeders ‘more likely to crash’ "



…… and the last third do what? drive more dangerously?


http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,3 ... 81,00.html

“Reporters, photographers and film crews are invited to attend the official launch of the Midlands’ Drivers’ Attitude Study, at 10.30am on Wednesday April 26, 2006 at the City Inn Hotel, Birmingham.”

http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/corporat ... enDocument

Paul, I think a PR is needed urgently.

Can anyone get hold the actual study?

Yeah - I need the actual study. I'm rushing to do TV on it, but I'll do a PR later.

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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

I wonder if it's adjusted for mileage?

Presumably high mileage drivers are more likely to have more points and accidents anyway

Errr. whats this actualy got to do with getting caught by a speed camera.



Does this mean doing 35 in a 30 limit? or driving at an inapropriate speed.

I expect most people who are asked about "speeding" think of drivers who go blasting past at 50 in a 30 limit.

The survey looks cobblers to me.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Only a quarter of people enjoy smoking, and they haven't banned that....

Hold on there. Does this mean that if you have an accident you are a bad driver

What if it is somebody elses fault

ALSO is this too obvious but .....

Those who are caught on camera are using roads roads which are in accident black spots. Does that not make you more likely to be involved in an accident.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I found this doing a search, It's looks as though the survey was carried out by Direct Line insurance?





So why are they making the claims?

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

To increase the premium. Annoying isn't it? What's scary is that so few people question it.

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Also remember a lot of points are given for careless driving, following an accident. So there's a clear skewing factor there.

Also newly qualified drivers will have had less time to experience either points or an accident. I wonder if they count historic points/historic accidents for more experienced drivers?

· Three quarters of drivers consider themselves to be ‘a better driver than most people.’

This has been known for years. Most people consider themselves to be above average intelligence too.

· 15% of men aged between 35 and 50 have received at least three speeding tickets.

Sounds about right, considering that group probably makes up the largest majority of driven miles.

· 70% of under 25-year-olds admit to breaking the 30mph limit.

Hardly suprising consider 100% of drivers have broken the 30mph limit and 99% of drivers regularly break the 30mph limit.

· The majority of drivers, especially females, believe that speeding is selfish.

Selfish in ALL circumstances? And selfish to whom?

· Only one third of drivers who had been involved in a road traffic collision said they drove more carefully after the crash. More worryingly another third said having a crash had absolutely no effect on their driving afterwards.

It depends on whether it was their fault, and whether they believed it to be their fault! I imagine most people will always blame somebody else for an accident even if it was clearly their fault. Eg. if a driver pulls out of a junction into the path of somebody else they would say the other driver was speeding, and convince themselves it wasn't their fault.

This was also illustrated in a report in the local paper - a woman pulled out of a junction into the path of another car, injuring her son, who was passenger. She then complained in the paper that the other driver was still indicating left as he exited a roundabount and she thought he was turning left, and "it happens all the time, there should be traffic lights there".

· Economically active male drivers aged between 35 and 50 with larger car engines are most likely to activate a speed camera.

Duh! Economically active male drivers usually drive larger cars and hence have larger engines, and usually drive longer distances. This is junk statistics spun into scameraship PR.

· Up to 40% of passengers said that they would never ask the driver to drive more safely.

This is because most people know that criticising somebody's driving is a sure-fire way to being dumped and told to walk if you want to be safer. And what's with this "up to 40%", anyway?

· There are two distinct groups of “boy racers” each with different attitudes towards driving.

Um yes, there is the chav unemployed boy racer who spends £50 of tat on a Corsa and the employed-and-living-at-home boy racer who spends £50,000 on a Corsa.

edit: On the key point of "people with points are more likely to have crashes" this is the only quote I can find:



One interesting point is the use of the phrase "caught by speed cameras", which implies that they believe that being caught by a speed camera, and not the speeding itself may be the factor in the liklihood of somebody having a collision. ie. somebody who regularly speeds but evades cameras may have a lower risk of collision. What would be interesting is any correlation between the numbers of collisions recorded and the question "Do you break the 30mph limit?"

I'd take a guess that that's almost an inevitability... Fixed cameras are fairly obvious so if you're alert and driving appropriately you have little excuse for getting "Gatso'd". However, those denizens of the evil speeding culture who aren't paying proper attention would, I suggest, tend to (a) get nabbed more often and (b) have more shunts as a result of said inattention, QED.


Very true... But if you're a conspiracy theorist, not a good result upon which to raise insurance premiums based on the "dangers" of having speeding points on the licence.

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

As far as insurers are concerned the more points you have the more miles you drive so the greater the risk!. Nothing to do with bad driving

Also there are companies who do not discriminate for the first 3 points.

Lets face it speed cameras have been a bonus for insurers who are desperate to get premiums up any way they can.

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Speed camera policy Kills

“Leading transport psychologist Professor Steve Stradling will warn at the launch of the Midlands’ Drivers’ Attitude Study that drivers with penalty points for speeding are far more likely to have an accident than those with a clean licence.”

Flip side:

This study could go some way to demonstrating that speed cameras are in reality a dangerous solution.

Even if it is just the ‘speeders’ who are having accidents, it likely would be the result of these drivers being more likely to watch the speedo and brake more at camera sites (this we know to be unsafe yet happens) because their licenses have less ‘lives’ left before disqualification. Those of us never done for speeding can drive around knowing at a ‘hit’ wouldn’t be the end of the world, freeing the mental resource to concentrate, be aware and apply the for the conditions.


Like I already said: they are confusing cause and effect...

[very cynical mode] --To provide (themselves with statistical )proof that drivers with one speeding conviction are a bigger risk and hence should pay more[/very cynical mode]

Are profits in the insurance industry falling??

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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

Absolutely agree with that logic pogo.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Very good point -Pogo.

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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

The only thing this study proves is that those dozy enough to be caught speeding are more likely to have accidents. I bet those that speed and have clean licences have much fewer accidents than those that speed just as much but get caught.

Observation, observation, observation

Those that don't speed are observant enough to know what the limit is and stick to it. Those that do speed and don't get caught are either a)lucky or b) observant enough not to get caught by the gatso or camera van.

Also if this study is based only on gatsos we know there is a gender bias at work too.