Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Webby the Bear]

whats the point in them anyway? ive never quite understood how ensuring motorists do the correct speed limit for a distance of 10metres covered by the camera will actually affect the rest of the speed they do???

[Varche]

Just on the local news .......In the period since turning off Swindon's speed cameras there have been 130 FEWER accidents than similar periods with cameras on. (Although there were 2 more fatals).

[/highlight]






And you can bet your last 3 points that it's those two fatalities the do good brigade will bleat on about!

And why not? approx ten people a DAY are killed on the roads in Britain. About the same as 8 years ago. The EU asked all member states then to do something positive about reducing the road deaths in each country. WHY is it still so high? Those people are friends and family of ordinary folk like people on this forum. You could have a knock on your door one day with a policeman delivering bad news.

[HolyCount]

whats the point in them anyway? ive never quite understood how ensuring motorists do the correct speed limit for a distance of 10metres covered by the camera will actually affect the rest of the speed they do???

Rightly or wrongly, they are designed (apart from catching the speeders) as a visual deterrant and reminder.  If you are forced to consider your speed for that 10 yards the hopes are that you will continue to do so for a while ..... much the same as the old police car sat at the side of the road in days gone by

[Chris_H]

The war against these contraptions will be won when the camera at the bottom of the M11 gets turned off.
It has been proven that accidents have increased at that site (for the above mentioned reasons) since its installation, but up to about a year ago it had taken over a million quid in fines iirc.

That's my local camera.  And they used to have a second one a few hundred yards further on to catch the ones that sped up again.

[SJKOO01]

whats the point in them anyway? ive never quite understood how ensuring motorists do the correct speed limit for a distance of 10metres covered by the camera will actually affect the rest of the speed they do???

Rightly or wrongly, they are designed (apart from catching the speeders) as a visual deterrant and reminder.  If you are forced to consider your speed for that 10 yards the hopes are that you will continue to do so for a while ..... much the same as the old police car sat at the side of the road in days gone by

The short of the long;

I believe that they were originally designed to be deployed at accident black spots, in order to reduce injury and death rates, and that's what the designer of the original Gatso intended (I think he was Dutch if my memory serves me correctly ?!).
However, as soon as the Government/Councils saw a way of making money from the motorist (stealth tax, penalty tax, whatever you want to call it ?), then the idea of having them on our roads got - and excuse the pun - Hijacked into what they are today.

Like many ideas, as soon as you take the 'money making' equation out of an idea, inevitable it can fail.

[jereboam]

The war against these contraptions will be won when the camera at the bottom of the M11 gets turned off.
It has been proven that accidents have increased at that site (for the above mentioned reasons) since its installation, but up to about a year ago it had taken over a million quid in fines iirc.

That's my local camera.  And they used to have a second one a few hundred yards further on to catch the ones that sped up again.

I'm not sure if it's the same one, but there was at one time a short section at the beginning of one of the London motorways that had a 60mph speed limit on it for no obvious reason.  Leave the 40mph feeder road, pass the motorway signage, then see (or not) the 60 sign.

I always wondered if that limit was there solely to increase the revenue from the speed camera.   

[Banjax]

remember Jeremy Clarkson's lone sniper idea? Everyone can drive as fast as they like, but if you're seen doing more than 70mph, a police sniper is allowed to take one speeding motorist out per day, now I'd be up to take that gamble 

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Yes, the lie of the "speed" camera policy has been exposed!!

I would love for all speed cameras to be removed and instead many more Traffic Police to be on our roads.  In the current financial climate I cannot see the latter happening though!

[SJKOO01]

Yes, the lie of the "speed" camera policy has been exposed!!

I would love for all speed cameras to be removed and instead many more Traffic Police to be on our roads.  In the current financial climate I cannot see the latter happening though!

I think you'll find they've been cutting down actual policing on the roads for a while Lizzie, I don't think it's a recent thing  :-? .
Alas, now the financial climate is here, think it's pretty much a sure thing that most Force's won't be funding anything but the basic needs now.  Like many businesses, and even charities, the financial situation that's come about, has had a knock on effect, which has come back to bite us all  :-/

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Yes, the lie of the "speed" camera policy has been exposed!!

I would love for all speed cameras to be removed and instead many more Traffic Police to be on our roads.  In the current financial climate I cannot see the latter happening though!

I think you'll find they've been cutting down actual policing on the roads for a while Lizzie, I don't think it's a recent thing  :-? .
Alas, now the financial climate is here, think it's pretty much a sure thing that most Force's won't be funding anything but the basic needs now.  Like many businesses, and even charities, the financial situation that's come about, has had a knock on effect, which has come back to bite us all  :-/

Oh yes, I know only too well.  But what I mean is that they will become even fewer if that is possible!  In Kent at night it can be down to two Traffic cars patrolling the motorways.

Even in the late late 1970s a PC friend of mine, when on nights, drove the only regional car patrolling the whole of southern Hampshire.  Sometimes during his breaks his patrol car would sit on our driveway, and all too often a call would come through and he would have to shoot off to all parts of the compass, something I have experienced when on night patrol with Kent Police in south Kent.  So times have not changed!!  But they are due to get worse, and therefore I would hope (probably forlornly) that with the speed cameras going it may result in a few more Traffic patrols.

[SJKOO01]

Yes, the lie of the "speed" camera policy has been exposed!!

I would love for all speed cameras to be removed and instead many more Traffic Police to be on our roads.  In the current financial climate I cannot see the latter happening though!

I think you'll find they've been cutting down actual policing on the roads for a while Lizzie, I don't think it's a recent thing  :-? .
Alas, now the financial climate is here, think it's pretty much a sure thing that most Force's won't be funding anything but the basic needs now.  Like many businesses, and even charities, the financial situation that's come about, has had a knock on effect, which has come back to bite us all  :-/

Oh yes, I know only too well.  But what I mean is that they will become even fewer if that is possible!  In Kent at night it can be down to two Traffic cars patrolling the motorways.

Even in the late late 1970s a PC friend of mine, when on nights, drove the only regional car patrolling the whole of southern Hampshire.  Sometimes during his breaks his patrol car would sit on our driveway, and all too often a call would come through and he would have to shoot off to all parts of the compass, something I have experienced when on night patrol with Kent Police in south Kent.  So times have not changed!!  But they are due to get worse, and therefore I would hope (probably forlornly) that with the speed cameras going it may result in a few more Traffic patrols.

Be nice if things were to go in that direction.  But have a feeling that the money will be spent protecting the ruddy politicians who got us in this situation in the first place .
But that's another thread, as I'm going of topic here now