mj.scuba Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 You did not ask about accident and road fatalities. Stick to one point at a time. In any event, speed cameras should not be to prevent accidents. Speed limit signs are to reduce speeding and prevent accidents. Cameras should be for punishing people who ignore the signs. That is not the reason cited by safety camera partnerships though. Btw if you could also stick to one point at a time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 365+ days is long enough for any number of random fluctuations, the point is there has not been any fluctuation, don't you see? Er, yes there has. The number of incidents went down; something like from 387 to 372, I forget the exact details. A variation of less than five per cent is likely to be just random variation from one year to the next, and proves nothing about the efficacy of cameras. A variation of 88% is not likely to be random. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 That is not the reason cited by safety camera partnerships though. I have never agreed with their reasoning. Cameras shouldn't be about safety. Limits should be about safety. Cameras should be about punishing people who ignore them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 Er, yes there has. The number of incidents went down; something like from 387 to 372, I forget the exact details. A variation of less than five per cent is likely to be just random variation from one year to the next, and proves nothing about the efficacy of cameras. A variation of 88% is not likely to be random. According to the officer from Acpo, he is predicting accidents to go up as a result of speed camera switch offs. Swindon has had over a year for accidents to go up, which puts into question this prediction that accidents will go up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 That is not the reason cited by safety camera partnerships though. Btw if you could also stick to one point at a time I assumed you would prefer me to address your tangential point instead of just ignore it. In future, I will ignore all such tangential points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7936564/Speed-cameras-set-to-be-switched-off-across-country-council-chief-predicts.html What's betting Sheffield/South Yorkshire will be the bastion of the speed camera? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truman Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 I have never agreed with their reasoning. Cameras shouldn't be about safety. Limits should be about safety. Cameras should be about punishing people who ignore them. So you think you know better then the experts who site these cameras? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 Sounds like a positive step forward. I hope they'll be more attractive on our urban landscape than the ugly yellow boxes. Perhaps they'll try some of the innovative things done in the Netherlands and Scandanavia. It doesn't to me. "Alternative methods" usually consist of bumps and "pinch points" which punish everyone, not just speeders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeppers Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 Sorry, taken a bit of time to post this, so apologies if the conversation has moved on.... As has just been posted, the study found an 88% rise in it. I'm not sure about that. The comment that the study found a rise in the numbers of speeding motorists is absolutely valid, however only this alone was measured. Spindrift's comments about the other issues a speeding driver may cause other people in the vicinity to feel (intimidated, deluded no-one died etc). were not measured in the original article. Indeed, from the same article: Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said the test had only been completed at two sites out of 72 over five days. He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "You need a much longer look at the statistics before we can decide whether there is an increase in danger or not." (my bold) As has been intimated at previous points in this topic, but often conveniently ignored, speeding alone is not the root of all evil. There are many other factors that influence an area's KSI statistics, from the performance of the road surface, to the condition of the driver and car, to the position of the sun, to if the pedestrian was browsing facebook on their mobile etc etc etc. In fact, going back to complete basic's, what exactly is a speed limit? It is a number on a stick that someone has seen fit to appoint to a stretch of tarmac. In some cases that number was appointed several decades ago, when the world was a very very different place, and capabilities of both man and machine were nowhere near those of today. If councils used a bit of common sense in using all the tools at their disposal, including traffic calming, highway/intersection redesign, pedestrian protection, separated cycle lanes etc, putting the right limit in place, and not just relying on speed camera's, be they fixed or from a police force/SCP managing a van/officer, then there may be a greater acceptance of speed detection and punishment. It is only when they start to properly use all the other tools to make the roads a safer place, will the frustration and negativity currently felt specifically towards speed camera's reduce. In my opinion, this negativity is primarily caused by 2 core issues. Firstly, the issue of a static device being used (to identify and subsequently prosecute) irrespective of the environment/conditions does not allow for a road user to make a real-time judgement on the situation. As an example of this, a camera situated outside of a school should absolutely record and punish drivers who exceed the limit when the school is open and kids are around. However, at 3am on a Sunday morning, when the likelihood of kids/parents etc being around that same stretch of potentially deserted road, it may be suitable to safely do a speed greater than the limit imposed. Fines and points seem to many, for what appears to be an unjustifiable speed limit at that particular time, excessive, and one in this day and age, we should be able to manage. Secondly, speed cameras and the processes of prosecution, are heavily weighted against law abiding citizens in the first place. If you register your car, tax, insure and MOT it, then you have everything to lose, should you get caught 4 times. If you don't do any of this, then there is little a fixed camera or a person sat in a van, can do to get you off the road... Personally, I believe what with all the bureaucracy and targets that successive governments have put on police officers, local authorities et al, when you take away such a big, and in this case blunt, instrument without redressing the other elements, then of course representatives are going to predict doom and gloom, as the measures and targets will still be in place, but without the big easy win of prosecuting motorists for going faster than a (sometimes quite arbitrary) number on a stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mj.scuba Posted August 11, 2010 Share Posted August 11, 2010 Great post jeppers. Welcome to Sheffield Forum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.