Safe Speed Forums

The campaign for genuine road safety
It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 05:50

All times are UTC [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 8 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 16:05 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2004 06:46
Posts: 16903
Location: Safe Speed
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2805254

Speed Cameras Leave Brewery Boss Bitter

By Paul Watson, PA News

A brewery boss has named one of his ales Highway Robbery in a protest over speed cameras.

Dave Roberts, who has been caught twice by cameras, said the name reflected what many people thought about the controversial cameras being purely money-making gadgets.

The 38-year-old, who runs the independent Northumberland Brewery in Bedlington, said the new hand-pulled real ale was proving a hit with drinkers and his first batch sold out within a week.

It is now being sold across the North East, Scotland and the North West through the free houses he supplies.

The pump crest shows a speed camera dressed up as a highway robber, which he feels sums up the idea.

Mr Roberts said: ?Stagecoaches used to run from York to Edinburgh and highwaymen would rob them.

?Now you can get robbed and not even know about it until the letter comes through the post for £60.

?Both myself and my delivery driver have been caught and while I agree with speed cameras in built-up areas, it?s when they put them in places where traffic runs normally that I get annoyed.

?The vans are the main concern as people tend to slam the brakes on whenever they see a white van parked up and most of the time it is not even a camera van.

?People are really supportive of this beer and it?s selling out.

?We are brewing it week in and week out and it?s going really well.?

Ray King, project manager for the Northumbria Safety Camera Partnership, denied cameras were there to make money out of unsuspecting drivers.

?We don?t want to catch people out, we want to slow them down.

?The money goes to central government and we can only reclaim what is spent on camera enforcement and training and education initiatives.

?No money can be spent by the police and local authorities on anything other than that.?

He added that the siting of fixed cameras was determined by accident statistics over the years.

?Fixed cameras can only be sited where there has been at least four collisions in the past three years which have resulted in fatalities or serious injuries.?
======================================

I've been talking with Dave Roberts, the brewery boss. Here's the logo:

Image


And I have already sent out the following supporting Safe Speed PR:

====================================
PR118: Real ale, real issues. It's Highway Robbery!

News: for immediate release

Northumberland Brewery have announced the availability of a new ale
called "Highway Robbery". This follows a couple of chance encounters
between the Dave Roberts, the brewery boss, and speed cameras.

Dave said: "This is my small protest against unnecessary and unwanted
road side mugging machines."

The pump crest shows a speed camera in Dick Turpin guise complete with
eye patch and twin pistols.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said: "I
hope Dave's protest brings the real issues to a wider audience. It's
about time that the Government owned up to the fact that they have
destroyed the earlier excellent trends in UK road safety."

Paul continues: "It's great to see that the British spirit for light
hearted yet effective protest is alive and well and living in
Northumberland. We wish Dave Roberts and his team every success with
the new beer."

Dave said: "Stagecoaches used to run from York to Edinburgh and
highwaymen would rob them. Now you can get robbed and not even know
about it until the letter comes through the post demanding £60!"


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

Contact Northumberland Brewery:

Dave Roberts

tel: 01670 822112
email: dave@northumberlandbrewery.co.uk
web: http://www.northumberlandbrewery.co.uk

Highway Robbery pump logo:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/northumberland001.jpg
And the logo in high res
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/northumberland002.jpg
=====================================

Nice one Dave!

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


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 16:37 
Offline
User

Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2004 01:47
Posts: 379
Location: Cumbria / Oxford
Lol! Nice to see the problem being tackled in such a novel way :)

_________________
-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 23:47 
Offline
Life Member
Life Member

Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 20:56
Posts: 59
Location: Alnwick, Northumberland
Good for you Dave Roberts - I'll have a pint of that!

Northumbria Police made a serious mistake in joining the scamera partnership in 2003 without any thought for public concern or any desire for genuine road safety. They have sold off the contract for policing our roads to a civillian run partnership with a business plan of £480 000 per month. This is used to fund their own salaries and travelling expenses amongst other items they term essential to road safety under the Hypothecation Scheme.

As for project manager Ray King's comments regarding the question of financial gain from the very lucrative business of speed enforcement and his claim that ALL money goes to central government apart from what he can reclaim as "road safety issues". I will confidently refute that as absolutely untrue and I challenge him to defend this on this forum.

I look forward to hearing from you Ray!

Regards

Alan


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 00:00 
Offline
User
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2004 21:41
Posts: 3608
Location: North West
Amazing what kind of black hole you can dream up for hiding the loot:

We reckon plush offices, computers, gatsos, truvelos, speed guns, talivans - capital project expenditure which all have that nice little plughole called depreciation in which you can hide a stackload of money!

Then - running and operational costs - which include salaries ,pensions, PAYE, NIC, temp staff, police overtime (those rest days - they like those as it means tea and donuts whilst they prat@arse on their backsides looking at you on candid camera! - and all on time/half at least :roll: )

Add to this reams of paper, films, processing costs, postage, and you can overstate all of these to hide your figures!

Humbug!


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 00:15 
Offline
Life Member
Life Member

Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 20:56
Posts: 59
Location: Alnwick, Northumberland
I think I should come to the defence of our Traffic Officers in Northumberland, although the situation on our roads has very quickly become unacceptable since they joined the camera partnership last year, a coincidence possibly?, I do actually believe they do a good job on the whole and have never had a problem with them in the past.

Some of the information gained from the boys in blue at grass root level has proved to be very useful in a local campaign. In the past the roads up here have been policed with descretion and common sense by the members who have to deal with the public face to face.

The real blame lies higher up the ladder.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 07:54 
Offline
User
User avatar

Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2004 23:42
Posts: 3820
Cheers mate!

Could not agree with you more! We do much better job than the scam idiots.

Nice that the Beeb gave plug for us in their reasonable programme the other night! :wink:


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 09:43 
LOL - I love the logo. :lol:


Kaz


Top
  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Apr 21, 2004 10:34 
Offline
User
User avatar

Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2004 15:11
Posts: 271
Location: Birmingham
I'll have a pint or three (using the bus that night, obviously) if I ever run into it in my local haunts! Good stuff.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 8 posts ] 

All times are UTC [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You can post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
[ Time : 0.017s | 13 Queries | GZIP : Off ]