Death of the speed camera? (Did Keith get a gov job?)

[Itchy]

Are we about to see a change of focus from the Tories regarding the use of these cash generators?

On the morning breakfast BBC news a couple of days ago sat in a cafe doing corrections to an assignment before handing in. There was a repeating hourly report on Swindon 1 year after removing their fixed speed cameras. Guess what, there was no rise in accidents – quelle surprise?

The programme then went onto emails and viewer comments yet it seemed almost all of the emails in were anti speed cameras?

They went on to say that the budget for this area of ‘policing’ had been cut from £76 million to £50 million leading to some local authorities, such as Devon & Cornwall to question the viability of these units.

Is this the beginning of the end of ‘safety’ cameras?

link

Did Keith in advertantly have a beer with a government minister in a pub and enlightened the minister or MP?

Im dunno it feels weird as hell after 13 years of hate there seem to be tentative moves in the right direction. Sec 44 removed from the anti terrorism bill for instance, though governments are of course governments and all the usual rubbish which goes with it.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[Fisty]

Derby council have scrapped 3 of theirs and the other 12 are being reviewed!

Maybe if we burn them they wont get replaced.

https://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Cameras-gone-flash-Tories-review-speeding-sites/article-2444065-detail/article.html
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Quietly and consistently taking the piss.
TL1000R | Hayabusa | ZXR400 | TL1000S | Bandit 400 V
Fatter and faster than Fret

[Willson]

With any luck yes, I dare say they could even *shock horror* increase accidents when people panic brake to avoid them, Re: https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1577708.stm <== That.

Get rid of speed cameras
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Benson: Wouldn't life be easier if we were all turtles?
Me: Pig on bread = The way forward.
Riding: '00 Suzuki SV650S. Previous: '99 Kawasaki ER5 - sold, '02 Suzuki GZ125 Marauder - sold

[Willson]

There's another thought: They cost about 20 grand to put in in the first place because they need a 240 volt power supply (allegedly), so Mr Fisty that might be the answer!
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Benson: Wouldn't life be easier if we were all turtles?
Me: Pig on bread = The way forward.
Riding: '00 Suzuki SV650S. Previous: '99 Kawasaki ER5 - sold, '02 Suzuki GZ125 Marauder - sold

[L4Isoside]

I worry about the cops hiding in bushes more than speed camera

[Polarbear]

[pepperami]

[iooi]

Keith posted this the other day....

Now its interesting to see how people were maoning that speed camera's are nothing but cash cows.
Yet as soon as funding is cut, they are out of the window.... Some cash cow then.

I think its more a case of the anti group simply reading the stats as they see fit. As we all know figures can be made to read how you want.

As a couple of posts above the anti mob will soon be bemaoning the return of the great yellow box.... As they have yet to devise a system that gives you the location of every police car on the road...

Looks like its going to be a steep learning curve for many drivers as they have no idea of the old haunts of the traffic police.

I can actually see the demise of the yellow box as being the reinvention of proper policing of our roads, and the lunitic/dangerous speed merchants demise.
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Just because my bike was A DIVVY, does not mean i am......

[Kickstart]

[ollieholt]

me too, its the hidden coppers that wind me up, speed cameras are supposed o be for prevention not prosecution and this goes against everything that cameras are supposed to stand for.

ban the lot of them. nuisance bloody things. if u see one late and your going too quick you slam on dropping the phone and the lit cigarette you were holding whilst driving your car causing a cross missus and a small to medium fire, how can they be called safety cameras?

even worse situation, u come round a ben in a 50 at 70 say, you see a camera and you anchor on, wet leaves, gravel or general dirt under the bike wheels, your off and heading for a curb. safety camera indeed. you werent killing any kittens at 70 were you?
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< This? Well this is just a day brightner.

[steppen22]

I am all in favour of speed cameras.

I am happy to hear a sound argument against them, but no one ever can argue against them. Everyone has the same trite, vapid argument.. "I'm all in favour outside schools..." etc, etc.

Fact is, the average moron cannot be trusted to obey the appropriate speed limits, so cameras for control are necessary.

I'd like to see speed cameras on every road. Or vehicles linked to gps and modified so that they give the user an electrical shock if they break the limits. I think the shock could get more intense the more you speed - this technology would be easy to design and implement.
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no regrets, no retreat, no apology.
I've made mistakes in the past, and I apologise for FUCK ALL.

[Kickstart]

[N cee thirty]

whens this ment to be enforced ?
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'00 Aprilia RS50 > '92 Honda CG > '99 Yamaha Fazer > '91 Yamaha RXS > '79 Suzuki X5 > 01' Honda Cg > 07' Honda Cg > 82' Kawasaki Z200 > suzuki gsxr 400 gk73a > honda vfr 400 NC30 Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[doggone]

The downside is that they want to use more engineering solutions at problem locations (= speedbumps, chicanes etc)
Mind a lot of them can be swerved round by bikes

[tahrey]

What I want to know is, what are you doing rounding a curve in a 50 limit (fairly set or otherwise), at 70mph in the wet, when you can't see far enough up the road to catch sight of a big fluorescent yellow thing before you no longer have space to safely brake from 70 to any speed under 57 (the level at which you can have fair confidence it won't trigger), let alone to a halt or a speed where you could swerve-avoid something in the road at the same distance?

Not meaning to sound like Bertie Safetybelt or whatever, but, you know. The only time I've not seen a camera I couldn't safely avoid being flashed by was when going far too quick through a small unfamiliar town frantically looking for a lost turn-off and was frankly a danger to the whole world. And that's with having laid down some right ludicrous speeds even in the last few months (taking both my own and a borrowed car to their aerodynamic limits, for a start, and maxing the CG start to end on some mid distance journeys except for dodging cameras). The grey ones are a bit of a challenge, admittedly...

With the country in the cash strapped state it's in, I can't see them ditching such a moneyspinner. They'll just quietly change their tune about their effectiveness as a safety tool and hope no-one notices - whilst diverting all the money raised from "buying more cameras" to the general coffers, instead of just a certain fraction as is the current case.

I don't mind Gatsos, though, or most other fixed location one-shot cams, so long as they're sensibly placed and the local limit doesn't take the piss (the others, I can tolerate, just about... it only means slowing down for 100m or so).

It's the ones on variable limit gantries where you have to play a clever game of spot-the-difference to tell where they are (OK, allegedly they're turned off when the signs are, but I'd be one hell of a fool to blindly believe that) that are menacing... having to repeatedly build up a decent running speed with a puny engine, then hammer the brakes back down to 78, in a straight line, with no other hazards around except for following traffic, on a dry afternoon, on a road with a design speed in excess of what I'm driving is even capable of when you scale up from what the engineers intended horrible old cross-ply tyred cart sprung wrecks to safely sustain, just to try and make up for lost time by keeping a moderately raised average speed that wouldn't get you even an interested glance on the soft-shoulder autoroutes.

.... but even they pale in comparison to the SPECS, the ANPR average speed checkers ... and the "no, it hasn't gone away just because they stopped issuing press releases" threat of ISA and all that other black box road-charging malarkey. *shudder*

Talk about misplaced priorities re: what we should actually worry about in this regard. I'd happily place money on the people who want to introduce this stuff never having gotten behind the wheel or bars of a powered vehicle in their life. Or if they have, they've come to regard whole journeys spent with a clear road ahead and a massive queue behind as perfectly normal. The reasoning for it all is spurious and it's intrinsically open to SO much abuse by people who shouldn't have access either to the information it would generate, or the inescapable control it would exercise upon the populace.

[27cows]

I'd love to see every one of these fucking things removed. IMHO, they're much more likely to cause accidents than prevent them. I've seen cars (and bikes) come a cropper on wet/icy roads braking suddenly when they see a camera hove into view.

Cameras are almost always placed in a position where they'll generate the most revenue, not at points like accident black spots. Medway is a good case in point. The traffic is constantly snarled up because people have to crawl along to avoid being flashed. 10 years ago everything moved freely (more or less) because people could drive and ride at a speed appropriate for the road and weather conditions.

I definitely think ones burnt out are unlikely to be replaced now this coalition govt. is intent on saving every penny.
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The RXS100: vehicle of choice for Chuck Norris

[iooi]

[loply]

Speed cameras quite obviously only work for the 10-20 meters immediately in front and behind the camera.

Yet instead of placing them on approaches to roundabouts, junctions etc, where it's important you don't speed for about that distance, they always place them on open roads nowhere near a hazard.
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[mistergixer]

[tahrey]

27cows does have a point (I can point to at least two major roads in my area where the limit has been dropped and cameras plastered all over for spurious safety reasons, including both sides of a dual carriageway where the putative danger only even exists on one side - e.g. the A452 alongside the M6), but on the other hand, so does iooi... They aren't ALL badly sited under inappropriate limits, but the iffy ones tend to outnumber the righteous. It needs more careful consideration and regulation, as right now it's a bit of a free for all.

Which road is that in the lakes, by the way? I'm hoping not the swoopy bit of the A66 where the two carriageways seperate. It's obviously not good for maintaining a steady 70, but they've already put a ton of obnoxious traffic calming measures on it. The next obvious step would be drastically lowering the limit to a point where even the least observant, most cack-handed idiot who scraped through their test many many years ago, and is barely in control of their machine at the best of times, can make it through unscathed at peak traffic times during a rainstorm. Whereas my dad used to drive us through there swiftly but carefully, varying about 35-65mph, concentrating on the road line and surface rather than flashing signs, random lane drops and cameras vs the speedo, and it was a highlight of the trip.

... and if I was having to do an emergency stop partway through a bend, with a slightly iffy surface, you can bet I'd rather be on 4 wheels not 2, at the same speed. The reasons I think should be obvious. Riding is a calculated risk I'm happy to take but I'm not going to kid myself about which one has the more effective ABS or is going to topple over rather than momentarily understeer if the wheels skid or lock.

[Kickstart]

[iooi]

[tahrey]

[Kickstart]

[Fortuna]

I think the fine money should have gone into the community.
You put one outside a school, that camera pays for less privaliged kids school trips.
Would have also shown that the fines weren't just about generating money.

(Although they'd probably start cutting the schools budget).

EDIT: There's a camera near where I live and the road underneath the camera is attrocious, potholed and deep drained to death. It's quite dangerous on a bike.
It pissses me off that the camera will check if I'm speeding but not the dangerous raod condition. Nor can it check for dangerous driving.