Speed Camera's - Cash Cows.

[Eater Sundae]

This argument is dependant on the fact that speeding makes someone a "bad driver". It doesn't. No more than not speeding makes someone a good driver.

 

Fair point. They are not necessarily bad drivers.

 

Failing to observe the speed limit is just an example of bad driving. If people make a habit of it (as evidenced by them regularly failing to respond to speed limit signs, warnings of cameras ahead, big yellow boxes at the side of the road etc etc, and so clocking up enough points to lose their licence) then they will have demonstrated that they are a bad driver.

[Cyclone]

It's not an example of bad driving. Inappropriate use of speed is an example of bad driving.

[Eater Sundae]

It's not an example of bad driving. Inappropriate use of speed is an example of bad driving.

 

Failure to comply with the legal speed limit is bad driving.

 

Edit: Exceeding the speed limit is INAPPROPRIATE speed.

[Cyclone]

Not if you use a sensible definition of inappropriate it isn't, one that makes reference to safety instead of numbers painted on a sign for example.

 

There was an example given earlier on the thread.

 

On Monday a particular A road has a limit of 50 mph.

Several people break the limit and drive at 60 mph. You say they are bad drivers, presumably you mean they're driving in a dangerous way since we're interested in safety right?

 

On Tuesday the limit is changed (this was a real example) and is raised to 60 mph, NSL.

The same people drive down the road at 60 mph. Suddenly they've become good drivers? And their driving is now safe? When yesterday on the same road, in the same situation it was both dangerous and bad?

 

Speed limits are arbitrary, they do not define what is safe/unsafe or good/bad.

[John X]

Edit: Exceeding the speed limit is INAPPROPRIATE speed.

 

Inappropriate as far as the law is concerned. Not inappropriate as far as driving standards is concerned.

 

John X

[HeadingNorth]

Fair point. They are not necessarily bad drivers.

 

Failure - deliberate or otherwise - to abide by the laws of the road does, necessarily, make someone a bad driver. That's axiomatic.

[Cyclone]

I disagree.

 

If good/bad is concerned with safety then obeying the speed limit does not indicate good or bad driving.

 

If by good or bad you mean follows the rules to the letter then you'd be correct, but clearly someone can be driving within the limits defined by law and be dangerous. The cameras are supposed to be about safety, not strictly about law enforcement. The government tries to peddle the same logical fallacy that you are using, that driving within the law makes you safe by extension the opposite, that exceeding the posted limit makes you dangerous.

Both are logical fallacies.

[Eater Sundae]

Not if you use a sensible definition of inappropriate it isn't, one that makes reference to safety instead of numbers painted on a sign for example.

 

There was an example given earlier on the thread.

 

On Monday a particular A road has a limit of 50 mph.

Several people break the limit and drive at 60 mph. You say they are bad drivers, presumably you mean they're driving in a dangerous way since we're interested in safety right?

 

On Tuesday the limit is changed (this was a real example) and is raised to 60 mph, NSL.

The same people drive down the road at 60 mph. Suddenly they've become good drivers? And their driving is now safe? When yesterday on the same road, in the same situation it was both dangerous and bad?

 

Speed limits are arbitrary, they do not define what is safe/unsafe or good/bad.

 

I clearly have a very different view to you on what defines appropriate speed, and do not accept that it should ignore the designated speed limit. The local speed limit affects how others road users regard and use a section of road. They have an expectation that cars stick to the limit, and they should be able to rely on this. The extra danger associated with a higher speed will be very slight, but it will exist. However, the bad driving is because they are failing to comply with the law.

 

In the case of the speed limit change (which, by the way, deflates the claims of some posters on some threads that speed limits are only ever reduced, not increased). Before the change, the speeders were driving badly. This was not necessarily because of their speed, but because they failed to observe a statutory requirement. This was either on purpose, because they chose to ignore the law, or by accident, in which case they were driving carelessly. (I actually think those driving carelessly are much worse than those who are doing it consciously - what other signs are they missing?) Once the speed limit changed, then those who had been driving above the old speed limit on purpose would be no more safer than they were before (although it would be interesting to know if their speed now increased to nearer 70). Those that had originally been exceeding the old limit by accident would now be within the law, but still driving as carelessly as before but it would no longer be quantifiable (unless they also accidentally now started driving faster as they were just following like sheep).

 

I agree that speed limits appear arbitrary. Firstly they are in arbitrary 10 mph steps - I've never seen a 57mph sign. But more importantly, they have to set one speed for a road which has many conflicting factors affecting the best choice of speed. The road may appear to be a fast safe road for the driver on it, but not so good for someone trying to cross or pull out from a junction where sight lines are not so good. Does the driver on the road know the impact on everyone else interreacting with that road, before he decides that he knows best and can safely speed? I doubt it.

 

I think that changing the speed limit on a road can only be a good thing - if nothing else it shows that those making the change (I don't know who it was in the case you mention) are thinking about the issues and are prepared to review the limits. I don't know the specific road that has changed - it may have always been marginal between 50 and 60, and during review they decided that the added safety risk of changing to 60 was far outweighed by the improved traffic flow. It could be one of many reasons why it has changed, eg physical changes to the road, or even changes to other roads nearby which have altered traffic flows onto this one. Or it could be that the 50 limit was used until they were confident that drivers were using the road safely and then they reviewed the speed limit. Or it could just be that they decided they got it wrong before and are now correcting their mistake.

 

Changing a speed limit doesn't suddenly make good drivers bad or vice versa. It is pretty much all down to driver behaviour. But I still think that compliance with a speed limit is still part of good/bad driving. A driver cannot know everything about a road. The speed limit is there to set a top limit, based on what the planners know about that and surrounding roads. They are a set of arbitrary speeds and as such are a crude tool, but once they are set, anyone exceeding them is, as a minimum, changing the impact on all other users. The effects are mostly irrelevantly small, so in many cases nothing to worry about, but it is a pretty arrogant driver who thinks he always knows best.

[Cyclone]

They are a blunt tool as you say. So when the speed limit was reduced on the snake pass from 60 to 50, the entire length of the road had the new limit applied.

This includes the sections where even the road planners would probably accept that it is safe to travel at 60.

 

That's the ONLY section that ever has enforcement on it though. Which makes it pretty clear to me that the camera is not there to improve safety.

[Eater Sundae]

Failure - deliberate or otherwise - to abide by the laws of the road does, necessarily, make someone a bad driver. That's axiomatic.

 

I used the term "bad driver" earlier. I've now reconsidered. It was "bad driving". I would argue that someone whose driving was exemplary in all respects, except for very occasionally marginally exceeding the speed limt was probably one of the best drivers in the country, and in no way would be regarded as a bad driver. Everyone has good and bad aspects to their driving and could do better.