You have the right to remain silent

[Happy Face 29]

HF and KCG would do well to invoke their right to remain silent before they bore me to sleep with this thread tbh.

 

 

Fuck off

 

You twait!

[Matt 0]

Every speed camera installation should be based on safety reasoning (after all that's what they're for, isn't it?).

 

I've seen cameras on long stretches on quiet roads, resulting in people trying to overtake slow-moving vehicles on corners. Safe? Nope.

 

What about the 'surprise' copper with his van parked behind a bush? Could result in late braking and more likely to cause an accident than prevent one. Utterly retarded.

 

What is effective is the sort of approach on Gosforth High Street. Big speed detector that flashes up if you're going too fast, couple of hundred yards later a camera. If you get done on that one at 50 you deserve the points.

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

The best solution I've seen is in Spain and Portugal: Speed-triggered traffic lights. If you're coming down the road too fast they turn to red (if you go through the red light you get photographed and fined, obviously).

 

Very effective. If you don't slow down you have to stop- simple.

 

No one gets fined, no one gets points on their licence, no one's insurance goes up. Traffic is calmed, people are safe.

 

Of course, it doesn't raise much coin for the police or politicians so it could never work here.

[Gemmill 46023]

 

Good work, Craig.

[spongebob toonpants 4131]

HF and KCG would do well to invoke their right to remain silent before they bore me to sleep with this thread tbh.

 

 

Its like two bald men arguing over a comb

[Toonpack 9927]

Every speed camera installation should be based on safety reasoning (after all that's what they're for, isn't it?).

 

I've seen cameras on long stretches on quiet roads, resulting in people trying to overtake slow-moving vehicles on corners. Safe? Nope.

 

What about the 'surprise' copper with his van parked behind a bush? Could result in late braking and more likely to cause an accident than prevent one. Utterly retarded.

 

What is effective is the sort of approach on Gosforth High Street. Big speed detector that flashes up if you're going too fast, couple of hundred yards later a camera. If you get done on that one at 50 you deserve the points.

 

A697 into Scotland 8 camera's ALL on the straight good visibility ahaad stretches where it's safest to overtake.

 

Virtually all cameras are in places like that, but any driver travelling north should be flogged for speeding in such circumstances, let's face it the Motorway network is fabulous between the North East and Scotland

[Dr Kenneth Noisewater 0]

The case for speed cameras destroyed in a flash

By David Millward, Transport Correspondent

(Filed: 29/09/2006)

 

 

A review of the Government's speed cameras policy was demanded yesterday after official statistics showed that only five per cent of crashes are caused by drivers breaking the speed limit.

 

Drivers who let their attention wander cause more than six times as many accidents.

 

Campaigners seized on the figures and demanded: "In that case, why are there so many cameras?"

 

Paul Smith, of Safe Speed, which has led the campaign, said the Government's case for continuing to install cameras had been destroyed.

 

"Even those statistics are flawed, because they could include a joy-rider who is going at 100mph and no camera will ever stop him," he said. "They are spinning like tops to justify the camera programme."

 

Motoring groups called for a broader approach to road safety and a revaluation of the £95 million camera project.

 

Edmund King, the chief executive of the RAC Foundation, said: "The figures suggest that all drivers need to concentrate more on the road rather than on their phones, passengers, music, food, drinks, navigation systems and the clutter of signs."

 

Chris Grayling, the Tories' transport spokesman, called for greater use of police patrol cars, rather than cameras, to deal with the menace of "rogue drivers".

 

There are more than 5,400 camera sites in England and Wales, which raised £113 million in fines in 2004-5.

 

The Department of Transport insisted that, while driver error accounted for 66 per cent of accidents, motorists going too fast for the conditions, irrespective of the speed limit, accounted for 29 per cent of crashes.

 

The analysis rekindled the speed camera argument and raised questions over whether the Government would meet the road safety targets it had set itself. The figures showed that the number of people killed on the roads last year fell to 3,201, one per cent fewer than in the previous year. The 28,954 people seriously injured represented a seven per cent fall on 2004. The Government has said it wants the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads to be reduced to 40 per cent of the 1994-8 average by 2010.

 

Its figures, based on information sent to the Government by police forces, show that the tally has dropped by 33 per cent.

 

But analysis of hospital data sent to the Department of Health painted a very different picture, suggesting that the drop in the number of deaths had been minimal.

 

A study of the figures in the British Medical Journal said the gap between police and hospital data indicated that the Government was unlikely to meet its casualty reduction targets.

 

"It is hard to ascertain why there should be such a wide divergence in these figures," said one of the authors of the article, Mike Gill, professor of public health at Surrey University.

 

"There are two main contenders for the discrepancy in my view. First, there is an unintended effect of drink-drive legislation.

 

"While one cannot avoid police intervention when there is a fatality, when somebody is hurt it may be tempting to shuffle people off to casualty and keep schtum.

 

"Also, dedicated traffic patrols have been reduced and therefore there is less likely to be police intervention in all cases."

 

However, Prof Gill was reluctant to suggest that the study undercut the case for speed cameras.

 

"We don't know what the figures would have been otherwise," he said.

 

Andrew Howard, of the AA Motoring Trust, supported the Government's analysis and the speed camera programme. "Human beings make mistakes," he said. "So the only thing that can be done is to mitigate their impact and that means slowing the car down."

[Happy Face 29]

It's only 5% because there are speed cameras.

 

It's like saying Hammond didn't die, so future world speed record attempts shouldn't require a helmet.

[spongebob toonpants 4131]

Two lions walking through a shopping centre,

one says to the other " a bit quiet here today"

[Renton 21983]

Two lions walking through a shopping centre,

one says to the other " a bit quiet here today"

 

That doesn't make sense because it implies at least one of the lions has had past experience of walking through the shopping centre when it was busy.

 

Sorry.

[Toonpack 9927]

It's only 5% because there are speed cameras.

 

 

That is utter tosh. IF the majority of cameras were in sensible places I might agree, but they are in the main placed in stretches of road where someone speeding a bit is of little consequence.

[Happy Face 29]

I think a lot of speed cameras cause accidents.

 

The one before the Black Bull on the way to Heworth especially is just over the brow of a hill. The number of people who've spotted it at the last minute and hammered the breaks only to be whacked in the back is crazy. You could blame those behind the heavy breaker for being inside the breaking distance, but the camera isn't blameless.

 

However, the proliferation of cameras has made all drivers more aware of their own speeds I think and that's a good thing.

[Toonpack 9927]

I think a lot of speed cameras cause accidents.

 

The one before the Black Bull on the way to Heworth especially is just over the brow of a hill. The number of people who've spotted it at the last minute and hammered the breaks only to be whacked in the back is crazy. You could blame those behind the heavy breaker for being inside the breaking distance, but the camera isn't blameless.

 

However, the proliferation of cameras has made all drivers more aware of their own speeds I think and that's a good thing.

 

Agree, there's one on the A90 on the way to Aberdeen been shut down for that very reason.

 

Personally I think 30 limits should be plastered with the things but on open road a bit of common sense wouldn't go amiss

Edited September 29, 2006 by Toonpack