Do the public agree with most of the forum members view on speed cameras?

Well so far on the sky news vote 72% of viewers don't think speed cameras reduce deaths on our roads.

Sounds like we are not alone.

 You really Must stop believing Everything you read from the Dft--or Govt in general.

Please look up the word Independent---it is far away from the so called survey of public opinion.Any university or other body which receives Taxpayers money in appreciation of Research for Govt departments ,or will get funding for a future project, is as unbiased as Attilla the Hun was in spreading peace and goodwill.

If you ask questions like" Do you agree that more Scams are required close to Schools" 80% will say yes.Lumping together the K with the SI figures ALWAYS  can be proved to show the reduced Injuries MUST Also mean Deaths--SO we have % less this year-ALL due to the Magic Scams.The Truth is ignored, due to the Bite back factor--and this will never do.

Take a look at the Police Federation,s  "Police" in house Magazine(you possibly have) and the comments by Vice Chairman Alan Gordon."Scamera,s are a complete Waste of time, Bad for safety, and Bad for policing" he adds that any money from Scams should be spent on extra Police.

The biggest disaster in PR and trust in the BIB has now gone.

B 7 VP wrote: If you ask questions like" Do you agree that more Scams are required close to Schools" 80% will say yes.

Lumping together the K with the SI figures ALWAYS  can be proved to show the reduced Injuries MUST Also mean Deaths--SO we have % less this year-ALL due to the Magic Scams.The Truth is ignored, due to the Bite back factor--and this will never do.

Take a look at the Police Federation,s  "Police" in house Magazine(you possibly have) and the comments by Vice Chairman Alan Gordon."Scamera,s are a complete Waste of time, Bad for safety, and Bad for policing" he adds that any money from Scams should be spent on extra Police. The biggest disaster in PR and trust in the BIB has now gone.

They are not a waste of time (& certainly not money) because they have contributed to there being fewer collisions on our roads. I don't disagree that there are other methods that can produce reductions in collisions as well. I fully support calls for more dedicated traffic Police, but that is no reason to get rid of a measure that also clearly provides useful reductions already. Those other methods should be used in conjunction with cameras to reduce collisions further. The good thing about cameras is that the law abiding don't have to fund it, only those breaking the law.

Safety aside, why shouldn't law breakers fear prosecution & be prsoecuted when they commit offences, speeding included ? Just like they do for no seat belt or using a hand held phone etc whilst driving.

I believe that you'll find that money from camera fines will no longer be exclusively used to fund cameras. The money will now be able to be used for other road safety initiatives.

Well the result of the poll so far is :

http://www.sky.com/skynews/polls/displayresults/1,,91153-1003258-2,00.html - http://www.sky.com/skynews/polls/displayresults/1,,91153-100 3258-2,00.html

This post wasn't about what the results of goverment polls said, or the results of so called independant polls, it was about the sky news poll.

All that I was saying was it does appear that at least 58% of people who watch sky news don't think speed camera save lives.

On thing to bare in mind is that other polls were done a while ago, probably before many people got caught. Once they realised that the government and police were more interested in catching people comitting a victimless crime (ie doing 55 in a 50 zone etc) than chasing real bad drivers they probably reassessed their view.

The sky vote is a represnetation of sky news veiwers opinions today  

OK peoples...who has ever been asked to contribite to these "official" polls, and what was asked ?

Sorry Livvy, bit I've yet to come acrosss anyone who has ever been asked anything, I still think the people working for the authorities are asking their relatives.

Who was polled ?

( I know you don't have the answer to that !)

I have honestley NEVER met anyone that has been asked.

You will get different answers if you ask different groups, would you like me to set up a poll on here using those self same questions ?

You always do that

I can't argue against you now !

 The Police Federation of England and Wales.

 " We support the use of safety cameras ,but ONLY where they are used in the pursuit of properly established speed or traffic light controlled problems, we are concerned with regards to the labelling of such devices as revenue generating machines."

Alan Jones  11-11-05.

The "problem" with the sky poll is it asks if you think they save lives.....it doesn't ask if you like them/want them etc.

I'm afraid all the evidence does suggest they save lives, no real arguement with that

livvy wrote: Offensive weapon legislation for instance requires no victim.

Ah yes. I rememeber the ledigslation that prevented the use of automatic hand guns by members of gun clubs. What a waste of time. All it achived was to prevent law abiding citizens from enjoying a hobby. Has gun crime dropped since it came in. No!! why?? because it was an ill concieved knee jerk reaction to, if I remember correctly, Micheal Ryan.

Most of these law enforcement techniques, in order to convict successfully, require the offender to be a law abiding citizen in the first place i.e if i wasn't registered as the owner of my car then they wouldn't have been able to catch me with a camera, or if I had false plates fitted.

Any I drifted off topic there

I don't care what government polls say, I also don't care what the justification for speed cameras is. My only point on this thread was that those of us who don't think speed cameras save lives are not alone. At the very least the 6000 odd people who voted no in the sky news survey are in agreement.

Nigel wrote: The "problem" with the sky poll is it asks if you think they save lives.....it doesn't ask if you like them/want them etc. I'm afraid all the evidence does suggest they save lives, no real arguement with that

What evidence?

Where can I see the raw data that this statement is determined by?

I don't mean the ststastics themselves I mean the actual data, i.e number of crashes/versus volume of traffic and the actual cause.

Anyone can use statistics to tell any story they want. They are so easy to manipulate and the kind quoted on the news are frequently meaningless or quoted in such a way that they give the wrong impression.

Peter Fenwick wrote: livvy wrote: Offensive weapon legislation for instance requires no victim. Ah yes. I rememeber the ledigslation that prevented the use of automatic hand guns by members of gun clubs. What a waste of time. All it achived was to prevent law abiding citizens from enjoying a hobby. Has gun crime dropped since it came in. No!! why?? because it was an ill concieved knee jerk reaction to, if I remember correctly, Micheal Ryan.

I think you remember incorrectly then, because firearms legislation is seperate to that which governs offensive weapons.

People can still shoot at gun clubs, but certain weapons can no longer be used/kept. They can still continue with their hobby.

Yes offences involving firearms have steadily increased since 1987, but are you suggesting it would have been an opposite trend (fewer crimes) if the gun owenership laws had not been changed ?

Most of these law enforcement techniques, in order to convict successfully, require the offender to be a law abiding citizen in the first place i.e if i wasn't registered as the owner of my car then they wouldn't have been able to catch me with a camera, or if I had false plates fitted.

Speeding is NOT law abiding, it's just a different offence to having false plates fitted. People are of course prosecuted with false plates etc. where those offences are detected. They usually find themselves in a cell for a while, not sent a NIP through the post.

Livvy wrote,

It is impossible to refute the relationship between speed & the increase in energy involved with that.

But that doesn’t mean the increase in energy is unsafe. If the increase in energy is controlled correctly it is perfectly safe.

It is impossible to refute that the greater the energy in any collision the more damage will be caused.

That all depends on what is colliding with what. Modern vehicles are better designed with crumple zones and deformable materials etc so therefore are less likely to cause damage than older vehicles.

It is impossible to refute that the greater the energy the more likely death will be in any collision.

Not necessarily, it again depends on what collides with what. Crash test research done by manufacturers has shown that depending on the shape and materials a vehicle is made from, a collision at a higher speed can cause less damage. An example of this was when (I think it was Honda) found that their ‘soft bonnet’ deformed too much in collision with pedestrians at slow speed and caused worse injury than at a higher speed which did not give the bonnet time to deform to much before the pedestrian was thrown clear.

It is impossible to refute that increased speed means less time to deal with any hazard.

True but the more important factor is the ability of the driver and the vehicle to react that hazard. A quick reaction at 60 mph is more likely to avoid or cause less damage in a collision than a slow reaction at 40mph.

What is open to discussion is the best way to deal with it.

Manufacturers have been dealing with it since before speed cameras by introducing lots of safety features that have reduced the number of deaths and injuries far more than speed cameras.

I would think most people advocate an increase in road traffic patrols but no one in government seems to listen.
Now cameras are an attempt to manage that risk by limiting speed, as are speed limits themselves.

But trying to limit the speed of a poor driver will not prevent them having collisions. Incidents happen at all speeds. Insurance companies claim that most crashes occur on roads that are within 3 miles of where people live the majority of which are on urban roads at lower speeds.

Offer the government viable, realistic, cost effective alternatives to the satsifactory management of that risk. I don't see a lot of that happening & without it they will continue using blunt instruments (cameras) because the data shows it does what they are looking for.

And this is the short sightedness of the government and camera safety partnerships. Surely saving lives shouldn’t be about cost effectiveness. Most people have learned to live with speed cameras but what we find hard to accept is that more and more cameras go up but very little is being done to police the bad drivers on the road. A camera can only record a vehicle exceeding a speed limit but not the person who drives dangerously below the speed limit whereas a traffic officer can do both and much more besides.
Don't just rubbish cameras because they control or punish speeding, offer viable alternatives.

Its not the cameras that are being rubbished, it’s the overuse of them to the detriment of proper policing of the roads.

steven.seed wrote: It is impossible to refute the relationship between speed & the increase in energy involved with that. But that doesn’t mean the increase in energy is unsafe. If the increase in energy is controlled correctly it is perfectly safe.

I agree, I have never said speed in itself is dangerous, but what do you think of the standard of driving in this country ?

Everybody here (& everywhere else) seems to be complaining about it.

The speed limits are based around one ability level & it's not the highest ability level. The numbers of collisions that do occur are evidence in fact that, for whatever reason, people do not manage  risk on our roads particularly well. Now those collisions may not all be as a result of speed (a good portion are) but never the less an increase in speed will just serve to expose their defeciencies further, by giving them less time to correct or cover for them. Then when those collisions do occur (as they do) you are bringing extra energy to it.

It is impossible to refute that the greater the energy in any collision the more damage will be caused. That all depends on what is colliding with what. Modern vehicles are better designed with crumple zones and deformable materials etc so therefore are less likely to cause damage than older vehicles.

Yes
But a higher speed collision in a modern vehicle still causes more damage than a lower speed collision in a modern vehicle (like for like vehicles). That is what my statement says, not comparing different cars, but different speeds. For the same set of given circumstances where the speed is the only difference, higher speed = higher damage levels.

It is impossible to refute that the greater the energy the more likely death will be in any collision. Not necessarily, it again depends on what collides with what. Crash test research done by manufacturers has shown that depending on the shape and materials a vehicle is made from, a collision at a higher speed can cause less damage. An example of this was when (I think it was Honda) found that their ‘soft bonnet’ deformed too much in collision with pedestrians at slow speed and caused worse injury than at a higher speed which did not give the bonnet time to deform to much before the pedestrian was thrown clear.

See answer to my last point.

Like for like, injury is more likely (not necessarily results in, but more likely to result in injury or death) with an increase in speed.

It is impossible to refute that increased speed means less time to deal with any hazard. True but the more important factor is the ability of the driver and the vehicle to react that hazard. A quick reaction at 60 mph is more likely to avoid or cause less damage in a collision than a slow reaction at 40mph.

I refer you to the answer to previous points.
The standard of drivers is not that high. Sure a good driver can drive at speed safer than a poor one. A good driver will limit reacting to anything, they will anticipate it and start to do something about it incase it happens, not wait for it to start. Our limits are set to a base common standard for all abilities, not set to what is safe for the most skilled only.

What is open to discussion is the best way to deal with it. Manufacturers have been dealing with it since before speed cameras by introducing lots of safety features that have reduced the number of deaths and injuries far more than speed cameras. I would think most people advocate an increase in road traffic patrols but no one in government seems to listen.

Yes manufacturers have made cars safer & as such they have contributed to both fewer & more surviveable collisions.

But in Germany, France the USA etc they have cars with the same safety levels, but they all have higher collision & death rates per billion Km's than we do, so it isn't the cars alone.

People used to bitch about traffic patrols, people used to say "why aren't you out catching burglars" to them, so guess what, they got scaled down & posted elsewhere. Those same people say traffic officers weren't so bad now. Oh the irony.

Cameras do not lead to more deaths & collisions on our roads, they lead to less. As such they are an addition to complement other measures to reduce death & injury on our roads.
I too would like to see more traffic Police, but if you look at it from a managers point of view they are far more expensive. Cameras cost most Police forces nothing (only the SCPs that run at a loss cost the Police from their budgets & your SCP, Cheshire, ran at a loss last year so some of that will be coming from your Police's budget). In the main though they pay for themselves & get results.

Now cameras are an attempt to manage that risk by limiting speed, as are speed limits themselves. But trying to limit the speed of a poor driver will not prevent them having collisions. Incidents happen at all speeds. Insurance companies claim that most crashes occur on roads that are within 3 miles of where people live the majority of which are on urban roads at lower speeds.

No cameras won't get rid of all collisions, nothing will. It is about risk management & keeping the balance. Trying to limit the numbers as much as possible to what will be acceptable to society as a whole.

In a vast number of collisions, if the driver had more time, they could take steps to avoid the collision in the first place. This would be particularly useful to those that end in fatalities & serious injuries.
How many times is it said folowing a collision to the Police dealing with it, "They came out of nowhere, I didn't have a chance."

Offer the government viable, realistic, cost effective alternatives to the satsifactory management of that risk. I don't see a lot of that happening & without it they will continue using blunt instruments (cameras) because the data shows it does what they are looking for. And this is the short sightedness of the government and camera safety partnerships. Surely saving lives shouldn’t be about cost effectiveness. Most people have learned to live with speed cameras but what we find hard to accept is that more and more cameras go up but very little is being done to police the bad drivers on the road. A camera can only record a vehicle exceeding a speed limit but not the person who drives dangerously below the speed limit whereas a traffic officer can do both and much more besides.

Most traffic officers do little speed enforcement (only those at greater margins over the limit), because they can leave it to the SCPs. They concentrate on other matters, without SCPs they'd have to concentrate on speed enforcement more.

If you don't want more to go up, offer the government other effective means to reach their casualty reduction targets. They will have to be cost effective though. Why you ask, because everytime we vote we don't want higher taxes, we vote for parties that promise not to tax us more. Improving our roads costs big money & if we want more expensive ways than cameras we have to pay more & people don't want to pay more. That's why many people will say, let the speeders pay.

Don't just rubbish cameras because they control or punish speeding, offer viable alternatives. Its not the cameras that are being rubbished, it’s the overuse of them to the detriment of proper policing of the roads.

Give the government the cost effective alternatives.

Raising the standard of drivers in this country would be the most preferable, but people don't do it voluntarily & forcing them to would cost huge amounts. It would also take a long time & not give immeadiate benefits to help the government meet it's targets.
I agree the long trem benefits are far greater than limiting speed.

But limiting speed gives far more immeadiate results to meet those targets.
Reducing speed costs them little & gives them results.
For that reason they'll do as much as they can get away with.(IMHO)

My personal view.

We need to increase skill levels.
We need more traffic Police.
We need some cameras. (The more we can have of the former, the less we can have of the latter, but because they are already here we won't get rid of them).
The more people take responsibilty & improve their own skill levels, reducing the collisions they have, the less need the government will have for more cameras.

A good positive post Steven, Not that livvy can understand anything less than party doctrine, and THAT is the reason for So much disagreement and resentment by US-the drivers who have to drive by a Political solution of illconceived kneejerk reactions, by NObrainers in the Govt and DFT.

Not once you note,  has livvy agreed that more Traffic Police ON the street would change the attitude of roadusers.Drivers used to pay attention and driving standards improved when Trafpol are sighted, and we knew that they could be anywhere--Unlike these days when you can drink and Drugs to your hearts content, without fear of detection--oohh!!forgot Scams will soon sort it out, as well as all the other bad driving practices that the trafpol are NOT around to see!!

In my part of the world, seven deaths due to Drugs-Drink, and jaywalking over the past 15 months will be included in the "speed related stats"cos that is the Correct Slime Govt way of collecting the Crime Scene figures--NOT once will any official details be given--only the word SPEED mentioned as many times as possible--No mention that Drugs cannot be tested for like drink--BUT-its No prob is it??, the Cameras will catch everything, eh livvy??.

B 7 VP wrote: A good positive post Steven, Not that livvy can understand anything less than party doctrine, and THAT is the reason for So much disagreement and resentment by US-the drivers who have to drive by a Political solution of illconceived kneejerk reactions, by NObrainers in the Govt and DFT. Not once you note,  has livvy agreed that more Traffic Police ON the street would change the attitude of roadusers.Drivers used to pay attention and driving standards improved when Trafpol are sighted, and we knew that they could be anywhere--Unlike these days when you can drink and Drugs to your hearts content, without fear of detection--oohh!!forgot Scams will soon sort it out, as well as all the other bad driving practices that the trafpol are NOT around to see!! In my part of the world, seven deaths due to Drugs-Drink, and jaywalking over the past 15 months will be included in the "speed related stats"cos that is the Correct Slime Govt way of collecting the Crime Scene figures--NOT once will any official details be given--only the word SPEED mentioned as many times as possible--No mention that Drugs cannot be tested for like drink--BUT-its No prob is it??, the Cameras will catch everything, eh livvy??.

I think I've been quite clear that cameras will not solve all the problems, I have never suggested they will.

I think I also said in my last post (if you actually read it) that the higher skill levels & the more traffic officers, the less likelyhood that the government will need for cameras.

I have said time & time again that I support the call for more traffic officers, not cameras in their place.

It doesn't detract from the fact though that cameras are here, they are not likely to be removed (by any party) & they have contributed to a reduction of deaths & injuries on our roads.

If people do nothing else but bitch about cameras, then I can see more of them coming.
If people do something about raising standards & we get more traffic Police I can see that increase in cameras being averted.

I've already said that IMHO the trafpol we have are more interested in dealing with offenders for a variety of offences than in reporting people endlessly for speeding violations.

I'm not affiliated to any party line.
I don't want to see more cameras, I'd raher it be more Police.
But I won't blindly rubbish what they do because of that, as some others do.
If people help themselves (& the government) then more cameras shouldn't be needed & perhaps we can persuade the government of that.

I do see why they government have gone down the line that they have though, because it's cheap for them, it's easy for them & it gets results. I also see that it is realistically only a short term solution & that there are better long term ones. If people start the ball rolling towards better long term solutions, then they may be able to get the government with that program & deflect them away from more cameras. If however people whine & attack cameras without offering better solutions, then I fear that those who are opposed to cameras will have no say whatsoever in the shape of future policy. They will be passengers in it (not drivers) & it will be dictated by those with a less than positive attitude towards the motor car.

livvy wrote: Cameras do not lead to more deaths & collisions on our roads

I would be happy to see unbiased, accurate figures that confirm this universally. Not some government-sponsored, questionable grouping of KSI's that support scameras, but raw data that shows that scameras have never ever lead to an increase in accidents at any given place where they were installed.

livvy wrote: they lead to less.

I would like to see similarly clear, unmassaged figures that support the assertion that any improvement cannot be explained by regression to the mean or any other factor.

I remember using some magazine article on car costings to try and get my then boss to let me have a 320i estate, as overall it cost less than the others due to its high resale value.

Although my boss agreed it did seem the best cost option, I still didn't get one as he thought customers wouldn't like to see an engineer turn up in a BM.

I ended up with a top of the range laguna estate.

Livvy said,

I agree, I have never said speed in itself is dangerous, but what do you think of the standard of driving in this country ?

Everybody here (& everywhere else) seems to be complaining about it.

The speed limits are based around one ability level & it's not the highest ability level. The numbers of collisions that do occur are evidence in fact that, for whatever reason, people do not manage  risk on our roads particularly well. Now those collisions may not all be as a result of speed (a good portion are) but never the less an increase in speed will just serve to expose their defeciencies further, by giving them less time to correct or cover for them. Then when those collisions do occur (as they do) you are bringing extra energy to it.

Then obviously those drivers with the deficiencies have them at what ever speed they travel so need to be dealt with and cameras will never do that so instead of more cameras better policing. Perhaps everyone who is at fault in an accident should be re-assesed. I have been driving for 35 years and have been involved in one accident when someone ran into the back of my car when I had stopped at a pelican crossing  yet I personally know of two what I would call not very confident drivers who never speed and yet have both had several accidents each.

It would actually be interesting to see the % of drivers caught speeding who have actually been involved in accidents.

But a higher speed collision in a modern vehicle still causes more damage than a lower speed collision in a modern vehicle (like for like vehicles). That is what my statement says, not comparing different cars, but different speeds. For the same set of given circumstances where the speed is the only difference, higher speed = higher damage levels.

Yes but only in the event of a collision. Surely the objective should be to prevent the collisions not just attempt to make them happen at a lesser speed.

See answer to my last point.

Like for like, injury is more likely (not necessarily results in, but more likely to result in injury or death) with an increase in speed.

Same as my last point.

Yes but only in the event of a collision. Surely the objective should be to prevent the collisions not just attempt to make them happen at a lesser speed.

I refer you to the answer to previous points.
The standard of drivers is not that high. Sure a good driver can drive at speed safer than a poor one. A good driver will limit reacting to anything, they will anticipate it and start to do something about it incase it happens, not wait for it to start. Our limits are set to a base common standard for all abilities, not set to what is safe for the most skilled only.

Then this is what policing the roads should be based on. Not the necessarily the speed some one is traveling but their ability to cope with it.

 

Yes manufacturers have made cars safer & as such they have contributed to both fewer & more surviveable collisions.

But in Germany, France the USA etc they have cars with the same safety levels, but they all have higher collision & death rates per billion Km's than we do, so it isn't the cars alone.

Yes that is true but we can’t deal in absolutes and say our figures are better because of speed cameras. There are many different things that have an effect on the figures.

 

People used to bitch about traffic patrols, people used to say "why aren't you out catching burglars" to them, so guess what, they got scaled down & posted elsewhere. Those same people say traffic officers weren't so bad now. Oh the irony.

No, I disagree, I think the perception of the average motorist is that they have been scaled down because of the increase in cameras and people feel the camera is being used to replace them rather than complement them.

Cameras do not lead to more deaths & collisions on our roads, they lead to less. As such they are an addition to complement other measures to reduce death & injury on our roads.
I too would like to see more traffic Police, but if you look at it from a managers point of view they are far more expensive. Cameras cost most Police forces nothing (only the SCPs that run at a loss cost the Police from their budgets & your SCP, Cheshire, ran at a loss last year so some of that will be coming from your Police's budget). In the main though they pay for themselves & get results.

Then if money is the primary reason for using cameras instead of traffic patrols then that confirms the argument most people have with the increasing use of cameras.

 

No cameras won't get rid of all collisions, nothing will. It is about risk management & keeping the balance. Trying to limit the numbers as much as possible to what will be acceptable to society as a whole.

In a vast number of collisions, if the driver had more time, they could take steps to avoid the collision in the first place. This would be particularly useful to those that end in fatalities & serious injuries.
How many times is it said folowing a collision to the Police dealing with it, "They came out of nowhere, I didn't have a chance."

But again this proves the point that it is driving standards that are the problem, not just speed. If you have a problem the most effective way of dealing with it is to find the common denominator and in all accidents bar none it is people. Not the vehicle, the weather conditions, speed, type of vehicle, type of road or anything else but always people.

 

Most traffic officers do little speed enforcement (only those at greater margins over the limit), because they can leave it to the SCPs. They concentrate on other matters, without SCPs they'd have to concentrate on speed enforcement more.

If you don't want more to go up, offer the government other effective means to reach their casualty reduction targets. They will have to be cost effective though. Why you ask, because everytime we vote we don't want higher taxes, we vote for parties that promise not to tax us more. Improving our roads costs big money & if we want more expensive ways than cameras we have to pay more & people don't want to pay more. That's why many people will say, let the speeders pay.

People don’t want to pay more because they pay more than enough and many people will also say speeders don’t necessarily cost the country money but bad  drivers and illegally run vehicles do.

 

Give the government the cost effective alternatives.

Raising the standard of drivers in this country would be the most preferable, but people don't do it voluntarily & forcing them to would cost huge amounts. It would also take a long time & not give immeadiate benefits to help the government meet it's targets.
I agree the long trem benefits are far greater than limiting speed.

But limiting speed gives far more immeadiate results to meet those targets.
Reducing speed costs them little & gives them results.
For that reason they'll do as much as they can get away with.(IMHO)

Cost really is irrelevant because in fact the motorist pays several times more in road tax and fuel duties than is spent on building, maintaining or policing the roads so if all the money collected from road users were put back into the roads and the policing of them  there would be more than enough to allow the funds necessary to deal with inadequate drivers.

My personal view.

We need to increase skill levels.
We need more traffic Police.
We need some cameras. (The more we can have of the former, the less we can have of the latter, but because they are already here we won't get rid of them).
The more people take responsibilty & improve their own skill levels, reducing the collisions they have, the less need the government will have for more cameras.

I agree with most of your personal views but I believe the authorities need to more actively control the standard of driver on the road. They will take the license off someone traveling over 100mph and has never had an accident but will allow someone who  persistently is involved in accidents continue driving.

-------------
1998 E36 318iS Saloon   
1989 E30 318i. Coupe
2000 E39 520i Touring

@ livvy :- please answer me this  why am i stopped in my car at 3.am & asked what i am doing out on the road at that time in the morning  ( i work in a night club at weekends )  are we under curfew in "good old blighty "??? That was Friday night/ Sat morning. Stopped again Sat night/Sunday morning by THE SAME TWO GUYS?????  still needed to hand in my doc's at local police station to verify i am who i said i was.Should have seen the look on the desk bloke's face as i produced 2 slips for two successive days . and please don't tell me they were checking if i was out burgling houses as that is old hat!!!

I know it has nothing to do with the "Speeding " post just need an "informed" opinion

livvy wrote: The speed limits are based around one ability level & it's not the highest ability level. .

no they're not!

They are there because of a knee-jerk reaction years ago to a shortage of fuel!

livvy wrote: thepits wrote: livvy wrote: The speed limits are based around one ability level & it's not the highest ability level. . no they're not! They are there because of a knee-jerk reaction years ago to a shortage of fuel! I've said it here before, speed limits were introduced a long long time ago, before fuel shortage concerns. Drivers were prosecuted for speeding over 100 years ago. They have been adjusted through the passage of time, but to levels that all should be expected to be able to operate safely within & decide on a safe speed for the circumstances upto & not beyond that limit. http://www.checkyourspeed.org.uk/fe/default.asp?n1=1&n2=6 - http://www.checkyourspeed.org.uk/fe/default.asp?n1=1&n2= 6

OK, I'll accept there were already pockets of 30/40/50mph speed-limits already in place - so I'll rephrase it to read "A Blanket speed limit (of 70mph) was introduced years & years ago ..."

livvy wrote: You do care what their polls say or you wouldn't feel strongly about the issue.

Sorry, you misunderstand me. When I say I don't care it's because I don't believe them. Obvioulsey I do care about the issue and the fact that I think the general public is being sold a misconception to justify speed cameras.

livvy wrote: If you want raw data, try the camera partnerships themselves under Freedom of Information Act.

How do I contact my local partnership?

This whole issue reminds me of an American organisation called the PMRC or Parents and Music Resource Centre. In the 80s the set about trying to get rock musuc banned because it was evil, full of subliminal messages, etc etc. None of this was true but it did get several bands banned from certain venues and states. These people were convinced that they were not to blame for their kids going off the rails that they looked to the music they listened to so that they could find a scapegoat. If my child goes into a school with a shot gun it because he listens to Ozzy Ozbourne, not because of me or the fact that he is bullied. You know the sort of thing.

Now lots of well meaning do gooders look at the accident statistics and want to find someone to blame. Some of these people may even have been in a crash or lost relatives so thier view point may not be as objective as it should. Desperate to find a group of people to blame for the deaths they decide it's the fault of speeding motorists. These are the evil that terrorise our roads, that kill of family members, that endanger our lives.......and what about the children, won't somebody think of the children.. 

So these people set up lobby groups and start to campaign about speed etc and when some of them get into government they start to get their own way.....

However, IMO, most motorists are part of the problem. Accidents are caused by bad driving, by being tired, by a lack of attention, by poor judgement, by stupidity. I would reckon almost all drivers at some point suffer from one or more of the above and none of them are adequately addressed by speed cameras

The problem is if we accept this then these do gooders have to admit that the reason that little Billy was killed was down to a behaviour that they themselves sometimes exhibit. They have to admit that they are as much a part of the problem as the rest of us.

Yes if you slow cars down impacts will be slower and injuries will be reduced, but how many crashes actually occur at above the speed limit? Would those crashes have not happened had the driver not been braking the speed limit. Would the driver have been safe at that speed if he had been leaving a big enough gap, or actually been awake, or below the drink drive limit, or on the right side of the road, or paying attention.

livvy wrote: I agree that there are many causes for collisions & they are very diverse. However when you are looking to address a problem, a problem that is so diverse it is very difficult to attack, you naturally look for something that is a common theme. The single contributory factors that are present in the most collisions. Inappropriate speed is a large contributory factor.

The problem IMO isn't difficult to attack, it's just less popular than speed cameras. Compulsory driver retaining. I go on lot's of courses at work to be trained on everything from kinetic handling to chemical hazards. This training is refreshed on a regular basis. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do, yet how many people go on refresher courses? I have to go through a defensive driving course run by the IAM as part of my job every two years. This kind of thing should be compulsory. Inapproroate speed is all part of not understanding your own limitations, those of the car and more importantly those of others.

Speed is used because it is easy. Politicians love easy answers despite the fact that they are frequently not the best solution.

livvy wrote: If you ask the people who deal with & investigate the more serious collisions what is a common theme in these collisions, they will say that inappropriate speed is a factor that appears time & time again. I know that inappropraite speed doesn't always mean speeding, but it is a small jump to those that drive at inappropriate speeds also break speed limits. The more that they can be forced to look at the issue of their speed as a contributory factor the better.

I'll wager inapproriate speed frequently doesn't mean speeding. I am currently driving 120 miles a day and I see all sorts of bad driving. On the A19, where a large proportion of the drivers are going over 70, most of the bad driving is not about speeding, it is about driving too close. On the A171/172 most of the bad driving is down to inappropriate overtaking, or again driving too close. In fact the number of genuinely stupid things I see would not be prevented by speed cameras. Like the lady who changed lanes on the A1 with out checking her blind spot, almost hitting another car. Or the old chap who pulled onto the A19 from a slip road but rather than quickly getting up to speed continued on at 35 mph, causing a wagon to lock up. Then there was the lady who turned right accross the path of an oncomming car causing the driver to have to take evasive action. Or the idiot who saw me indicating to pull into the outside lane to pass a lorry so accellerated to stop me pulling out. The wagon that drove for about 5 miles at 55mph on the A174 so close I couldn't see his number plate. I can't remember the last time I saw a genuinely dangerous situation on the road caused simply by exceeding a speed limit but I could point out at least one every day that has nothing to do with speed.  

Rhys wrote: I always thought the first road to have a speed limit imposed was the M6 - round about the same time as the E-Type Jag came about (from a pub quiz btw )

btw - the press car was the only factory E-Type to do 150mph!

Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?

Be more educational than another thread on bl**dy speeeeeeeeed scameras!

livvy wrote:   Most people need to drive & points for speeding are not about trying to get people off the road, they are about giving people a chance to change. The Police don't want to see people disqualified, the courts don't want to & the government don't want to. They all want people to obey the limits & drive safely.

No they don't want people disqualified since less road users means less revenue from fuel duty.

Points for speeding gives people the chance to change. However it does not cause them to change any of the behaviours that are IMO the major causes of accidents in our country! Driving too close, not paying proper attention, driving tired, using a mobile phone etc etc etc.

If you have a car following another both doing 80 mph with one car length between the two it is dangerous. If you make them drop the speed to 70 it is still unsafe. However if the increase the gap to 2 seconds but remain at 80mph, as long as conditions allow it is no longer unsafe. The dangerous part is the distance not the speed.

By using large public campaigns against speeding not only are the government giving the wrong impression about road safety they are also focussing on something which IMO will not have a big impact on accident statistics. When was the last time you saw anything about the 2 second rule published as part of a road safety campaign?

Like I said before speed is a far too simple answer to a complicated problem. The government don't really care if it works, as long as they are seen to be doing something. It also keeps uninformed pressure groups like 'Brake' happy. I bet every member of organisations like brake believe themselves to be totally safe drivers. After all they don't speed so how can they be unsafe! They'll be the idiots you see on 60mph A roads doing 35-40mph on a sunny afternoon holding up a 2 mile tailback of cars, Driving safely of course!!

Rhys wrote: livvy wrote: Rhys wrote: I always thought the first road to have a speed limit imposed was the M6 - round about the same time as the E-Type Jag came about (from a pub quiz btw ) The first motorway was opened in 1958 & is now part of the M6. The limits when introduced in 1965 were for all motorway stretches. ..wanna go to a pub quiz?

I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........

Peter Fenwick wrote: Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?  I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........

Thats because Pub Quizs are meant to be interesting - well upto the 6th pint at least

thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?  I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........ Thats because Pub Quizs are meant to be interesting - well upto the 6th pint at least

I have to be up at 6am on a week morning so I only have 3 or 4 pints. Otherwise getting up can be a pain. Not to mention the fact I don't want to risk still being over the limit

Peter Fenwick wrote: No they don't want people disqualified since less road users means less revenue from fuel duty.

Points for speeding gives people the chance to change. However it does not cause them to change any of the behaviours that are IMO the major causes of accidents in our country! Driving too close, not paying proper attention, driving tired, using a mobile phone etc etc etc.

I agree that is why I say speed limiting is short term, eduaction/training is long term.

If you have a car following another both doing 80 mph with one car length between the two it is dangerous. If you make them drop the speed to 70 it is still unsafe. However if the increase the gap to 2 seconds but remain at 80mph, as long as conditions allow it is no longer unsafe. The dangerous part is the distance not the speed.

I'll disagree with you here again if I may. The dangerous thing is not the distance itself. It is a combination of factors including the observation, anticipation & planning of the following driver, plus the availability of options for the vehicle in front & their speed relative to those options.

If the vehicle infront has no options, if the following vehicle driver has excellent vision ahead of the lead vehicle & can therefore accurately anticipate their movements/braking then it isn't necessarily dangerous.

What is dangerous is being close when you don't have the required vision ahead of the lead vehicle & it has options which it can take at the speed it is travelling at or it could take by braking in order to make those options.

If you have good vision ahead of the other vehicle where it has limited options, (say a motorway) then it can be safe to be closer (relatively speaking) than say in a 30 limit at 30, because there the lead vehicle has many more options & doesn't have to do so much to take them late.

ie
Decrease in speed = increase in options.

After all if we want to overtake a vehicle we need to be in a "contact" position ready for the identified overtake. We would of course only be in the contact position when the lead vehicle doesn't have an approaching option because we wouldn't want to be doing the overtake at a junction (particularly offside one).

By using large public campaigns against speeding not only are the government giving the wrong impression about road safety they are also focussing on something which IMO will not have a big impact on accident statistics. When was the last time you saw anything about the 2 second rule published as part of a road safety campaign? Like I said before speed is a far too simple answer to a complicated problem. The government don't really care if it works, as long as they are seen to be doing something. It also keeps uninformed pressure groups like 'Brake' happy. I bet every member of organisations like brake believe themselves to be totally safe drivers. After all they don't speed so how can they be unsafe! They'll be the idiots you see on 60mph A roads doing 35-40mph on a sunny afternoon holding up a 2 mile tailback of cars, Driving safely of course!!

I'll say again speed itself is not dangerous. There are times on our roads that a good driver (law aside) could drive perfectly safley at speeds far in excess of our limits. There are also times that good driver will drive at speeds far below our limits. A poor driver won't get it right, so we have to have limits that suggest to them a maximum for that type of road to reduce the risk.

Peter Fenwick wrote: thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?  I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........ Thats because Pub Quizs are meant to be interesting - well upto the 6th pint at least   I have to be up at 6am on a week morning so I only have 3 or 4 pints. Otherwise getting up can be a pain. Not to mention the fact I don't want to risk still being over the limit

LOL!

livvy wrote:  I'll disagree with you here again if I may.

You generally do

O/T - What do you think about the amalgamation of the 42(?) police forces into 12(ish)?

I'm sure you have an opinion on that.

livvy wrote: thepits wrote: O/T - What do you think about the amalgamation of the 42(?) police forces into 12(ish)? I'm sure you have an opinion on that.   No not really, I haven't given it much thought & I'm not aware of any issues with it that will concern me greatly. Unless you have some information about how it will affect services adversely.

At last we have found a subject on which livvy has no opinion!

surprising really as i thought he/she was in 'the force'?

thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?  I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........ Thats because Pub Quizs are meant to be interesting - well upto the 6th pint at least   I have to be up at 6am on a week morning so I only have 3 or 4 pints. Otherwise getting up can be a pain. Not to mention the fact I don't want to risk still being over the limit LOL!

I did of course mean over the limit next morning

I would dream of driving after 3-4 pints.

Peter Fenwick wrote: thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: thepits wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: Rhys wrote: ..wanna go to a pub quiz?  I go to one every tuesday. We don't get many questions on speed limts though........ Thats because Pub Quizs are meant to be interesting - well upto the 6th pint at least   I have to be up at 6am on a week morning so I only have 3 or 4 pints. Otherwise getting up can be a pain. Not to mention the fact I don't want to risk still being over the limit LOL! I did of course mean over the limit next morning I would dream of driving after 3-4 pints.

oops!

I've copied and pasted this from the traffic answers forum.

It wasn't directly aimed at me, but puts across a view that made me step back a bit, its a bit long, but worth a read.

George Monbiot
Tuesday December 20, 2005
The Guardian

They call themselves libertarians; I think they're antisocial ********

The car is slowly turning us, like the Americans and the Australians,
into a nation that recognises only the freedom to act


The road-rage lobby couldn't have been more wrong. Organisations such as the Association of British Drivers or Safe Speed - the boy racers' club masquerading as a road-safety campaign - have spent years claiming that speeding doesn't cause accidents. Safe Speed, with the help of some of the most convoluted arguments I've ever read, even seeks to prove that speed cameras "make our roads more dangerous". Other groups, such as Motorists Against Detection (officially known as Mad), have been toppling, burning and blowing up the hated cameras. These and about a thousand such campaigns maintain that speed limits, speed traps and the government's "war on the motorist" are shakedown operations whose sole purpose is to extract as much money as possible from the poor oppressed driver.

Well last week the Department for Transport published the results of the study it had commissioned into the efficacy of its speed cameras. It found that the number of drivers speeding down the roads where fixed cameras had been installed fell by 70%, and the number exceeding the speed limit by more than 15mph dropped by 91%. As a result, 42% fewer people were killed or seriously injured in those places than were killed or injured on the same stretches before the cameras were erected. The number of deaths fell by more than 100 a year. The people blowing up speed cameras have blood on their hands.

But this is not, or not really, an article about speed, or cameras, or
even cars. It is about the rise of the antisocial ******** who believe they should be allowed to do what they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences. I believe that while there are many reasons for the growth of individualism in the UK, the extreme
libertarianism now beginning to take hold here begins on the road.

When you drive, society becomes an obstacle. Pedestrians, bicycles, traffic calming, speed limits, the law: all become a nuisance to be wished away.

The more you drive, the more bloody-minded and individualistic you
become. The car is slowly turning us, like the Americans and the
Australians, into a nation that recognises only the freedom to act, and not the freedom from the consequences of other people's actions. We drive on the left in Britain, but we are being driven to the right.

It is not just because of his celebration of everything brash and flash
that Jeremy Clarkson has become the boy racer's hero. He articulates,with a certain wit and with less equivocation than any other writer in this country, the doctrine that he should be permitted to swing his fist - whoever's nose is in the way. For years he has championed the unrestrained freedom of the road. He takes it so far that from time to time he appears to incite his disciples to vandalise and even kill.

"If the only way of getting their [the government's] attention," he told the readers of the Sun in 2002, "is to destroy the tools that pay for their junkets and their new wallpaper, then so be it. I wish the people from Mad all the very best." In February this year, he suggested that speed cameras might be "filled ... with insulating foam that sets rock hard".

After the London bombings in July, he observed that "many commuters are now switching to bicycles ... can I offer five handy hints to those setting out on a bike for the first time.

1. Do not cruise through red lights. Because if I'm coming the other way, I will run you down, for fun.

2. Do not pull up at junctions in front of a line of traffic. Because if I'm behind you, I will set off at normal speed and you will be crushed under my wheels ... "

Clarkson wants society out of his way when he's driving, and he isn't
too particular about how it's done. One day, one of his fans will take
him seriously.

But, doubtless cheered by the response of his readers, he has expanded his journalism from attacks on "the Lycra-Nazi sandalistas of Islington" (cyclists) to polemics against every kind of government intervention. He now rails against "nannying bureaucrats sticking their index-linked snouts into the trough" (health and safety inspectors); complains that he has to tell the police why he wants to keep a gun; appears to champion the right of householders to shoot burglars in the back; and ponders the use of landmines to deter ramblers.

His acolytes are also venturing on to new ground. The website of the
Association of British Drivers carries the usual links to campaigns
against humps in the road (yes, people really are that sad), speed
cameras and the congestion charge. But it also directs its readers to
about 50 sites claiming that global warming is a fraud and a lie,
several tirades against the evils of the nanny state, and an article by
John Redwood calling for lower taxes.

Libertarianism has left the road and is now driving down the pavement.

Of course, these politics are possible only while we have a state
capable of picking up the pieces. If there were not a massive hidden
subsidy for private transport, those who decry the nannying bureaucrats couldn't afford to leave their drives.

Speed cameras, according to the government's study, now save the country £258m in annual medical bills: a fraction of the billions in health costs inflicted by Clarkson's chums. Just as the leftwing movements of the 1970s, in the geographer David Harvey's words, "failed to recognise or confront ... the inherent tension between the quest for individual freedoms and social justice", the new libertarians fail to recognise the extent to which their freedoms depend on an enabling state. They hate the institution that allows them to believe that they can live without institutions.

It is strange to see how the car has been overlooked as an agent of
political change. We know that the breaking of the unions, the
dismantling of the welfare state and the sale of council houses that
Margaret Thatcher pioneered made us more individualistic. But the way in which the transition from individualism to the next phase of
neoliberalism - libertarianism - was assisted by her transport policies
has been largely ignored. She knew what she was doing. She spoke of "the great car-owning democracy", and asserted that "a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure". Her road-building programme was an exercise in both civil and social engineering. "Economics are the method," she told us, "the object is to >change the soul." The slowly shifting consciousness of the millions who spend much of their day sitting in traffic makes interventionist government ever harder. The difference between the age of Herbert Morrison and the age of Peter Mandelson can be accounted for, in part, by the motorcar.

It shouldn't be hard to see how politically foolish are the current
government's transport policies. The £11.4bn that it is spending on road building is an £11.4bn subsidy to the Conservative party. However much Blair seeks to accommodate the new libertarianism, he cannot consistently position himself to the right of the opposition.

The longer he sustains Thatcher's programme of social engineering, the more trouble he stores up for his successors. Every branch line that is closed, every bus that is taken off the road, every new lane that is added to a motorway hastens the day when the Tories get back behind the wheel.

Monbiot.com